5 Things to Do: September 26-30

This week is big for those who kick major ass. First presidential debate aside, Dallas (and surrounding cities) gets to host NPR’s Ophira Eisenberg, the United States’ gymnastic champions (Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas, OMG!), the great human of New York, Brandon Stanton, and the one, the only, Big Tex…

Ultimate Guide to Your Weekend, September 23-25

Do This! Sebastian Mansicalco and Dane Cook will headline the Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival coming to Gexa Pavilion (3839 S. Fitzhugh Ave.) at 5:15 p.m. Friday. But what’s cooler is that Jermaine Fowler of Flight of the Conchords, Ali Wong and Separation Anxiety host Iliza Shlesinger are also on…

Bella: An American Tall Tale Was Inspired by a Big, Beautiful Butt

Southern musicals seem to have found a home in Dallas. One year ago, The Dallas Theater Center presented the world premiere of Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical. The Dallas Opera produced its first ever musical, Show Boat —  a collaboration with Dallas Black Dance Theater — in May. Now DTC will…

London Road Offers a Thrilling Musical Tour of a Real Town’s Trauma

The techniques of verbatim theater go back decades, to at least the 1950s, when young German theater troupes would reenact complicated court cases word for word onstage. Even earlier, in the United States, the WPA paid for a form of this performance with its Living Newspapers, in which theater artists…

Storks Is So Funny You Might Forgive Its Mawkish Weirdness

In this age of billion-dollar, candy-colored, fully digital child-distraction movie-making, the new chatty-animal adventure comedy Storks wouldn’t have to be good in any way to be wildly profitable. It often is good, though, hilariously so, its too-familiar misfits-become-a-family storyline enlivened by flights of lavish comic invention. Its set pieces, especially…

Fleabag is the Egocentric Comedy Heroine of Your Dreams/Nightmares

America might not be ready for Fleabag, the new Amazon/BBC series from British writer and creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Think about all the guff Girls received for “forcing” viewers along on a ride with myopic 20-somethings. Waller-Bridge has gone even further than Girls creator Lena Dunham, speaking directly to the camera…

Not Magnificent, but Not Bad

Look, if you’re not stirred by the sight of Denzel Washington, clad in head-to-toe black, riding a black stallion over dunes and bluffs and right up to the saloon of some two-bit frontier town — well, then maybe the movies just aren’t for you. Washington, of course, strides right into…

Dear Stoner: What’s So Great About Smoking Weed?

Dear Stoner: Why are all you potheads so gung-ho about the benefits of smoking weed? I smoke it from time to time, but I don’t tell my friends to light up a joint instead of visiting the doctor. It’s pot, not magic beans. Grinding Gary Dear Gary: Magic buds, maybe…

Dallas Had a Strong Presence at New York Fashion Week

Dallas was more than 1,500 miles away from New York Fashion Week, which took place Sept. 8-15, but North Texas creatives certainly made their presences known. Binzario Couture, a Dallas fashion house specializing in bridal gowns and formal wear, debuted its Spring/Summer 2017 “Daydream” collection at The Fitzgerald Ballroom. The 20-piece…

Dallas Gets Its Own Dead Poet’s Society

Contemporary poets will breathe life into the work of writers we may have forgotten at Deep Vellum Books this Sunday. Other People’s Poetry (OPP) is a new reading series created by author and teacher Joe Milazzo, who is on a mission to bring poets who’ve fallen out of the oral…