20 Things To Do in Dallas This Week

Wednesday

Five-time Grammy Award winner Shania Twain will forever be held up among the likes of other past queens of country music, such as Kitty Wells, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Reba McEntire. She’s sold more than 100 million records, making her the top-selling female country recording artist of all time and the best-selling female artist of all time in the U.S. in any genre. After a lengthy hiatus, Twain returned with her fifth studio album, Now, in September 2017. It was her first new album since since 2002’s Up!. Now also marked Twain’s first release since her 1993 debut album not produced by her ex-husband, Robert "Mutt" Lange. It debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums, so for Twain and her fans, the Now Tour tour with Twain’s confident, new tracks must feel like a victory lap of sorts, especially after she “retired” because of complications caused by Lyme disease and dysphonia that limited her ability to speak and sing normally. Expect to hear Twain backed by a full band delivering a mix of mostly chart-topping hits and karaoke classics, as well as a handful of her new songs mixed in. 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 6, American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave., ticketmaster.com, $37 and up. Daniel Rodrigue

Grab a chance to tell your future friends that you saw the next generation of comedy stars before they were famous. The Second City Summer Blockbuster brings the famed Chicago comedy troupe, which has alums such as Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert, to the Wylie Theatre, 2400 Flora St., for four performances of sketch comedy and improv Wednesday through Saturday. Wednesday’s performance begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25-50 at attpac.org. Other shows take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Patrick Williams

Thursday

Bad news and good news for those who want to attend the Katy Picnic on Thursday evening in Reverchon Park, 3505 Maple Ave. The bad news is that to picnic, you must register for the race. The good news is YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUN! Pardon the shouting, but learning that running's not necessary in Dallas in June is reason to be excited, especially if there's an evening picnic with beer, food from around 50 local restaurants and live music from Downtown Fever. But we're fat and sweaty. Perhaps you’re svelte and healthy. In that case, sign up for the 20th Katy Trail 5K at katytraildallas.org/5k. The registration fee, $50 for adults, $10 for kids and $135 for VIP, includes food and two free Michelob Ultras. VIPs get a barbecue picnic from Katy Trail Ice House and membership in the Friends of Katy Trail. The racing begins and ends at Reverchon Park starting at 6:30 p.m. Patrick Williams

If the mention of “audience participation” makes you clench up, we’re here to tell you that John Michael’s delightful Meatball Séance is going to change your whole theater-going world. His freewheeling, mostly one-man show deals with side of craziness that’s served with a wallop alongside grief. Michael’s mom died several years ago, and the show is a loving, irreverent paean to her memory — and a clever commentary on how we interact with those who are in the throes of loss. Audience members indicate their consent to participate, and those willing to be swept up in Michael’s madcap culinary séance find themselves merrily concocting his mom’s favorite meatball recipe in an effort to raise her from the dead so she can meet his new boyfriend. The joyful, raucous and occasionally raunchy show offers audience members a way to go beyond saying “I’m sorry” when someone dies and encourages them to revel in and truly honor the memory of the person who’s gone. It’s silly, subversive and powerful. Don’t miss it during the 2018 Dallas Solo Fest at Rosewood Center for Family Arts, 5938 Skillman St. Shows are at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, 10 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $15 at dallassolofest.com/tickets. Jennifer Davis-Lamm

Sometimes when viewing art, you need alcohol. There's no other way to put it. With alcohol, the art starts to make sense. With beer, you suddenly understand the deeper meaning of the painting in front of you. With lots of beer, you almost certainly want to buy the painting to hang in your apartment bedroom. That's why Artful Pairings with Noble Rey Brewing Co. makes perfect sense. Try five of Noble Rey's beers while you peruse the Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 N. Harwood St. It starts at 7 p.m. Thursday. Tickets, $65 for the public and $55 for DMA members, are available at etix.com. Paige Skinner

For more than 40 years, San Francisco post-punk act Chrome has been a favorite among underground music nerds and cultish record collectors. The band’s proto-industrial, collage-like tracks find a thrilling middle between avant-garde art music and noisy rock of contemporaries like Pere Ubu and This Heat. On a Chrome record, you’re just as likely to encounter fragments of TV broadcasts and sci-fi sound effects as martial drumming and shrapnel-dusted guitar play. This is a big part of the experimental outfit's lasting appeal — it successfully marries traditional hooks with the heady inclinations of experimental music, including avant jazz, field recordings and garage psych. Think Naked Lunch-era William Burroughs going punk. Fans of the strange and the loud, do not miss this. With Silver Skull, 7 p.m. Thursday, June 7, Three Links, 2704 Elm St., $14 and up. Jonathan Patrick

Friday

The Dallas Mavericks had a terrible season on the court — and a worse one off it when a Sports Illustrated feature revealed the corporate work environment was rife with sexual harassment. But somehow, Dallas’ GOAT — greatest of all time — and our recent cover boy, Dirk Nowitzki, came out of it as beloved as ever, speaking out against the Animal House-like office atmosphere and signing on for a record 21st season with the only NBA team he’s ever known. Also returning for another year is Dirk Nowitzki’s Heroes Celebrity Baseball Game, bringing together stars from about every sport imaginable, including lacrosse, plus other oddball celebs such as actor Geoff Stults, reality TV host Mark Cuban and rapper Cole Beasley for some bad hardball and other entertainment benefiting the Heroes Foundation and the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation. The Heroes Special Olympics All-Star Softball Game starts at 5 p.m. Friday at Dr Pepper Ballpark, 7300 Roughriders Trail in Frisco, and the celeb game follows at 7, with a fireworks finale after the game. Tickets, $9-$23, and more information are available at dnfoundation.org. Jesse Hughey

In WaterTower Theatre’s musical The Last Five Years, which opens at 8 p.m. Friday, Monique Abry and Seth Womack take the roles of 20-something artists experiencing love, loss and lots of in-between stuff over five years, boiled down to an hour and a half (no intermission). The show runs through July 1 at the theater, 15650 Addison Road in Addison. The 2 p.m. Sunday performance is "pay what you can," and the 7:30 p.m. June 21 show will have an American Sign Language interpreter. Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown is the author. Kelsey Leigh Ervi directs, and Dallas songwriter Adam C. Wright is musical director and pianist of the six-piece band. For tickets, $28, call 972-450-6232 or visit watertowertheatre.org. Reba Liner

It’s time for a reality check. Your dreams of being on a game show aren’t going to happen. For starters, there are way fewer of them on TV now. They are all filmed on the west side of the country. So even if you got picked and won the top prize, the money you’d have to spend and the taxes you’d have to pay on it would negate the whole thing. The next best thing is happening at 11:15 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Pocket Sandwich Theatre, 5400 E. Mockingbird Lane. The Live Matching Game is a live comedy game show in which a gaggle of celebrity panelists, such as comedian Aaron Aryanpur and KSCS-FM’s Jasmine Sadry, come up with funny answers to weird questions as contestants chosen from the audience try to match their answers to win some fabulous prizes. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the box office or at pocketsandwich.showare.com. Danny Gallagher

With Snarky Puppy, which won back-to-back Grammy Awards for best contemporary instrumental album in 2016 and 2017, it’s probably best to take the advice of The New York Times’ Nate Chinen on the Denton-bred group now based in New York: “Take them for what they are, rather than judge them for what they’re not.” Over the past decade, the love-them-or-hate-them, mostly vocals-free act has sharply divided critics, bloggers and record store clerks. Led by composer, producer and bassist Michael League, who formed the jazz-fusion act in 2003 while in the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies program, Snarky Puppy hit its stride three years later after tapping into Dallas’ gospel and R&B scene, which remarkably upgraded the group’s sound and vibe, making it harder and harder to pigeonhole. The Pups won numerous Dallas Observer Music Awards for best jazz act before winning the outfit’s first Grammy Award in 2014 for best R&B performance for "Something" off Family Dinner — Volume 1. So if you’ve yet to witness the Grammy-winning act with serious local roots, catch it Friday at The Bomb Factory to help welcome League and company back to Deep Ellum. 8 p.m. Friday, June 8, The Bomb Factory, 2713 Canton St., ticketfly.com, $32. Daniel Rodrigue

United Kingdom DJ extraordinaire Mark Night will be hitting one of Dallas’ most overlooked clubs, and boy will the Brits be jealous, or at least glad they moved to the states. For more than 10 years, Knight has been a champion to the scene as one of the leaders of the UK’s largest independent music labels, Toolroom. This Grammy-nominated DJ/producer is one of Europe’s most respected beat masters, and having him live in Dallas is more than a treat. He found mainstream recognition with tracks such as “Man With the Red Face” and “Second Story,” the latter of which was dubbed an “essential new tune” by the BBC’s Pete Tong. Knight is a pillar of the modern hardcore EDM elite. 9 p.m. Friday, June 8, It'll Do, 4322 Elm St., 214-827-7236, $15-$25. Nicholas Bostick

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Ray Lamontagne produced and last month released his seventh studio album. Part of the Light is full of familiar Lamontagne tones of dreamlike Neo-folk but is punctuated by bluesy rock 'n' roll throughout. This summer, he's touring in support of the new tracks and has brought along special guest Neko Case, who also just released a new album, Hell-On. With Neko Case, 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 8, Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, 300 W. Las Colinas Blvd., thepaviliontmf.com, $30-$79.50. Diamond Victoria

One of singer-songwriter and actor Sean Tillmann's alter egos wears less clothing than the other two. Har Mar Superstar often gets his kicks by stripping down to his skivvies. But it's not all aesthetic antics; he cranks out some well-crafted R&B while doing so. Friday night's show at The Kessler Theater should be no different, except that the Superstar is touring this summer in the name of soul music legend Sam Cooke. Expect covers of some of the best love songs of the '60s, as well as original music inspired by Cooke from Har Mar Superstar and his band. 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 8, The Kessler Theater, 1230 W. Davis St., 214-272-8346 or thekessler.org, $18. Diamond Victoria

Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Famer Robert Earl Keen is a bit of an anachronism in the modern era of music. His iconic brand of Americana was beloved long before the genre became a mass of alt-rock lyrics and banjo strings. Probably best known for his work with artists like George Strait, Lyle Lovett and The Highwaymen, Keen, a Houston native, has spent nearly half of his life as one of the Lone Star State’s best musical ambassadors. He hit his stride in the mainstream country music scene during his tours with fellow singer-songwriters Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. Some of Keen’s biggest classics, such as “The Road Goes on Forever” and “Feeling Good Again,” have stood the test of time, but Keen’s probably best known for his annual Christmas tours. Sounding like the nasally farmer cousin Dylan never knew about, Keen paints pictures with his vocals, and he’s still at it more than 30 years later. 10:30 p.m. Friday, June 8, Billy Bob's, 2520 Rodeo Plaza, Fort Worth, 817-624-7117 or billybobstexas.com, $18 and up. Nicholas Bostick

Saturday

Ballet, ever the cultural stalwart, has not customarily been a place for great innovation. The choreography has a predefined language — each movement has a name, each sequence is controlled. But Alonzo King, son of civil rights activists, has infused the art with a modern propulsion that honors its rigid traditions while imbuing it with new elements of culture and diversity. King, who finds inspiration from jazz, Indian and African music, and his extensive exploration of psychology and philosophy, believes that movement underlies, informs and explains much of human behavior. As a result, his ballet is powerfully kinetic, primal and universal. See King’s stunning work as TITAS presents the Alonzo King Lines Ballet at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St. Tickets are $12-$135 at tickets.attpac.org. Jennifer Davis-Lamm

If you thought that you had to hold out until the sweltering start of July for a fireworks fix, you’ll be pleased. Fair Park makes pyrotechnics available to you in the sweltering midst of June, too. Hydrate well and sweat it out. It’ll be worth it as Fair Park Sparks gets lit from 2-10 p.m. Saturday at Big Tex Circle in Fair Park, 1300 Robert B. Cullum Blvd. Enjoy a spectacular family-friendly extravaganza in one of Dallas’ most architecturally significant locales with a full day of live entertainment, activities for kids, rides, inflatables, face painters, and food and drink aplenty. Fireworks will kick off as soon as the skies darken enough to show off the glow — and best of all, you can get your oohs and aahs on for free. There’s no admission fee (although parking will set you back $10). Visit fairpark.org for details. Jennifer Davis-Lamm

The Dallas Public Library’s World Languages and Cultural Fair promises “some of our city’s greatest wonders,” including Central and South American folklore from the Ollimpaxqui Ballet Company and Scottish traditions from the Scottish Society of Dallas. Learn about oral storytelling traditions from media expert Angelique Westerfield, get information about passports, and participate in arts and crafts activities from 1-5 p.m. Saturday at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, 1515 Young St. Register for the free event at eventbrite.com. For more information, visit dallaslibrary.org. Emily Goldstein

Only a few years ago, Leon Bridges was washing dishes when he wasn't playing music on the side. Now he's at the point in his career where, on his second record, he can headline a venue like The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory. The man has a voice that can travel well through a big place, so it is a good fit. He'll play the songs that made him a bonafide star, but as he supports the new Good Thing LP, expect that material to get more attention. Who knows? Maybe later that evening, he'll be in Deep Ellum busking for fun. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 9, The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, livenation.com, $25 and up. Eric Grubbs

Sunday

Composed by Russian master Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade is one of the most performed works among contemporary orchestras. It’s easy to hear why. It’s full of glittering curlicues and baroque flourishes, colorful and dazzling. It hints at Asian exoticism; it’s fascinated with the florid and the purple. Its narrative, however, is much harder to digest. In an era of #metoos and real life monsters like Harvey Weinstein, Scheherazade feels eerily relevant. Over 300 years after the publication of Arabian Nights, the story on which the piece is based, we’re still dealing with the same shitty problems. In short, Scheherazade, the story’s central character, marries a sultan in order to prevent him from executing his other wives out of jealousy. Set to gorgeous music, this timeless tale of sacrifice and mortality will hit you right in the feels. As a bonus, it’s spectacularly entertaining. This lone performance happens at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora St. Tickets start at $29. Find more information at mydso.com. Jonathan Patrick

It seems there's always a great double- or triple-headlining throwback tour every summer, and this one's no different. Joan Jett, Styx and Tesla give us a night of rock 'n' roll nostalgia Sunday that's sure to make braving the heat worth it. Jett's last album hit airwaves in 2013, and Styx released The Mission just last year. With Styx and Tesla, 7 p.m. Sunday, June 10, Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, 300 W. Las Colinas Blvd., thepaviliontmf.com, $25 and up. Diamond Victoria