Home Events Arts

This latest Downtown spectacle of beauty and power from the acclaimed company features aerialists performing off the side of IBC Bank, dancers on Chinese poles, and an ensemble of ground-based performers. This event is not the sort of infrastructural phantasmagoria an arts-lover wants to miss, we reckon – so, yes, you'd best reserve tickets while you can.

Just in time for the start of the school year, Joshua Harmon's ripped-from-the-headlines show, presented here under the direction of David Jarrott, takes a satirical look at the things some people will do to get their child into the right university. Starring Tim Blackwood, Beth Burroughs, Rebecca Robinson, Tucker Shepherd, Jennie Underwood, and the spectre of white liberal privilege.

The irrepressible JT Habersaat and his crew take over Kick Butt Coffee with this four-night fest of outrageous comedy, spiked by the likes of Eddie Pepitone, Jenny Zigrino, Joe Derosa, and more than 50 other national comics. Some have called Habersaat a madman. They're right. Some have said, "You don't want to miss this riotous event that'll be tearing Airport Boulevard a new comedy pothole every single night it's going on." They're right, too. Get your tickets while you can, citizen, and god bless.

Bring a bright tangle of the wild outside deep into your soul by viewing this new exhibition of paintings from florapsychedelic artist Valerie Fowler, the woman who bends pigments to brilliantly warped realist effect and conjures forests that speak parseltongue to all that's serpentine in human memory. Also, Fowler will be performing three separate "crankie" shows, wherein she scrolls through a 30-foot-long narrative drawing accompanied by live music written and performed by Brian Beattie and preceded by writer Robin Chotzinoff's response to the artwork. Note that you've got to RSVP for those crankie performances, as the joint will likely be packed, OK? See website for details.

Here's a stunning showcase of visual art, featuring new works from Tom Suhler's evolving production, that will serve to close down the Exposure gallery until a new space can be found. For this exhibition, "What started as an exploration of life in the clouds," says the artist, "has led to collections inspired by Plato's Symposium and by Marcos Vitruvius' proportions of the human body which inspired da Vinci." Also, all the photographs were created on-site without the use of Photoshop or other digital-manipulation software, and they're powerful gorgeous.

Part DIY seance, part historical cabaret, this is one woman's attempt to contact and resurrect the escape artist Harry Houdini. Inspired by the Houdini archives at the Harry Ransom Center, this show by Katie Bender is "a funny, haunting, and haunted exploration of ambition, legacy, and familial responsibility."

The Raw Paw headquarters have been open for one year, after rising like a displaced phoenix from the ashes of … oh, jeez, remember? And now the new space anniversaries itself this weekend! Wonderful exhibitions have been presented in there. A diversity of live music has been enjoyed. Odd grooves have been experienced, many trips begun or ended, and much merch generated. Won't you join the fierce crew in celebration this night? There'll be a first look at the new mural by Baylor Estes. Beats by DJ Cassandra. Artwork by Jinni J, Kyle Carter, Chris Dock, and Jeffrey From. Tito's and juice to keep your gullet moist. Bonus: live screenprinting – which is free, if you bring your own shirt.

Well, sure he has. But the Scotland-born photographer's outsider observations of the weird happenstances that present themselves on the great American road trip reveal that he's also a talented artist as far as his eyes are concerned.

Beth Burns and her Hidden Room cohort – Ryan Crowder, Liz Beckham, Brock England, Judd Farris, Valoneecia Tolbert, Robert Matney, and other fierce talents – return with John Webster’s true-crime masterpiece of power, corruption, fate, and forbidden love, doing this classic revenge tragedy up right with period playing practices, live music, 1614-style garments, and proper makeup techniques. Note: After its Austin run, Hidden Room will take the show to Shakespeare’s Globe Wanamaker Playhouse in London. And here's our full review of the show!

The Vortex is gonna rock your brain's cradle with this "twisted nursery rhyme pantomime" conjured up by that irrepressible Melissa Vogt, featuring an all-star cast grooving to an original score by Chad Salvata, and the whole fractured fairy-tale spectacle of it directed by Bonnie Cullum. Note that this darkling narrative from Ethos – it's funny and disgusting, charming and startling – is alive with adult aesthetics and not appropriate for children. And here is Trey Gutierrez's review of the show.

David Ives' new adaptation of Georges Feydeau’s classic farce is directed by Robert Tolaro for the opening of St. Ed's newest season.

That Gabe Leonard fellow – that guy with all those girls, guns, and glory – returns to A05 with his cinematically staged paintings of sharpshooters, gangsters, gamblers, and musicians.

Here's an exhibition – adventurous, fantastic, and let's not forget fun – by 57 Texas-based artists, featuring a diversity of styles and mediums.

Feel like heading a little north, citizen? This statewide juried arts competition, organized by Georgetown Art Works, features exhibitions at the Georgetown Public Library and the Georgetown Art Center.

What is this? It's a group show with original Texas bizarro artists Andy Don Emmons, Chicken George Zupp, David Patrick Dennis, and James Lawrence Thornton, that's what it is.

This new exhibition, curated by Alyssa Taylor Wendt, brings together a collection of international artists to present work – video, installation, photography, painting, and sculpture – in conversation around the concept of genetic memory. Featuring Beili Liu, Cordula Ditz, Scott Vincent Campbell, Birthe Piontek, Jaime Zuverza, and including an excerpt from Wendt’s latest film, The Memory Inheritance.

This new show highlights new developments in Jeffrey Gibson’s genre-bridging practice, with 50 works made between 2014 and 2018 – including intricately beaded wall-hangings and punching bags, paintings, ceramics, garments, helmets, and a new video commissioned for this exhibition.

The willful self-destruction of humanity by Earth’s most formidable species – humans – is the topic of New Orleans-born and Dallas-raised photographer Tia Boyd. Through a series of portraits, Boyd reveals "a surviving race of godlike women warriors who have come to terraform the planet for future inhabitants." And here's our full review of the show.

David Culpepper, founding member of Ink Tank Collective, presents a new show of works – models, maquettes, other mordant manifestations – in this busy Springdale General outpost of Co-Lab Projects.

The gallery's filled with many seven-foot-tall oil paintings tonight, oil paintings depicting colossal, bodiless faces, each rendered bright and starkly recognizable by Austin's own Owen Max Dodgen.

Yippee ki yay, space cadet, it's time to head 'em off at the Pass Nebula as the State History Museum presents an exhibition that spans more than 150 years of Western and science fiction history and features 100-plus artifacts (including props from Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, and other skiffy media fare). And our arch-geek himself, the estimable Richard Whittaker, also a part-time Sith Lord, reviews the show for you here.

In the midst of 17th-century Paris, Cyrano de Bergerac stands alone in his ugliness, intelligence, and aesthetic lifestyle … until he falls in love. The classic play by Edmund Rostand comes to life in a new, fast-paced translation, directed by Jennifer Rose Davis for the Archive Theater. And here's our review of the show.

This annual event celebrates African dance traditions from across the globe, hosting a weekend conference of workshops by leading experts who explore a unique blend of traditional and modern dance techniques. Orisha dance from Cuba; Haiti's Dance Culture of Ayiti; the New Orleans Original BuckShop (with live brass band); and more. Note: You must pre-register to secure your workshop spot.

In partnership with the Peabody Fund and Dell Children’s Medical Center, Davis Gallery presents a unique group show in support of: the gallery's own Jan Heaton, one of Austin’s premier: watercolorists. More than 60 artists have contributed 4" x 4" squares of their own artwork in an overall pink palette that will be hand-stitched together to create a pink quilt, symbolizing the community’s compassion, strength, and friendship – in memory of Heaton's daughter, Kristin Peabody, taken by an aggressive cancer after ten years of battle.

The show's name is a play on Systema Naturae, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus' monumental work that documented the entire system of classification that's still in use for all biology. The show's creator is the man who, with his wife Moya, runs the gallery in which it's displayed; and who created The Resonant Lung; and who reformed, in discrete parts, the warped and buckled floor from an ancient warehouse into an abandoned Austin church; and who – well, it's Colin McIntyre, of course, with a series of works that explore imagined lifeforms with varied morphology, rendered via sinuous, flowing forms forged in steel and blazing with the liquid-metal sheen of nickel plate. And then there's that … viscous, pulsating abomination in the center of it all.

This new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale is a sensual fantasy with a surprising twist: a bold heroine who dares to defy the ruler of the night. "Seductive, romantic, and empowering, this foray to the dark side is a juicy date-night," we're advised – and that seems, yup, just about right. Written and directed by Steven Dietz for Zach Theatre, with a kickass cast featuring Sarah Kimberly Becker as Mina Harker and Keith Contreras-McDonald as the titular bloodsucker.

Some artists try to capture their city, their geographical region, and they succeed at it. Only the best will ever succeed as well as Austin's John Mulvany does in capturing his Eastside neighborhood. Listen: "Everything in life is present in the neighborhood," says the artist. "If you are inclined to walk around with your eyes and senses open, you notice things you might otherwise miss. A dead grackle in the road, the unkempt beauty of East Austin backyards, the violent magenta-pink veil of cherry blossom enveloping a vacant house, a cockroach carried away by ants. This exhibition is an invitation to look closer. The neighborhood, like the natural world, is in a constant state of creation, transformation and decay." And this is precisely what you'll see, in Mulvany's array of realist, atmosphere-haunted paintings on the familiar grayDUCK walls. (See Barbara Purcell's review of the show right here.)

"It’s been three years since Sherlock Holmes went over Reichenbach Falls and was declared dead. When Dr. John Watson receives a cryptic telegram stating that three asylum patients are each claiming to be the late Sherlock Holmes, Watson is compelled to investigate. Could Holmes really be alive after all this time?" Jeffrey Hatcher's fine tribute of a play is directed here by Don Toner for the start of Austin Playhouse's 20th(!) season, and our Robert Faires reviews it right here.

"What kind of parent knits their daughter a wool swimsuit? Or gives her a briefcase for her 11th birthday? Or keeps her in the dark about where she came from?" British actor and comedian Maggie Gallant – a longtime FronteraFest favorite – shares her childhood embarrassments and adulthood discoveries as she unleashes a Pandora's Box of hope, lies, and un très magnifique French Papa, in this hilarious and heartwarming one-woman show, as directed by Ken Webster for HPT.

The two-person creative team of Carlos Carrillo and Yevgenia Davidoff and multidisciplinary artist Rachelle Diaz present an homage to infrastructure that exposes the vulnerability of built and natural environments while documenting the sweeping social changes of late-stage capitalism on a human scale. It's a collaboration that features assemblage, photography, and painting, and it'll immerse you.

This is Charly Evon Simpson's whimsical new play about the connections we all share, in which "lights flicker, hearts heal, and a young woman finds solace on a bridge." It's Shrewd Productions' 16th world premiere (!). it features a cast of Chelsea Manasseri, Allegra Jade Fox, Trey Deason, and Kyron Hayesby, and it's directed by Shannon Grounds for that same fierce company. (And – our own Robert Faires reviews the show right here.)

The artist Mikhail Karikis' Children of Unquiet from 2014 gets the big screen treatment here, and you can watch: Videos are accessible to all and free to view.

The line upon line percussion trio joins forces with Thad Anderson, Eric Peterson, and Tim Shuster, to present works by three of 20th-century music’s giants (and arguably the most important Western composers for percussion) in the Rude Mechs' Crashbox space. "Who might like this show?" say those line-upon-liners. "Those who often think that the music we play is strange – we don’t get much more “normal” than this!"

Alicia Philley and Emily Hoyt-Weber present their new body of paintings and sculpture, created around conversations about color, light, and shadow, resulting in an exhibition in which Philley’s colorful compositions of curving linear elements serve as a counterpoint to Hoyt-Weber’s mathematically inspired line drawings.

McMakin brings us recontextualized furniture and untold (actually, very carefully quantified) numbers of coats of paint, with his "Two Bowls, a Cabinet Door, Two Tables, and a Window (with a Blue Wall)," and Keyser's got a new showcase of her vivid "Works on Paper."

The dark, celebratory, and comical work of Christine Garvey and Bonnie Staley has much in common with rotten little fruit – the outsider, problematic, misbehaving body – as both artists "reference the history, anatomy, pains, and joys of the female body to create objects that operate in a space between traditional classifications of painting, drawing, and sculpture."

Manchester-born Kevin Cummins has an international reputation as one of the world’s leading photographers and is famed for his portraits of musicians, including Joy Division, New Order, David Bowie, Nick Cave, Mick Jagger, Patti Smith, and Oasis. This weekend, Modern Rocks Gallery (now in its fifth year) launches the photographer’s first retrospective show in the United States, featuring his most iconic images.

This is Early Era Collective's first show of the season – their most ambitious yet – a mixed-media presentation that combines filmed interviews with World War II survivors and live, multiform dance. Gonna be a full night of song, swing, animation, contemporary, hip-hop, and 1940s garb.

This annual political satire show, focused solely on the Texas Legislature, returns to the Long Center for another skewering that brings together political insiders, improv actors, and comedy writers to expose the shenanigans of our Lone Star lawmakers. Bonus: Host Stephanie Chiarello interviews a Texas political celebrity, then welcomes a panel of “colleagues” – aka those improvisers – to yes-and the hell out of that material. Tom Booker directs; Denise Hudson provides the music; Janet Maykus and Amy Lowrey lead the troupe.

Paper Chairs co-founder Dustin Wills returns to Austin to direct this new Will Arbery play that seems like, according to The New Yorker, “a David Lynch script performed as screwball comedy.”OK, and listen: "Three sisters are suffering from strange household plagues. The men in their lives keep disappearing or doubling; time keeps leapfrogging; and the slugs just won’t go away. Plano, Texas, seems to be not just a nearby city but also a malevolent existential state."Yeah, we like the sound of that. And those "three sisters" are played by Elizabeth Doss, Heather Hanna, and Hannah Kenah, so we're already lining up to get tickets. And Janelle Buchanan and Harold Fisch are in the show, too, FTW. And that newly returned-to-Austin Rubber Rep duo (that's Josh Meyer and Matt Hislope, yes) are also part of a don't-you-miss-it theatrical event.Recommended? Well, here's an update: We saw the show since we originally wrote this blurb. Our response? First: FUUUUUUUCK. Second: You know how they – whoever they are – say "If you only see one show a year, then see this one," right? Well, that. But, regardless of how many shows you see, don't miss Plano.Bravo and brava, Paper Chairs, what a freaky-ass masterpiece of stagecraft.

Artists-in-residence Russell Brxwn and Fabian Rey present the culmination of their individual works and collaborations from the six-month residency hosted by Pump Project and Almost Real Things, both artists straddling the boundaries of identity, politics, personal coping, consumerism, and everyday life in American culture.

This is an evening of three one-act plays – Soldier of the Cross and A Fool and His Money, by Sally Seitz, and I Am Not the Person You Have Made Me Out to Be by Marianne Serene – with characters exploring salvation, redemption, survival, and parental misconceptions of identity. Note: "Each play will be introduced and observed by Trudy, the character from Jane Wagner’s The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe." Directed by Sally Seitz and Barbara Abbate for the Paradox Players.

This exhibit showcases the work of Martha Grenon, one of Austin's premier music photographers, her images capturing the excitement of bands performing in Austin since the early Eighties.

This installation presents new work that expands Lily Cox-Richard’s research into the contextual history of materials, making visible unseen systems that dictate materials’ production, value, and use, and engages larger questions of natural resources, labor, the specifics of place, and the politics of viewership.

The complex relationship between contemporary art and anthropology shapes the subject of "The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn," an 11-artist exhibition representing a wide range of media – including painting, sculpture, photography, video, and performance. And here's our own Robert Faires with a full review of the show.

Yeah, no, this is a monumental showing of work – including a series of paintings commissioned for the exhibition – by one of the best, most provocative artists working on this planet. The former Austinite (he taught at UT for 20 years) Michael Ray Charles "is known for art that investigates the legacy of historic racial stereotypes of African Americans. Since the 1990s, he's created complex, layered paintings that challenge stereotypes, power dynamics, and social and cultural hierarchies." Ah, words can't even – but our Arts Editor Robert Faires offers a fine preview right here.

Babs George stars in this Kenneth Lonergan tale of the final years of a generous, chatty, and feisty woman's battle against Alzheimer's disease. The show, a powerful work that "captures the life force of a woman and the humor and strength of a family in the face of crisis," is directed by Michael Cooper for the Alchemy Theatre. Look: Trey Gutierrez reviews the production right here.

It's him! Tom Green! From Celebrity Big Brother!

The inaugural inaugural group show for this venue, curated by GD Wright and Meghan Shogan, represents more than 20 of the most beloved artists in Austin – we'll attest to that, sure 'nuff – and not one of the original paintings, sculpture, and or mixed-media artworks is priced over $200. Looking to start or maybe expand your collection? Get you a Saul Jerome San Juan, a Virginia Fleck, a Steef Crombach, an Alicia Philley, or – yeah, so many to choose among here.

Austin-based artist Sarah Ferguson has experimented with the trifecta of light, color, and perception for two decades, creating vibrant and immersive experiences for the viewer. See this show and witness spectral manifestation as never before.

Yeah, ha, you thought Y'all We Asian was a just-at-Coldtowne sort of troupe? Nope – these talents won't be locked down to just one venue, not when there's a whole city lining up to catch their inspired hijinks. Now with two shows each weekend – featuring Faraaz Ismail, Jane Lee, Yola Lu, G-Su Paek, Virgil Shelby, Kim Tran, Minda Wei, Uday Waghmare, Norman Tran, Nick Fung, and Sunny Huang – at Spider House this whole month.

This multitalented comic from Atlanta is the creator and host of the Dark Tank podcast, which AV Club called "deliciously daring," and this weekend the festival-slaying Travis is daring to delicious up the Velv's stage with that ever-sharp (and sharpening) Enzo Priesnitz as opener.