If you’ve never seen Evita you’re missing out. The rock musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber has it all–sex, politics and the plight of the worker with a little class consciousness thrown in. The musical covers the life story of Eva Peron, from her humble beginnings as a…

From Scarlett O’Hara on down, everybody knows that when the chips are down, home is the place to go. That’s where Babe Magrath goes to reunite with her two eccentric sisters after shooting her abusive husband in the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winning play Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley…

While a bored bourgeois French housewife and a sexy Spanish contractor can’t have much in common, the film Leaving proves that for the sake of a movie, sexual compatibility is enough. The film, produced in 2009, stars British actress Kristin Scott Thomas looking elegant and refined even as she pays…

When two planes slammed into the World Trade Center almost 10 years ago, sending the buildings tumbling to the ground, it didn’t seem possible that there would ever be anything to replace the New York City landmark. But life goes on, and as the country began to heal artist Manuel…

Way back in 1915, some Mexican banditos raided the McAllen Ranch, one of the largest ranches in Texas. The next day, the Texas Rangers came riding in, just like John Wayne in The Searchers, to eliminate the problem. Roland Warnock, a 19-year-old cowboy, saw how the Rangers did it–shooting two…

It’s got ’em all–knights, kings and queens–and they all sing and dance. Monty Python has nothing to do with this, and I know it doesn’t sound like the best evening ever, but trust me, you’ve gotta see Camelot. The Lerner and Loewe musical opened on Broadway in 1959 starring Richard…

I’ve never been a big fan of the tuna sandwich–fish on bread has always struck me as, well, gross–but I love Tuna, Texas, the fictional third-smallest town in the Lone Star State “where the Lion’s Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies,” and Tuna’s Christmas show is a…

Born with dyslexia, artist Todd Camplin has always had to read things over and over to make them make sense. Some people would be all whiny about having a learning difference like dyslexia, wherein the words and letters don’t seem to hold still, but Camplin has turned his difference into…

While some people deal with their problems by downing a bottle of scotch, The Man in the Chair pulls out a record and listens to his favorite musical when he feels “blue.” That’s the premise of The Drowsy Chaperone, a musical spoof of Jazz Age-era musicals that appeared on Broadway…

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen is the fairy tale that scared the hell out of me as a kid. A Snow Queen with a heart of ice holds a boy, Kai, captive until he can spell the word eternity with shards of ice. His friend Gerda saves him…

Studs Terkel, the bow-tie wearing, oral historian from Chicago, was known for his books collecting the human experience. One of Terkel’s most famous books, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (published in 1974), recounted the memories of people from…

Lend Me a Tenor, the play about the wackiness that ensues when a nervous tenor overdoes it on tranquilizers before a gala performance of the opera Otello, is hilarious–especially if you’ve ever known a tenor. The stage manager scrambles to cover, but it’s hard enough to hit high notes, and…

Hard-drinking American playwright Eugene O’Neil isn’t exactly known for his comedies–he only wrote one–but Ah, Wilderness is a real knee slapper, with prostitutes and drunken uncles peppering a story about coming of age in a New England town.17-year-old Richard likes to read subversive books. He also likes the neighbor’s daughter,…

Henry VIII was an all-around bastard, but just in case you had any doubts on that score, go and check out Anna Bolena, Donizetti’s Italian opera version of how Henry’s second wife ended up with her head separated from her neck. Back in Good King Henry’s day, Anne Boleyn started…

We’ve all met him, and some of us have even been so unfortunate as to date him–the guy with the Don Giovanni complex. He has to have every woman he sees–like, seriously, all of them–and doesn’t mind getting them by hook, crook or any sneaky tactic that’ll work. Mozart’s famed…

Arthur Miller was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century (Death of a Salesman anyone?). but he almost quit being a playwright. After his first play tanked on Broadway, Miller swore if All My Sons failed that he’d quit the business. The play is set just after World…

When I was a kid, I was a typical girly-girl. We’re talking pink hair ribbons, Barbie dolls and an abhorrence of dirt, but even I loved dinosaurs. There was an exhibit featuring giant animatronic dinosaurs, including the carnivorous T-Rex. I spent hours staring up at the creature, convinced he was…

Go make some Mexican arts and crafts! It’s a matter of life and death! Really! Well, sort of. You won’t be saving the world, dismantling a bomb or saving a life or anything, but if you go to the “Life and Death” workshop you’ll have the chance to think about…

It’s important to be honest, but, in Oscar Wilde’s comedy of misidentification, it’s way more important to be — yep I’m going to say it — Ernest. Wilde’s play, a satire of Victorian mores and social obligations, was a hit when it premiered in 1895, showing off the Irish playwright’s…

If you want to see some badass piano playing then get yourself a ticket to Haochen Zhang’s performance in Fort Worth stat. Zhang became the youngest and the first Chinese competitor to win the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in…

Mariachi music is always fun. Well, almost always. Perhaps, not for a person with a pounding hangover, but otherwise, always fun, passionate, festive and often emotionally compelling. Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan are bringing true celebration to the Winspear Opera House, 2100 Ross Ave., 8 p.m. Tuesday and you don’t want…

If you’ve never listened to Bach, you’re missing out. Seriously, the guy had 20 children and an ego the size of Texas, but his music was still incredible. I’ll bet Itamar Moses, the playwright of Bach at Leipzig, knows all that, and I’ll bet he’s a fan of all of…