See the latest performing arts productions and theater happenings opening across Houston from Monday, December 22 to Sunday, December 28, 2025.
Openings are slight this week with the Christmas holiday, but be sure to mark your calendar for the next show in the Garden Theatre’s fifth season; it’s a musical based on a beloved 1990s movie. Performing Arts Houston brings aerial magic to Jones Hall, and Hood Orchestra has a concert that shows why we’re stronger when we work together.
Perhaps a deeper story of performing arts this week isn’t so much what’s opening but what you’ve only got a week left to see.
I was delighted by TUTS’ production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, based on the 1954 movie of the same name. A riot of colorful costumes, great singing and dancing, and a nostalgic, big-hearted plot, this is a show that will delight audiences of all ages. A.D. Players concludes its production of a beloved story of faith and fortitude. A classic ballet bows out of the Wortham Theater Center.
There are many more shows to get you into the spirit of the season—including A Christmas Carol and The Night Shift Before Christmas at the Alley and the delightful t’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play at Stages.
The full list of what’s leaving Houston stages this week is below.
For those who celebrate, Merry Christmas! Come back next week when we’ll ring in the new year.
Go see performing arts, Houston!
Top Live Theater & Arts Performances This Week: December 22 to 28, 2025
Showtime! New Openings & This Week Only Shows
Performing Arts Houston: Cirque Dreams’ Holidaze at Jones Hall | Tuesday & Wednesday – Experience the wonder and acrobatics of Cirque’s longest-running holiday show, which features brilliant theatrical design, contemporary circus acts and fresh takes on music favorites of the season. $46+. Times vary. Get tickets.
Garden Theatre: Cruel Intentions—The ’90s Musical at MATCH | Opens Friday | Ongoing – In this reprisal of one of the company’s most-loved productions, this musical—based on the film starring Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Geller—transports audiences into the manipulative world of Manhattan’s most dangerous liaisons: Sebastian Valmont and Kathryn Merteuil, whose antics are fueled by passion and revenge. $30. Times vary. Get tickets.
Hood Orchestra: It Takes Us All at MATCH | Saturday – The ensemble’s final concert of 2025 offers an afternoon of dynamic music and community connections, helping to show that our shared success is based on helping each other. Pay What You Can. 2pm.
They’ve Got Legs! Ongoing Shows
Ars Lyrica: Ring in the Peace Concert in the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern | Monday | Closes Friday, January 9 – Experience a 20-minute musical journey from the ninth century onward curated by Mexican-born mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte and Spanish-born percussionist Jesús Pacheco. $25. 7pm, 7:45pm, and 8:30pm. Get tickets.
Drunk Christmas Carol at The Emerald Theatre | Friday to Sunday | Closes Sunday, January 4 – The holiday classic gets a spirited twist as one actor takes five shots and attempts to take part in a retelling of the Charles Dickens favorite. The show closes next weekend, but tickets are already on sale for its return in December 2026. $89+. Times vary. Get tickets.
Curtain Call! Closing This Week
On Monday, Paul Hope Cabaret’s Christmas Flora and Fauna vanishes into the ether at Ovations.
Then on Tuesday, The Ensemble Theatre’s Take The Soul Train to Christmas reaches the end of the line. That’s also when Music Box Theater’s Beatles Holiday Cabaret crosses Abbey Road and A.D. Players’ Narnia The Musical returns through the wardrobe.
On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, TUTS’ beautifully realized and nostalgia-infused White Christmas sees its final snowfall, and Brave Little Company’s Winter of the Snow Queen: An Interactive Musical Adventure thaws out at Stages.
And a whole host of shows close on Sunday. The Alley’s A Christmas Carol closes the book on another season and The Night Shift Before Christmas clocks out.
Meanwhile, Stages’ It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play ends the broadcast and The Twelve Dates of Christmas deletes the app. Back in Downtown, Houston Ballet’s The Nutcracker wakes up from its seasonal sweets-induced hallucination for another year.
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