What happens when the daughter of a crazy, lovable clan of eccentrics gets engaged to a very nice young man? When Alice Sycamore gets engaged to Tony Kirby, of course there’s a dinner at the Sycamore house. It comes complete with a ballet dancing sister, a mother who paints and…

If you’re one of those people who loves musicals–you know what’s on Broadway, who’s in it and why the star of that one show wants to have the costar flattened by a piano–then go see Forbidden Broadway. The biting musical revue has been around since 1982, and the biggest hits…

Don’t go into All About Evil expecting some clever Bette Davis quotes or a tale about an up-and-coming young actress who schemes her way to the top, because you’ll be disappointed. If, however, you’ve got a taste for murder, mayhem and Natasha Lyonne, this is the film for you. Lyonne…

Chinese food is not the same the world over. If you go to China, don’t expect to get pork fried rice and General Cho’s chicken, because Americanized Chinese food doesn’t translate back. Other Chinese things, whether it’s Bruce Lee movies or traditional music and dance, do translate, and if you…

Whenever my granny is having a bad day I talk about the Chippendales men I’m going to send her. The thought of those men–glistening with oil, wearing bow ties and little else–seems to inspire both of us, and soon we’re both smiling and hopeful. In the musical The Full Monty,…

The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but author Sue Ellen Hanning covered the road to the real Italy while carrying a bulging backpack and no credit cards. Hanning was a 54-year-old teacher and mom when she and her daughter Jenny went on a three-month search for…

Everybody loves a good live show, and the House of Blues has got some options for those who are slight of purse and can’t afford a ticket to some of the big-name shows. If you’ve a hankering to step on out and see a show on a fine summer evening,…

Fantasia has been described as Walt Disney’s acid trip, and with all of those dancing fish, cavorting Greek gods and stressed-out dinosaurs, we’ve got to agree. Not that we think Disney did acid, but in the face of the sheer dizzying, imaginative brilliance of Fantasia, you can’t deny it’s a…

It’s hard to believe it, but back in the day Grease was considered a raunchy musical when John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John signed on to play the leads in 1978. Summer love, teen pregnancy and s-e-x won out in the end because the movie’s a classic. Come on out and…

JFK went to Berlin and was inspired to proclaim himself a jelly donut (“Ich bin ein Berliner”). OK, he was actually trying to say he was a Berliner, and got the translation wrong. While the odds are good that Berlin won’t inspire most of us to make an internationally quotable…

You probably know about A Streetcar Named Desire, and I’ll bet you’ve heard about the delicate beauty of the Glass Menagerie, but even if you’ve never had a thought about Tennessee Williams’ plays you should see Night of the Iguana. Set in Mexico, it tells the story of the Rev…

Feeling festive but have a strange desire to honor cultural traditions? Solution: The Ballet Folklorico of Dallas is putting on a show. If you’ve never experienced this kind of traditional Mexican dancing, there will be lots of fancy steps, bright clothes and swishing skirts as the group explores folk dances…

Everyone knows the image: a woman in a beautiful kimono is hitting notes that would normally peel paint off the walls in a voice so sweet, because her heart is breaking, and if you’re in the audience, your heart is breaking too. Some people say Madame Butterfly–the story of a…

Oklahomaisn’t just a state; it’s the name of a musical that revolutionized musicals after its Broadway premiere in 1943. The story’s pretty simple–Curly the cowboy loves Laurey, and she loves him, but goes to the dance with sinister hired hand Jud instead. It all turns out pretty well in the…

As kids, we were obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Being eight-year-olds, nineteenth-century life on the prairie complete with Indians, wolves and a snug little house to keep the family safe looked pretty good to us. There were 10 books in the series…

What do the Cinco de Mayo holiday and the amazing, stupendously wonderful band the Gipsy Kings have in common? They’re both going to be at the House of Blues. If that seems convoluted, suffice it to say that whether you are celebrating the unlikely victory of the Mexican army over…

Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell were trying to come up with an idea for a musical, one that would change the world, transform people’s lives and win Tonys. They sat around together trying to come up with ideas until they noticed that their conversations about their ideas were more interesting…

There’s a great Twilight Zone episode called “Eye of the Beholder.” In it, for those who haven’t seen it, what is beautiful all depends on who is looking, and even a pig snout can be the height of beauty if the right person is looking…and that’s only one bit of…

Have you ever loved a book so much you wanted to, you know, eat it? You know, like that copy of Wuthering Heights that is dog-eared on every page? Some famous movie claimed love means never having to say you’re sorry, but we all have those confusing moments–especially with books–when…

Allan Ginsburg saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness in “Howl,” and his publisher saw himself arrested and fined for printing it. Filmmaker Rob Epstein–Life and Times of Harvey Milk director–has made a film about how Ginsburg, justice and good ol’ human rights conquered censorship, and he’s…

We’ve always kind of wanted to go to Antarctica, especially when the summer heat comes to call. However, we hate ice and really don’t like to be cold, and Antarctica is on average the coldest, driest, windiest continent in the world. Yuck. Plus 98 percent of the continent is covered…

I’ve always wanted to go to the highlands of Scotland, but on those days when I find myself trapped at work and staring down a very blank computer screen, I start wishing a place like Brigadoon really did exist. In the classic musical Brigadoon, the eponymous Scottish village has been…