Local arts organizations innovate new ways to get to patrons in Houston and beyond

tech culture

Ticket-holders can watch a taped performance of the Alley Theatre's 1984. Photo by Lynn Lane

With the city of Houston — and much of the rest of the state — issuing stay-at-home mandates, cultural events and institutions have closed their doors. But, thanks to a little innovation, many are now providing online options.

Arts groups all across Texas are using technology to stream concerts, opera, dance, and even museum tours for free during the coronavirus quarantine, and we're adding more here as they come in.

The Alley Theatre
Patrons can watch a taped performance of the recently canceled 1984. Current ticket holders will be sent a password protected link, and those who would like to still watch are welcome to purchase tickets to gain access to the link.

Houston Symphony
You can listen to Houston Public Media broadcasts and national broadcasts anytime on the symphony's website, or tune in to I Heart Radio to hear selected albums.

ROCO
The Houston-based music ensemble has its entire archive of audio and video recordings available online, including a number of its more than 100 world-premiere commissions (and several of which were also included in the Grammy-winning debut album Visions Take Flight).

Ars Lyrica Houston
The early music ensemble has created two new series: Musical Moments and Concerts & Conversations. All of their content will be aired on their social media platforms as well as newsletters and YouTube. They will be posting new content on Mondays and Fridays at 10 am.

Fusebox Festival
The Austin festival originally scheduled for April 15-19 will now go digital; keep an eye on the Facebook page for updates about how to watch and listen.

Black Fret
Celebrate the Austin music scene in a safe and responsible way through a livestream of Austin Love & Lightstream, a local response to the cancelation of SXSW. Closed to the public and taking place on a sterilized outdoor sound stage at Scholz Garten, Austin bands and personalities will be livestreamed six hours a day starting at 4 pm each day, beginning March 17. Viewers can access the Facebook Live stream from the Black Fret website.

Dallas Theater Center
A video was taken of the final dress rehearsal for American Mariachi, a new work by José Cruz Gonzalez about a young woman who forms the first all-female mariachi band in the 1970s, despite disapproving relatives and going against social norms. Patrons are encouraged to pay-what-you-can — starting at $15 — to receive a link and a password to access the recording within 24 hours. Purchasers will have up to two weeks to watch the video. Dallas Theater Center is allowed to sell the video up to the original close date of April 5, 2020; after that, it will be deleted. The number of videos for sale is the same as the number of seats available throughout the run, so patrons are encouraged to buy their "tickets" soon.

Avant Chamber Ballet
Watch the 360-degree world premiere video of 19th Amendment recorded on February 15, 2020, at Moody Performance Hall, spotlighting choreographer Katie Puder and composer Quinn Mason.

American Baroque Opera Company
Enjoy the full-length production of La Serva Padrona by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.

Dallas Museum of Art
Browse more than 25,000 works of art from all cultures and time periods.

Thin Line Fest and Dallas VideoFest
The Denton-based multidisciplinary festival will be streaming its selection of documentaries online March 25-29, while Dallas VideoFest will host its Alternative Fiction festival April 3-5. Featuring a curated collection of over 50 documentary features and shorts, Thin Line Fest's film division will stream all screenings and Q&A sessions online. Attendees will be able to login at www.thinline.us and then choose which "theater" to stream live. The fest will still hold its Photography & Film Award Ceremony, which will be live-streamed on March 29.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap. Click here for latest update to the story.

If you have a virtual concert or artwork that can be enjoyed from home during this time, email lindseyw@culturemap.com and we'll add you to the ever-growing list.

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Houston e-commerce giant Cart.com launches government-focused subsidiary

government branch

Houston e-commerce and logistics unicorn Cart.com has launched a new subsidiary.

Cart Government Solutions (CGS), which was announced earlier this week, will provide supply chain and logistics services and software for the federal and state government sectors. The new subsidiary will be headquartered in Washington, D.C., and operate out of about 6 million square feet of secure warehouse space across 14 U.S. facilities, according to a news release from Cart.com. It will support both domestic and overseas logistics.

Industry veteran Gregg Zegras will lead the new entity as president. Zegras previously served as Cart.com's chief revenue officer, according to LinkedIn. Before that, he served as president of Connecticut-based Pitney Bowes Global eCommerce, a digital shipping solutions company.

Remington Tonar, Cart.com's co-founder, will serve as CGS's chief innovation officer.

“Government agencies face procurement and logistics challenges that many commercial platforms simply weren’t built to solve,” Zegras said in the news release. “Cart Government Solutions exists to change that. We’re combining the speed and innovation of a technology company with the compliance rigor, security, and operational depth that federal and state customers require, and we’re doing it with a team that has spent careers working alongside and inside these agencies.”

According to the company, CGS will focus on meeting compliance and security requirements in the public sector. Some of the services the new entity will offer include:

  • Inventory management
  • Cold-chain and specialty storage for pharmaceuticals, medical devices and regulated goods
  • Enterprise-grade supply chain software
  • Government-compliant webstores and online ordering portals
  • Cybersecurity operations

Cart.com has been serving the public sector since 2022, when the company began distributing COVID-19 health supplies nationwide, according to the news release. Through that pandemic-era contract, the company reports it moved more than 725 million units, with an average of under two days per shipment.

Cart.com was founded in Houston in 2020, though it briefly moved its headquarters to Austin. The company reached unicorn status with its $60 million Series C raise in 2023. It most recently raised $180 million in growth capital from private equity firm Springcoast Partners in March, which put the startup over the $1 billion in fundraising mark in just six years.

At the time, Cart.com said it planned to scale its logistics network, expand AI capabilities and develop workflow automation tools.

Houston-based KBR Inc. also recently launched a government services spinoff. Read more here.

2 Houston universities named best colleges of 2027 by Princeton Review

A-Plus Ratings

Back-to-school season is has returned in full force, and that means it's time for college rankings. Two Houston universities in particular are being hailed as the top of the class for 2027.

The high caliber schools — Rice University and University of Houston — earned new acclaim in The Princeton Review's ranking of the "Best 392 Colleges" for 2027.

The Princeton Review's 35th annual "Best Colleges" rankings are determined by a survey of 172,000 current college students that gave "candid feedback" about their schools and their experiences. The flagship guide does not rank the schools overall, but it does rank them across 50 different categories, including best-run colleges, best quality of life, happiest students, best athletic facilities, among others.

In all, 14 Texas institutions were highlighted in the overall list of the 392 best colleges.

Schools don't pay to be included in the guide, but The Princeton Review clarified that schools could pay for a "featured" designation. No Houston university paid to be featured in this year's guide. Trinity University in San Antonio and Southwestern University, a private school in the Austin suburb Georgetown, were the only two Texas schools that paid to be "featured."

Rice and UH have been on a winning streak in separate reports of the best universities worldwide, best graduate schools, and best online degree programs.

In addition to being included in the overall list, Rice was highlighted as one of the Best Value Colleges, Colleges That Create Futures, and it earned high marks in Princeton Review's Mental Health Honor Roll 2026. The home of the Rice Owls also starred in the regional Best Southwest list that contained 41 universities across Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

"Rice University stands out as a leading research university where academic diversity and a wide array of interdisciplinary institutes and centers make it easy for students to explore multiple areas of interest," the school's profile says. "At Rice, 'knowledge isn’t siloed — students are constantly crossing disciplines and interests in ways that feel natural rather than exceptional.'"

Rice earned the following rankings on 14 other lists:

  • No. 1 – Lots of Race/Class Interaction
  • No. 3 – Best College Newspaper
  • No. 9 – Friendliest Students
  • No. 11 – Best Quality of Life
  • No. 13 – Great Financial Aid
  • No. 14 – Top 50 Best Value Private Colleges
  • No. 17 – Their Students Love These Colleges
  • No. 18 – Top 20 Best Value Private Colleges Without Aid
  • No. 18 – Best Student Support and Counseling Services
  • No. 19 – Best College Dorms
  • No. 21 – Students Study the Most
  • No. 24 – Best Campus Food
  • No. 24 – Best College Radio Station
  • No. 24 – Best-Run colleges
The University of Houston also appeared in the Best Southwest, Best Value Colleges, and Colleges That Create Futures lists, and it was named a top Green College, which examined schools that "share superb sustainability practices, a strong foundation in sustainability education, and a healthy quality of life for students on campus

UH earned five more accolades:

  • No. 1 – Top 50 Undergraduate Schools for Entrepreneurship Studies
  • No. 1 – Top Undergraduate Schools for Entrepreneurship Studies in the Southwest
  • No. 8 – Most Politically Moderate Students
  • No. 15 – Financial Aid Not So Great
  • No. 42 – Top 50 Best Value Public Colleges
In the school's profile, students say they had an overall positive experience thanks to UH's excellent academic offerings and dedicated faculty members.

"Students confirm that 'the research and other academic opportunities... are very accessible to students who seek it out,'" the profile says. "This includes taking advantage of UH’s vast alumni network (more than 325,000 and counting), not to mention its location in the corporate center of Houston, where 'the opportunities that are provided are immense.'"

The 12 other public and private universities in Texas included in The Princeton Review's 2027 guide are:

  • The University of Texas at Austin
  • Southwestern University, Georgetown
  • Baylor University, Waco
  • Texas A&M University - College Station
  • Trinity University, San Antonio
  • Texas State University, San Marcos
  • Angelo State University, San Angelo
  • Texas Christian University, Fort Worth
  • University of Dallas, Irving
  • Southern Methodist University, Dallas
  • The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson
  • Austin College, Sherman
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A version of this story originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston named the No.1 emerging city for biopharma in inaugural report

Biopharma Leader

Houston is ranked No.1 on the first-ever Next 10 U.S. Biopharma Clusters report published by Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN).

The report, which ranks the best emerging hubs for life science activities, considered patents, NIH funding, lab space, venture capital investments, and the number of jobs in regions in cities, states and “clusters” across the U.S. GEN touts Houston as the top city for the biopharma industry due to a surge in funding, job creation, medical innovations and startup success.

Here’s how Houston ranked in the report’s different categories;

  • No. 1 for NIH funding with 2,262 awards totaling more than $1.25 billion
  • No. 2 for emerging regions for jobs, with 28,000 jobs
  • No. 2 for lab space, with roughly 8 million square feet in the market
  • No. 6 for patents, with 2,760 patent families

According to BioHouston chairman Jeff Wade, Houston secured half a billion dollars in venture capital funding in 2025 and 2026 to date.

The report called out major biopharm news out of Houston in the last few months, including Bristol Myers Squibb selecting Houston for its $1 billion, 600,000-square-foot manufacturing site and Eli Lily selecting Houston for its $6.5 billion, 236-acre manufacturing site. Both facilities will be located within Generation Park, a 4,300-acre, master-planned commercial district near Lake Houston.

Houston startups like CrossBridge Bio and Duracyte were also mentioned in the report. CrossBridge, which develops antibody-drug conjugates for cancer, was acquired by Eli Lily in April for $300 million. Duracyte, a “living pharmacy” company, was launched out of Rice University’s biotech venture studio RBL LLC this spring and is backed by up to a $45 million Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) award.

The startup is working to commercialize its Hybrid Advanced Molecular Manufacturing Regulator (HAMMR) technology, a rechargeable, implantable device that can sense biological signals, monitor tumor environments and adjust therapeutic output in real time.

“There’s a lot of great talent, but the unique advantage that we have is we are able to benefit from a lot of unique clinical infrastructure and clinician insights,” Omid Veiseh, Duracyte co-founder and managing partner of RBL LLC, told GEN. “There are a lot of clinicians here who are eager to partner on investigator-initiated trials.”

The report also touted Houston’s Texas Medical Center, home to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine, and international partnerships like the recently expanded TMC Korea BioBridge.

Other cities to make the list include:

  • No. 2 Minneapolis-St. Paul
  • No. 3 Denver-Boulder
  • No. 4 St. Louis
  • No. 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

States to make the list include:

  • No. 1 Ohio (including Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus)
  • No. 2 Indiana (including Indianapolis)
  • No. 3 Florida (including Jacksonville and Miami-Fort Lauderdale)
  • No. 4 Georgia (including Atlanta and Augusta)
  • No. 5 Wisconsin (including Madison and Kenosha)

Regional state clusters to watch include:

  • Phoenix
  • Pittsburgh
  • Greater Richmond, Virginia
  • South Carolina
  • Utah

See the full report here.

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