Theatre Under The Stars Season

HOUSTON – Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) announced the shows that make up the musical theatre company’s 2024/25 Season.

The National Tour of the Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen starts the season off in September. In October, celebrate spooky season with a new production of Little Shop of Horrors.

For the holiday season, TUTS has the best magical treats to make the holidays bright. Theatre Under The Stars has been chosen by Disney to create one of the first regional productions of Frozen. Directed and choreographed by TUTS Artistic Director, Dan Knechtges, the new staging and new designs will feature all the magic of this iconic musical and allow audiences to experience Arendelle in a whole new way.

Returning this season is what has become Houston’s favorite new holiday tradition, The Ugly Xmas Sweater Musical! Audiences can once again wear their ugliest Christmas sweaters and walk the runway with the show’s hilarious characters. Filled with all the holly jolly joy that audiences loved last season, this musical will be is the perfect way to celebrate the holidays with friends, coworkers and family.

The 2025 half of the season kicks off with the National tour of Mean Girls in January, followed by a new TUTS production of Waitress in collaboration with The 5^th Avenue Theatre in Seattle. The season will wrap up with a new production of Lin Manuel Miranda’s first hit musical, In The Heights, created by Theatre Under The Stars. Before there was Hamilton there was In The Heights.

“The 24/25 Season is the perfect delight for theatergoers of all ages. Your friends, family, colleagues, everyone is going to love it. Most of all you’re going to love the experience you have seeing all of these shows with Theatre Under The Stars,” said TUTS Artistic Director, Dan Knechtges.

Tickets for Theatre Under The Stars 2024/25 Season are currently available by subscription. Season ticket holders enjoy a variety of perks including up to 30% off the regular ticket prices, first access to seats, complimentary ticket exchanges, and savings on additional seats. Tickets for individual shows will go on sale later in the summer. Visit TUTS.com/Subscribe or call 713.558.8887 to learn more.

Subscribers are also encouraged to become Annual Members. Forty percent of Theatre Under The Stars’ annual operating expenses are covered by donors. Learn more about all the exclusive benefits available with an Annual Membership donation at TUTS.com/AnnualMembership!

Theatre Under The Stars is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, The Brown Foundation and The Wortham Foundation.

THE THEATRE UNDER THE STARS 2024 / 2025 SEASON

The winner of 6 Tony Awards®, the Grammy® Award and the Olivier Award for Best Musical, Dear Evan Hansen is the deeply personal and profoundly contemporary musical about life and the way we live it. Dear Evan Hansen has struck a remarkable chord with audiences and critics everywhere. The New York Times calls it “a breathtaking knockout of a musical.” And “NBC Nightly News” declares the musical “an anthem resonating on Broadway and beyond.”

Dear Evan Hansen features a book by Tony Award® winner Steven Levenson, a score by Grammy®, Tony, Olivier and Academy Award® winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, The Greatest Showman) and direction by four-time Tony Award® nominee Michael Greif (Rent, Next to Normal).

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
OCT. 22 – NOV. 3, 2024
Music by Alan Menken
Lyrics and Book by Howard Ashman
Based on the film by Roger Corman, Screenplay by Charles Griffith

Houston get ready to feed your appetite for the macabre this October with a brand new production of Little Shop of Horrors from Theatre Under The Stars!

Follow the story of Seymour, an unremarkable shop boy who discovers a rare and unusual plant that will bring him everything he’s ever wanted, but at what price?

Adrienne Shelly was murdered. Now, I love Adrienne Shelly, but her death was tragic, unfortunate and to this day, still fills me with overwhelming sadness. For those of you who don’t know, Adrienne was an actress. But not just any actress. She was an actress in a film she wrote and directed. In her loving memory, her husband Andy Ostroy directed a documentary simply entitled Adrienne. The 100-minute film which premiered on HBO, focuses on Shelly’s life, death and legacy.

On November 1st, 2006, Shelly was found dead in the New York City apartment she used as an office. Even though the police eventually ruled the 40-year-old’s death a homicide, it was initially suspected a suicide. According to the New York Times, the evidence at the crime scene led investigators to construction worker Diego Pillco as the person responsible for the crime.

When Diego plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter more than a year later, Pillco said that Shelly had caught him stealing money from her purse. When she reached for a phone to call the cops, he grabbed her and hung her by a sheet, the NY Times reported. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

ADD-ON SHOW FOR THE 2024/25 SEASON!
CREATED BY THEATRE UNDER THE STARS – ONLY IN HOUSTON!

THE UGLY X-MAS SWEATER MUSICAL
NOV. 29 – DEC. 24, 2024
Book by Dan Knechtges and Megan Larche Dominick

Houston’s new favorite holiday tradition returns to fill your season with joy and laughter.

The Ugly Xmas Sweater Musical is the laugh-out-loud, interactive, hysterically funny musical that thrilled audiences last year. The leaders of Regalia Uniforms invite you to help them save their beloved company from a takeover by an international conglomerate by making the best ugly xmas sweater ever. Come dressed in your ugly Christmas sweater, sing along and walk the runway with us!

Prior to her death, Adrienne Shelly wrote and directed a film called WAITRESS (2007 movie). Regrettably, she has already passed away before her movie was released. It stars:

In the movie, JENNA unexpectedly gets pregnant. She says “I don’t need no baby. I don’t want no trouble. I just want to make pies. That’s all I want to do, make pies.” But being married to an abusive husband doesn’t make her life easy. So, she plans her escape from this horrible, gut-wrenching life by making pies as a form of artistic expression like her Marshmallow Mermaid Pie. Jenna pins her hopes for escape from her life of abuse on a pie contest in a nearby town, which offers a $25,000 grand prize.

Baby’s-Screaming-It’s-Head-Off-In-the-Middle-of-the-Night-And-Ruining-My-Life-Pie

Disney's Frozen
Dec. 10 – 24, 2024
Music and Lyrics by Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez
Book by Jennifer Lee
Based on the Disney film written by Jennifer Lee and directed by Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee
Originally produced on Broadway by Disney Theatrical Productions

Theatre Under The Stars brings you Disney’s magical wintery treat, Frozen, for this holiday season! TUTS Artistic Director, Dan Knechtges, directs and choreographs a brand-new staging of this smash hit musical.

Enter the icy world of Arendelle where the newly crowned Queen Elsa has accidentally set off an eternal winter. Join her younger sister, Anna, along with Kristoff, Olaf and Sven on a snowy adventure to find Elsa and save the kingdom.

Filled with enough magic, joy and laughter to thaw even the coldest heart, Disney’s Frozen is the holiday treat you won’t want to miss!

In the course of the movie, Jenna has a conversation with her boss, the manager of Joe’s Pie Shop named Cal (played by Lew Temple):

Jenna: How come you can never say one nice thing ever like “How are you, Jenna?” or “Nice to see you today, Jenna.” All you ever say is stuff like:

Cal (answers back): Don’t you have customers? Get out of the kitchen! Get back to work!

Jenna gets the best pie review from the owner of the restaurant Old Joe, who owns Joe’s Pie Diner. As I watch Andy Griffith (who plays Old Joe), nostalgia overcomes my emotions. Joyful memories of the Andy Griffith show float through my head as I reminisce about Andy, Aunt Bee, Opie Taylor, Barney Fife and Goober. I watch the elderly Andy Griffith (as Old Joe) gush to Jenna, his employee at the diner on how delicious her pies are:

OLD JOE: "Gimme a smile, Jenna. Nobody makes strawberry chocolate pie the way you do. Wednesday’s my favorite day of the week because I get to have a slice of it. I think about it as I’m waking up. It could solve all the problems with the world, that pie.

Just a pie? It’s downright expert. A thing of beauty. How each flavor opens itself, one by one, like a chapter in a book. First the flavor of an exotic spice hits you. Just a hint of it. And then you’re flooded with chocolate, dark and bittersweet. Like an old love affair. Then, finally strawberry. The way strawberry was always supposed to taste, but never knew how."

Now, Jenna is terrified of telling her boss Cal, the cook and manager of Joe’s Pie Diner of her unwanted pregnancy. As she fearfully informs him, he bonds with her as he tells her that he already knows, and that he plans to keep her employed.

Jenna: Are you happy? (Long pause). I mean, would you call yourself a happy man?

Cal: Well, if you ask me a serious question, I’ll tell you. I’m happy enough. I don’t expect much. I generally enjoy whatever comes up. That’s my truth, summed up for your feminine judgement. I’m happy enough. Why do you ask?

Adrienne Shelly’s murder was completely unexpected and entirely unjustified. Like real events in life that fall under the category “Truth is stranger than fiction” the irony is palpable.

MEAN GIRLS
Jan. 28 – Feb. 9, 2025
Music by Jeff Richmond
Lyrics by Nell Benjamin
Book by Tina Fey

Direct from Broadway, Mean Girls is the hilarious hit musical from an award-winning creative team, including book writer Tina Fey ("30 Rock"), composer Jeff Richmond ("Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"), lyricist Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde) and original director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon).

Cady Heron may have grown up on an African savanna, but nothing prepared her for the vicious ways of her strange new home: suburban Illinois. Soon, this naïve newbie falls prey to a trio of lionized frenemies led by the charming but ruthless Regina George. But when Cady devises a plan to end Regina's reign, she learns the hard way that you can't cross a Queen Bee without getting stung.

New York Magazine cheers, "Mean Girls delivers with immense energy, a wicked sense of humor and joyful inside-jokery."

WAITRESS
Apr. 15 – 27, 2025
Music and Lyrics by Sara Bareilles
Book by Jessie Nelson
Based on the 2007 film of the same name, written and directed by Adrienne Shelly

Waitress is the smash hit musical loved by many, and we have a brand-new production just for you. An Artistic Collaboration with The 5^th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, this heartwarming musical tells the story of Jenna Hunterson, a baker and waitress in an abusive relationship with her husband, Earl. After Jenna unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she begins an affair with her doctor, Dr. James (Jim) Pomatter. Looking for ways out of her troubles, she sees a pie baking contest and its grand prize as her chance. Featuring music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles and book by Jessie Nelson, the musical is based on the 2007 film of the same name, written and directed by Adrienne Shelly.

According to a report published by ABC, convicted murderer Diego Pillco was an illegal immigrant from Ecuador. Arguably, Adrienne Shelly’s husband Andy Ostroy has come out publicly that Diego is not illegal, just undocumented. But the topic of illegal immigration is one of the issues that Donald Trump is strongly against. This topic leads us to the next sentence. On July 30th, 2024 a man fired multiple shots toward the stage during former President Donald J. Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think? That former president Donald Trump dodged an assassin’s bullet? I’m not quite sure the political implications of this specific event. But some will see it as a second coming. Of Biblical proportions.

“Someone wanted a miracle, and someone benefitted from providing one. At this point, it doesn’t really matter what happened, does it? People believe. And there’s nothing more dangerous than that. You’re up against God now.”

In the delicious words of Justin Haythe, it was as if Ruggieri has the alleged ability to foresee the future, as it happens in the present. The Queen Mother AKA Catherine de Medici AKA the queen regent of France AKA The Serpent Queen is played by Samantha Morton in the TV series. The queen mother bases her decisions on Ruggieri’s ability to foresee what was about to happen.

I find it completely amusing as Justin Haythe describes the power struggle among the characters. In my opinion, Justin Haythe’s TV show is almost similar to the current political climate. As of the present time, the citizens of the United States are making decisions of their own to determine who will be their next president during the 2024 presidential election year. In my head, I can just imagine Justin Haythe as he relishes describing the Privy Council. Hilarious decisions are being made in the court regent, based on lying and backstabbing. As the queen mother sits in the Privy Council, I laugh out loud as Samantha Morton rolls her eyes, looking straight at the camera as if I’m in on the joke.

The following families, the Medici, the Guises, the Bourbons, the Catholics, the Protestants and the religious zealots are all jockeying for position and vying for power. Very much like the TV stations Fox News, CNN and MSNBC and political parties Republicans, Democrats and Independents are all talking their heads off competing for your vote. The TV series The Serpent Queen is definitely binge-worthy.

As The Serpent Queen show progresses, commonplace are the beheadings and decapitations, all in the name of God. What is the truth, really? Not necessarily in the exact sense, but ballpark? In 2015, Sara Bareilles debuted the WAITRESS Musical on Broadway. Sara wrote the music and lyrics based on the 2007 movie that Adrienne Shelly wrote. Which thrills me to no end. I love the huge hit song BRAVE by Sara Bareilles:

You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love
Or you can start speaking up

Nothing's gonna hurt you the way that words do
And they settle 'neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

Everybody's been there
Everybody's been stared down, by the enemy
Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing
Bow down to the mighty
Don't run, stop holding your tongue
Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

Innocence, your history of silence
Won't do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don't you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

To our dear Adrienne Shelly, may your beautiful soul rest in peace. I just want you to know how much your movie WAITRESS has touched so many lives and made people happy. And to the Houston theatre-going audience, please remember to subscribe to TUTS' delightful 2024-2025 Season which includes Disney's Frozen, Tina Fey's Mean Girls, Lin Manuel Miranda's In The Heights and the musical WAITRESS with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, based on the movie written and directed by Adrienne Shelly.

IN THE HEIGHTS
May 20 – JUNE 1, 2025
Music and Lyrics by Lin Manuel Miranda
Book by Quara Alegría Hudes
Conceived by Lin Manuel Miranda

For our final show of the Season, Theatre Under The Stars brings you Lin Manuel Miranda’s first exhilarating musical, In The Heights.

Enter the vibrant New York City neighborhood Washington Heights, a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s here that a bodega owner named Usnavi and his friends dream, hope and work for a bright future.

THEATRE UNDER THE STARS (“TUTS”) - (Dan Knechtges, Artistic Director; Hillary J Hart, Executive Director) - Theatre Under The Stars delivers outstanding musical theatre experiences. We cultivate the art form—producing world-class shows, providing access for the community, and training the next generation—for Houston, by Houston. For more information, visit tuts.com.

Theatre Under The Stars
800 Bagby Street
Houston, TX, 77002
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts