In a digital culture transforming into AI (artificial isolation), live performing arts still allows us an analog world of experiences.
I was speaking to Booth about the PAH 2026-2027 lineup, their 60th anniversary and biggest season yet. Yet, as we discussed their ongoing shift from subscription to membership model, the diversity of venues, and the 40 new and returning artists and companies and the 73 performances making up the season, we kept coming back to the fundamental importance of the arts in our lives.
“Art provides a human analog experience, which gives us the ability to detox digitally. Experiencing inspiration, creativity, beauty, is a de-stressor. It gives us the opportunity to be social. There are so many positive components to experiencing the arts, that when you take it away for whatever reason, it creates a hole.”
For their 60th season, PAH will fill that void with such a diversity of performing arts that they certainly earn their new title as the nation’s largest independent non-profit arts presenter.
“We have doubled our audience numbers, the number of tickets sold, the impact through our community programs, our budgets, our outreach. The number of performances that we’ve offered has gone up. We are an organization that is growing to meet the fabulous Houston audiences. On almost every conceivable comparable scale, we are now the largest.”
“Part of our audience expansion was being comfortable to make the investment in a company that was going to be that big a lift to bring here. It’s a lot of people on stage, live music, a big production,” describes Booth.
Another enormous undertaking will be The Complete Piano Etudes by Philip Glass. While Glass himself doesn’t travel anymore, ten acclaimed piano soloists, several with Houston ties, will share the stage to perform these masterpieces in their entirety.
This diamond season showcases all facets of music from around the world and new discoveries.
After an absence of several years, they’ll return classical guitar to the lineup, with Pablo Sáinz-Villegas performing masterworks by Bach, Villa-Lobos, and Albéniz. The season also showcases many genre-defying groups like CelloGayageum, who pairs Western cello with the Korean gayageum, while the Aga Khan Master Musicians create work across Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and South Asian traditions, in an evolution of classical and folk forms. This performance will also become the first PAH partnership with the Ismaili Center Houston.
Merging those fascinating evenings with a screen star and live music, Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience will bring musicians from Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi and cinematic icon Morgan Freeman together to float us through the history of the Delta Blues.
PAH goes back to Hermann Park and the newly reopened Miller Outdoor Theatre with a music festival that also honors one of the great American music traditions. The all-day Houston World Bluegrass Jamboree will showcase bluegrass as an American art form, but also highlight how it has evolved as its influence has traveling the world. The festival features bands like Ireland’s JigJam and Country GongBang from South Korea.
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Circa in Duck Pond. Photo by Damien Bredberg.
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Manuel Cinema in The 4th Witch. Photo by Katie Doyle.
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Cirque Alice. Photo courtesy of the artists.
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Dunia Burani & Courtney Sherman-Allen in Harrison Guy’s Dear Prairie. Photo by Sara Buchsbaum.
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The Joffrey Ballet in Alexander Ekman’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo by Cheryl Mann.
After a rousing success delivering music to the far corners of the city, PAH brings back Concert Truck, the mobile concert hall founded by pianists Susan Zhang and Nick Luby.
“We had such an extraordinary time, meeting people in their own neighborhoods, opening up the side of this box truck and having concerts on lawns,” describes Booth, adding that Concert Truck especially helps them to reach communities and groups who have more difficulty getting downtown or don’t feel comfortable in traditional venues.
Along with familiar dance superstars on the lineup, like Alvin Ailey, dance takes to the air this season with circus-arts Cirque Alice suitable for the whole family, and harnessed choreography of Dante’s Inferno, from NoGravity Theatre. Inferno’s subject matter and some nudity require a more mature audience.
As usual, the schedule also showcases multidisciplinary work, including filmmaker Sam Green’s documentary Trees with live narration from Green and performance by indie rock group Yo La Tengo, and Manual Cinema’s shadow puppetry creation, The 4th Witch.
For such a special season, Booth says they also wanted to celebrate with something a little different from their New/Now Artist Commissioning Project, their continuing program to nurture local artists. They’ve decided to bring back two New/Now alumni, composer, actor, and storyteller Ben Chavez and activist and choreographer Harrison Guy, to create world premiere, full-length works.
With over 73 performances and such a diversity of artists making up the season, the organization leaned further in on their membership program. After surveying members and audiences, they continue to make additions, like the offer of free parking or Green Room experiences at certain levels. But Booth stresses that becoming an PAH member creates community connection.
“Many people have joined our membership program because they’re new to town or they’re sick of doom scrolling or binge-watching TV, and they just want to get out. They want to do something special. They want to meet new people. That kind of caught us all off guard,” she describes. “A lot of people show up alone, walk up and introduce themselves, and are starting to make friendships, and make plans to go to performances together. They don’t want to be on their phones anymore. I do think that we are going to see a push to be analog together.”
—TARRA GAINES
