Have you watched Dance Moms? (9 p.m., Wednesdays, Lifetime.) The cable TV reality show aims its cameras at the twirling tots of the Miss Abby Lee Dance Company of Pittsburgh, PA. More horrifying than Toddles & Tiaras, it’s evidence of how ruthless some parents are in pursuit of stardom and…
The founder of the Festival of Independent Theatres, David Fisher, now has a new job as executive director of the Turtle Creek Chorale. He starts August 15, just a few days after presenting the city’s arts budget to the City Manager. Fisher most recently has been Assistant Director of the…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. Yes, when you go to The Wiz, the ushers hand you a pair of cardboard…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. There’s nice sting in Upstart Productions’ staging of the surreal Steve Martin one-act W.A.S.P., one…
As the song in Cabaret goes, what good is sitting alone in your room? Not when there’s a big, wide world out there where you can star in your own imaginary reality show. Shoot, you may already be in one. There are three new reality shows — CMT’s Texas Women,…
The man-eating plant is in on the joke in WaterTower Theatre’s production of the musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors. Everyone else onstage, however, seems to think they’re doing Threepenny Opera. This stage adaptation of a famously bad 1950s fright flick has a catchy doo-wop score and the amusing visuals…
Buy a seat in one of the movable “pods” available at The Wiz, the musical Dallas Theater Center and Dallas Black Dance Theatre are doing together at the Wyly Theatre, and you’ll spend a good chunk of the show being rolled around by sweaty stagehands. It’s kind of fun wondering…
Remember we told you about the movable pods of seats at the Wyly Theatre for Dallas Theater Center’s The Wiz? Sit in one of those high-priced sections — top ticket price in the pods is about $80 — and you get rolled around the stage about 15 times during the…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. You don’t have to know everything about Shakespeare, the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation or…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. Throwing food at actors is frowned upon at most theaters. But not all. The one…
Editor’s Note: Kevin Moore sat down to discuss his role in Little Shop of Horrors. What follows is his account as told to Elaine Liner. Back in March, WaterTower Theatre in Addison announced auditions for the musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors. There was a role for the manipulator of…
Create your own wall of fame with these fine, only marginally frightening works of art currently for sale at two of our favorite Dallas thrift stores. As of yesterday afternoon, all of these paintings were still looking for homes. Most could be had for less than $60. We found them…
Here’s what reality TV does: It takes the worst stereotypes about places and people and rolls them up into one big awful stereotype and then it makes a show about how “real” it is. Meet Texas Women, a new reality series premiering tonight at 9 p.m. on cable’s CMT channel…
Throwing food at actors is frowned upon at most theaters. But not all. The one place you can hurl a foodstuff at the stage is Pocket Sandwich Theatre, which has one of its popcorn melodramas running right now. The show is The Final Adventures of Hercules. The food is dry…
Knock, knock. Who’s there? Wit. Wit who? Wit more plays like Wittenberg, I’d go to Fort Worth more often. The latest from Amphibian Stage Productions at the Sanders Theatre in Cowtown is as witty as Shaw, as wacky as Stoppard and never as wearying as Shakespeare’s drama about a certain…
Does Jill Zarin have anything in common with June Cleaver? If you watch any of the Real Housewives shows on Bravo, you have to wonder if kids are growing up now not knowing what a “housewife” is. June Cleaver, if you don’t remember black and white TV, was Beaver and…
We’ve been following the work of actor Brian J. Smith since he was a student at Plano’s Collin College, so it’s a kick to see that he’s been cast as Blake Lively’s new love interest on the TV series Gossip Girl. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Smith grew up…
Forget your butter sculptures, thrill rides and deep-fried hubcaps. For some of us, the State Fair of Texas is an annual adventure in crafts and kitsch. On display in the Creative Arts Building every year are the hundreds of winning entries in competitions for handcrafts, needlework, dolls, hobby collections, quilts,…
Stage Black is back. The midsummer festival of new plays reflecting the African American experience runs Friday through Sunday (July 15 to 17) at the Black Academy of Arts and Letters at the Dallas Convention Center Theater Complex. Six short plays are in the mix. They are: Breaking Vows at…
The Bath House Cultural Center will be swimming with talent next week with the opening Friday of the 13th annual Festival of Independent Theatres. The four-weekend event features eight small theater companies doing one-act plays under one hour each, in rotating repertory and for budgets averaging under $2000. Playwrights represented…
Some stats you should know before you ease on down the road to the Wyly Theatre for Dallas Theater Center’s musical The Wiz, opening 8 p.m., Friday, July 8, in a pay-what-you-can preview, before the official opening night on July 15…
Now that the Casey Anthony case is over — not guilty on all murder counts, guilty only of four misdemeanors — will cable news be able to give it up? More specifically, will Dr. Drew? This case has become cable news’ hillbilly heroin and it’ll be hard for them to…
