People 2015: SMU’s Kate Canales Aims to Engineer Creativity

In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 20 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Can Turkyilmaz.  Kate Canales is a problem solver. The current problem she’s working out? Building a master’s in design and innovation, the first of its kind, at…

People 2015: vickie washington: Still a Sensation After All These Years

In this week’s Dallas Observer we profile 20 of the metro area’s most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Can Turkyilmaz. She spells her names with lowercase letters, but actor-director-teacher vickie washington has enjoyed a capital career in theater. Born in Dallas, raised in Hamilton Park…

9 Podcasts to Listen to Right Now

Podcasts are having a moment. Thanks in no small part to Serial, which of course exists in no small part thanks to This American Life, which reignited oral storytelling in a big way. There is no end to the kinds of podcasts popping up all over the Internet these days. Comedians…

But We’d Already Given Up on the Arts District, Right?

Last week news broke that the Dallas Symphony Foundation sold land at the corner of Pearl Street and Woodall Rodgers Freeway — a half-acre plot of bright green grass underneath a firetruck red Mark di Suvero sculpture. It’s one of the shockingly few examples of public art in the purported…

The Nance Swishes Back to Burlesque and a Dark Moment in Gay History

Without actor B.J. Cleveland at the ready, Uptown Players could not have produced Douglas Carter Beane’s marvelous dark comedy The Nan ce. Cleveland is one of Dallas theater’s most versatile veterans, the sort of all-around, locally revered professional who bounces into leading roles in comedies, musicals, children’s shows and, too…

5 Free & Cheap Culture Events This Week

Now that it’s summer, it’s hard to want to do anything other than the daily grind, followed by quick dipping your sorrows in a pool after downing a bunch of beer. Even though the temperatures are higher, it’s still important that you get your culture on this summer, even if…

Reality Stars, Exes To Compete In Celebrity Bartender Throwdown

Local celebrities are fun. And bartending competitions are super fun because it involves alcohol and tossing of cups and yelling “Get me a double vodka soda” over a loud karaoke rendition of “Uptown Funk You Up.” But the official Celebrity Bartender Throwdown at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Snuffer’s in Addison…

We Got Down in the Jungle this Weekend at Cirque Dreams

By now, the “cirque” experience is synonymous with high dollar, high rolling entertainment—but by no means does that have to be the case. Sure, the Cirque du Soleil empire gets all the name recognition and has a lock on zillion dollar sets and complex hydraulics, but the unaffiliated Cirque Dreams…

Best Fourth of July Fireworks Shows in Dallas

Shake out your picnic blankets and dust off your lawn chairs, y’all: it’s the Fourth of July. By day, you’ll avail yourself of parades, pool parties, backyard barbeques, and a never-ending supply of watermelon. But at dusk, it’s time to join friends, neighbors, and countrymen for legally-sanctioned pyrotechnics and the…

VIDEO: House Party Theatre Reimagines Plays Off the Stage

The theater can be a stuffy place. For that matter, a museum can be too. But across art forms, there is a movement toward something more authentic –something more raw. Certainly this DIY aesthetic isn’t new, but it’s gripping the young artists in Dallas in an unrelenting chokehold. And we’re…

The Most Interesting Music Series in Dallas Returns this Weekend

CentralTrak’s CentralSounds series is bringing something special to Dallas on Saturday with an event curated by Ex Mus. Jeremiah Cymerman is an experimental composer, clarinetist, producer and sound engineer from Manhattan with his own record label, 5049. He also had a very interesting podcast about life and music that lasted…

8 Signs You’re A Yuccie Living in Dallas

Not sure if you heard the news, but the hipster is dead. Its funeral was, like, last week, according to this Mashable article, and now it’s time to move in a new direction of putting labels on humans. Instead of the somewhat-hated hipster, we now have the Yuccie (pronounced however…

Dyemond Obryan Is Drawn Ever Deeper into His Art

Born and raised in Dallas, 26-year-old Dyemond Obryan is a comic book artist and cartoonist. Like most of us, he enjoyed cartoons as a kid, only he never quit watching. They influence him to this day, as does sadness. “I come off as pretty sad sometimes,” he admits. He wishes…

Five Art Exhibitions to See This Weekend

Two salon style shows and three exhibitions enter final weekends for this week’s five art exhibitions to see in Dallas.  Yeah, It’s Salon StyleIf you’ve never been to one of Ro2 Art’s high-energy, art deluge shows, aptly-titled Chaos, it would be hard to explain to you exactly what you’re missing…