Thursday, June 11True West Sibling rivalry goes even better with drinks. Actually, it’s probably worse. True West is a play by Sam Shepard with themes about the flawed “American Dream” and the fake orderliness of the suburbs. While working on a screenplay, Austin housesits for his mother. Then his brother…
Why are you leaving? Where are you going? Will you come back? If you’ve ever stuck your nose down in an art history book, you’ve likely learned that master French artist Paul Gauguin spent several years in Tahiti. It’s also likely that you’ve seen one of his resulting paintings, “Nafea…
Rub the sleep out of your eyes, Dallas. Fuel up with a double shot of espresso, a few rips off your roommate’s bong, or whatever it will take you key you up for an especially long weekend of cinematic jouissance. Oak Cliff Film Festival is back for its fourth year…
In most industries, summer is the time for the sugar-coated, mindless entertainment. There’s the dance party anthems in the music industry; the blockbuster films in film. It’s not that different for books. With the expectation of beach vacations and weekend visits to the pool, you’ll occasionally hear publishers talk about…
Every city has its own set of museums. It’s how we document history or call attention to quirky industries. San Antonio, for example, has a museum dedicated to toilet seats. Some of the museums come and go. For years, Plano had a Cockroach Hall of Fame where the owner of…
Have you ever wanted to be in the room with two of the brightest minds in the city so you could eavesdrop on their candid and entirely unscripted conversation? What if those two people were Jim Schutze and Mark Lamster discussing the Trinity River? Well, Mixed Media, the culture podcast…
I’m probably going blind. This sunshine is so damn bright, y’all. I don’t have shades dark enough. Just as soon as we all stop complaining about the rain, it becomes time to complain about the hot, sunny Dallas summer. Nothing will ever be good enough, although thanks to the wet…
Jon Revett: The Glacier Project In a sense, the minute something is declared “art,” it has been elevated. The process of art making is transformative. Whether it’s the whittling down of tree bark, or slathering paint on a canvas, or in the case of Amarillo-based artist Jon Revett, screen printing…
The art world and its stock market unpredictably will quickly make even the most well-intentioned artist cynical. These days the world is filled with aspiring art stars. The lifelong drive to make something valuable is easily diminished by a discussion of finding a gallery, pricing a work of art as…
Thursday, May 27 Stop Hitting Yourself Charity has always been something that the fortunate pride themselves on giving. However, rarely is charity given at the cost of competition. Fortunately enough for you, Rude Mechanical’s production of Stop Hitting Yourself provides that sort of satirical insight. Think of it as some…
Phyllida Barlow: Tryst If the Nasher Sculpture Center has taught Dallas one thing (and surely the number is vastly larger), it’s that sculpture transforms its environment, and vice versa. Fill a white walled room with golden balloons and entering it becomes an adventure; fill the same room with technicolor dirt…
This Is the First Time the Rude Mechs Have Been to Dallas Just a quick hop down 35, the state’s most interesting theater troupe call Austin home. There, for the past two decades, they’ve been devising new work that has earned raves from critics for its inventive staging, satirical wit,…
Your long weekend is on its way. On your way home this afternoon, you’ll want to pop into the corner store grab a 12 pack of Shiner Prickly Pear, stick them in your fridge, and then save them for Monday. Because there’s a lot to do around Dallas until then…
truly, madly In a conversation with gallerist Brian Gibb, he shared that one of his biggest professional regrets was a missed chance for The Public Trust to be the first exhibitor of a now big-name artist. It’s one of the reasons he pounced on collaborative photographers, Kasumi Chow and Desiree…
It seems that for most classical music institutions the answer to the audience problem is to pander. To program music that’s familiar, safe. “Give them more Beethoven,” could very well be the marketing strategy. And it might work for a time. Then, if things go well the friendly music would…
If hometown performer Annie Clark has proven anything to Dallas in her flight to fame, it’s that she’s a veritable rock god. Sunday night in performance with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, she proved without misstep that she doesn’t just shred with the best of ’em, she also writes music that…
Do you remember when Michelle Obama cut her bangs? Of course you do. This inane conversation topic was part of our national dialogue for weeks. Did she look better with or without? What did it say about her femininity? And more important, her blackness? Playwright Meridith Friedman finds this microscopic…
This weekend the Dallas Museum of Art opens Inca: Conquests of the Andes. On the surface it’s one of those historical art exhibitions filled with antique knick-knacks of which you can buy knockoffs on that adventure vacation you’re planning with your super-rich-hipster-adventure husband. No, I’m not jealous of your imagined…
Hey, it’s good to see you again. It’s odd, isn’t it? To take advice from a total stranger on how to fill your days. I often wonder who you are. Who are the people clicking on our little weekly awesome things to do list? Do they use it to find…
Last weekend the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders saw hundreds of women high kick their way through the preliminary auditions for one of the most coveted titles in the cheerleading industry. Love ’em or hate ’em, it wasn’t difficult to talk our clubs editor, Drew Blackburn, into spending an hour with the…
Last April on a Friday morning in the middle of the Dallas Art Fair, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra lured a number of journalists, artists and visiting gallerists into the Meyerson with the promise of coffee, pastries and an exciting announcement. A woman known only in social circles introduced herself to…
This weekend is packed with art to see in Dallas. It seems everyone on Dragon Street and beyond is opening an exhibition. Limiting this list to just five is impossible, so there are a few more than that here, plus additional shows to see when you’re out and about this…
