It’s not easy to wrap one’s head around the work of theater troupe Dead White Zombies (DWZ), but why would it be? It’s the brainchild of Thomas Riccio, a University of Texas at Dallas drama professor, world traveler and metaphysical hobbyist who’s all about bucking convention. DWZ always engage the…
The call came at 8:30 last Saturday morning. It was Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League phoning to let Kevin Moriarty know that the Dallas Theater Center had won the regional Tony Award. Within the next four hours, Moriarty would see nearly 200 members of the Dallas theater…
Arts Mission Oak Cliff, a new multi-use arts venue built inside of the old Winnetka Heights Church, has opened its first production. Cara Mia Theatre Co.’s De Troya is a world premiere by Obie Award winning playwright Caridad Svich. It is the story of Mara, who rescues a mysteriously wounded…
Addison doesn’t have many things in common with Chicago, but now it has at least one: Joanie Schultz. The new artistic director of WaterTower Theatre spent 20 years in the Windy City earning her master’s and a reputation for producing edgy new work. Now she’s bringing a Chicago theater mentality…
In 1899, French actress Sarah Bernhardt famously played Hamlet and brought an impishness to the Danish prince that audiences had never seen before. There is a movement catching fire now for women to take on these classic, meaty Shakespearean roles traditionally played by men: The latest production of Twelfth Night…
In spring 2016, the co-owners of the Wild Detectives bookstore approached Dallas-based literary wunderkind Lauren Smart with a question: How can we address gender disparity in the publishing industry? Smart loved what the bookstore – which is also a bar, music venue and sometimes a theater – represented and saw…
For the last 10 years, Kevin Moriarty has been the resident chemist in the Arts District, where his latest concoction is an outdoor production of the Greek tragedy Electra. As the Dallas Theater Center’s artistic director, manipulating text and space are his bread and butter. Moriarty comes by his curiosity honestly. At…
Flooding in the Texas springtime is not unusual. But the Dallas Theater Center is suffering flood damage for reasons completely unrelated to weather. Last week, during a routine test of the fire system, an outside vendor triggered the release of the fire suppression pipe, or “deluge curtain,” which dumped water…
Almost one year ago, Prism Co. created what founders Katy Tye and Jeff Colangelo consider to be the company’s most successful work. That piece pitted a real Mixed Martial Arts fighter against a Dallas actress in an immersive, staged, competitive MMA fight. As with all Prism works, Animal vs Machine…
Midway on his life’s journey, 31-year-old René Moreno fell through a five-story window and was paralyzed from the waist down. The freak accident, which occurred in his then-home in Washington D.C., was the impetus for his return to Dallas, where he received physical therapy following the injury. What could have…
Women are often accused of talking too much, or feeling emotions too acutely, and a new theater company, Goat Song Theatre Collective, is taking this as inspiration for their four-part season, which is all about gender equality. Abigail Birkett, one of three “goats,” alongside Carissa Jade Olsen and Lauren Ferebee, says Goat…
If you haven’t heard about White Rabbit Red Rabbit, you’re doing it right. You aren’t supposed to know what it is. Though this play has been performed in theaters all over the world nearly 1,000 times, no one is allowed to talk about it. Not even the actors. Only those…
Local theater stalwart Kitchen Dog Theater is in the midst of its 26th season, and big changes have been coming left and right for the company. One is the introduction of a new program that will release 20 free tickets for every performance. In 2016, Kitchen Dog Theater was forced…
It’s hard to review a production as huge as Public Works Dallas’ The Tempest, which featured 200 Dallasites in the cast and five professional actors. On the one hand, you had the play: lights, music, acting, words, dancing, chaos. And there was chaos. The Friday premiere was a gorgeous mess at…
On Saturday, Cara Mia Theatre Co. will give a Dallas debut to a play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, who also collaborated with Hamilton playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda on his first musical In the Heights. The play, Yemaya’s Belly, is the story of a Cuban boy’s dream to…
Today the Dallas Theater Center announced the full lineup for their 2017-2018 season. The season includes two world premieres, a sequel to 2016’s All the Way, and another round of the Public Works initiative. Seeming to respond to prior criticism regarding lack of diversity, DTC will produce works by two…
This weekend, Dallas will become the first city outside of New York to participate in the Public Works project, which taps hundreds of non-actors for productions of Shakespeare. The first play being tackled here is The Tempest. According to Dayron Miles, who moved here to head up Public Works Dallas, the…
Troy Maxson is the 53-year-old patriarch in August Wilson’s Fences. He is an authoritarian, gruff, brutal force who famously tells his son, “I ain’t got to like you.” The general public is now learning a lot about August Wilson thanks to Denzel Washington and his commitment to produce 10 of…
Joel Ferrell is tackling what might seem like familiar territory at the Dallas Theater Center right now. The DTC artistic associate and actual son of a preacher is directing Lucas Hnath’s The Christians. But he says comparing his dad, a former Methodist pastor in Fort Worth, to Hnath’s world of…
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is on its first national tour, and it opens in Dallas today. It’s the story of a German, genderqueer rock singer who’s obsessed with becoming a star. Her husband, Yitzhak, an Eastern European drag queen, is the victim of her verbal abuse and jealousy. The musical…
Two local theaters, Ochre House Theater and Firehouse Theatre, are having difficult seasons after their artistic directors were the victims of unrelated, violent assaults in January. Ochre House Theater announced Tuesday evening that it would be canceling its entire run of world premiere Dr. Bobaganush. The play, written and directed…
The regional premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky opened this month at WaterTower Theatre. The play is full of badass lady drama, or rather, “badass lady astronomers,” to quote the star of the play, Anastasia Munoz. Silent Sky is the true story of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, a turn of the…
