It was probably inevitable that someone would create a musical based on the works of Queen. The ’70s band’s flamboyant music has a theatrical bent that seems tailor made for conversion to a big, bombastic rock opera, and that’s what you get with We Will Rock You, the musical with…
Channel your inner Who Dat this Friday at Mardi Gras on Walnut in Denton, a totally free NOLA fest’s worth of food and music. The city is closing off Walnut Street’s 100 block for maximum jamming to live Dixieland jazz, and you can stuff your face with hot boiled crawfish,…
It’s been a minute since we here at the Observer put out a notice for local freelance writers for this little arts and culture blog, The Mixmaster. But here we are, looking you straight in the eye with the simple question, are you the one we want? It’s a question…
The Oscars are coming! Yay! I haven’t seen any of the movies, on account of the stupid infant and his inability to take care of himself for three hours, so I have no idea which new movies are the best new movies. I also have no idea what the outside…
Jay Leno must be lonely. What has Jay Leno been doing the last couple weeks?
Playing the Blue Power Ranger was the breakthrough moment in David Yost’s career. Billy Cranston, one of the original “teenagers with attitude,” was the brains of the group, inventing gadgets like the wrist communicators. Yost, along with Walter Jones, the first Black Power Ranger from the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers…
What history will say about George W. Bush is yet to be determined, but in the past few years he’s grown pretty damn good at painting puppies. Last year on Jay Leno, he brought up his art teacher to whom he said, “There’s a Rembrandt trapped in this body…your job…
On Monday night the Winspear Opera House was packed for what was billed as “An Evening of Chamber Music” with Philip Glass and his collaborator, violinist Tim Fain. The concert, presented by TITAS, began with alternating solo appearances by Glass, seated stoically in front of a big, black Steinway, and…
Becoming a millionaire is a short-lived fantasy for a journalist.But that doesn’t mean I can’t drool over fancy MLS listings. It would probably take multiple winning lottery tickets to move me and my 29-inch television into one of these houses, but that won’t squelch my fantasy.
Dallas, meet Performance Southwest. Even if you’re not a performance art fan the name might sound familiar from fits and starts around town, but their mission is much larger than this city. It’s an educational group with constituents all over the country dedicated to educating audiences on the exciting, yet…
In film after film from the late ’70s into the mid-’80s, the slobs — often led by writer-director-actor Harold Ramis, who died today at age 69 — trounced the snobs in each of their face-offs: at Faber College, at Camp North Star, at Sergeant Hulka’s Fort Arnold, against that ginger…
Women are taught by fashion magazines and reality shows to have a deep respect for the designers who make their clothes. But no one warns women that this respect doesn’t go both ways. Spend enough time shopping, and it becomes clear that the fashion industry is made of creepy old…
Washington’s and Colorado’s decisions to legalize recreational marijuana use have created a new, booming tourist industry for businesses and tax collections. Smokers who can’t spark up in their home state without risking incarceration and a permanent black mark on their criminal record are flocking to the states where dispensaries are…
It’s hard to overestimate the impact Philip Glass has had on classical music. Apart from being (arguably) the world’s greatest living composer, Glass almost single handedly brought minimalism into contemporary popular culture — influencing legions of rock and electronic artists while simultaneously introducing classical music to a generation of otherwise…
Twenty-five years ago, when the Meyerson Symphony Center opened its doors for the first time, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra got its dream-home. Acoustically, this is one of the world’s best halls; the faintest vibrations and most subtle variations in volume are audible in its rich, cavernous space. But no matter…
My phone rings. It supposed to be Chelsea Handler calling from her office in L.A. to talk about her upcoming show in Dallas (March 28 at the Verizon Theatre). It isn’t. It’s her handler, Elizabeth, yelling over ear-piercing beeps in the background. They’re having “some sort of fire drill or…
More than a week after announcing that Rory Scovel would headline their annual Dallas Comedy Festival, the Dallas Comedy House announced that another big name in standup will take to their black painted stage. The Deep Ellum comedy club confirmed that Chelsea Peretti will perform two shows on their stage…
Get to know the people behind some of Dallas’ more interesting, unique, art-inspired local businesses. Know any good ones? Drop us a tip in the comments. Gretchen Bell didn’t always know what she wanted to do, but she sure as hell knew what she didn’t want. Shockingly enough, she liked…
“Over the weekend, I won my first air sex competition,” says Steven Walters, gleefully lighting a cigarette. “I even beat out a sexy pole dancer.” It’s a sunny Monday afternoon in February and I’m sitting next to Walters on a bench outside of Crooked Tree Coffeehouse in Uptown. The busy…
The basic question for Blue Roses is: Why? With a play as perfect as The Glass Menagerie, why mess with it at all? Why did anyone think turning it into a musical would work? Worse yet, why turn it into a bad musical, which is what’s playing at Irving’s Lyric…
Almost a pop history of Western culture’s relationship to female orgasm, Charlie Stratton’s In Secret is a spirited zip through Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, a sex-and-sin morality tale of the sort that has been the template for the last decade of Woody Allen dramas. Unlike those, In Secret boasts vigor and…
No matter what else he does, director Sam Raimi has two unassailable fan favorites under his belt: 1987’s Evil Dead 2, and the 1992 trilogy-capper Army of Darkness. (His first film, 1981’s The Evil Dead, is more “respected” than “loved” by the fans.) Released between those two films, Raimi’s 1990…
