Arrested Development Season 4 starts Sunday. Prepare for extreme leisure, Dallas. The next four days are filled with drag queens, water balloon battles, brewery celebrations, rotten tomato chucking and top secret art shows. Send out the group text and make a plan. And click on the event titles for more…
Every week we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Jon Reep at Hyena’s in Fort Worth North Carolina native Jon Reep has been on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and the half-hour special Comedy Central Presents: Jon Reep. On…
High camp: Mae West in a feather boa in She Done Him Wrong. Low camp: Jamie Farr in a dowdy dress on M*A*S*H. Camp adjacent: Every cock in a frock in the mock campy Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Musical, whose national tour is now at the Dallas Summer…
The unlikeliest of all the Hangover trilogy’s comic implausibilities might be its four pampered, rich-boy leads unironically calling themselves the “Wolf Pack” without anyone ever making fun of them. In the slobs-versus-snobs comedies of the 1970s and ’80s, the snooty rich kids were always the antagonists, bullying the nerds and…
There are times during the affecting tumult of What Maisie Knew when you may think, “At last, a first-rate American movie about what being a kid actually feels like!” And then there are times when, despite the scrupulousness of co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s adherence to the perspective of…
If you like bidding on things, you’re going to want to grab a pen and paper and scribble down the words Noche de Rumba. It’s a date auction for one evening only and it’s in the Rose Room at S4. Surprise! Last year’s event was such a huge success, they…
Are you sitting down for this? I hope so. There’s a burlesque studio in Plano! The town with the great debate — to hard liquor or not to hard liquor — is teaching ladies to dance not-quite-topless. Well, as with any time you dance it out, things get broken …..
If you find yourself wanting more from your pageant viewing, we have the answer. If you find the interview portion of generic pageants little more than inane comments on foreign affairs, stop searching. If you need more talent — dare we say, talent with a capital MISS T — then…
More and more open-mic comedy nights are popping up in unexpected places around town, like The Amsterdam Bar and the Texas Theatre. Joker’s Wild started last fall in the Voodoo Room at House of Blues (2200 N. Lamar St.), and has now become a monthly gig for Dallas comedians, hosted…
Let’s just get it out of the way now: There are some things a man will never live down, and one of those things would be a dozen-yearlong career playing an endearingly annoying nerd named Samuel “Screech” Powers. Yeah, we’re looking at you, Dustin Diamond. And we’ll be looking even…
As our calendars creep closer and closer to summer in North Texas, it’s time to adjust our activities accordingly. The outside becomes a distant memory as the dang mercury begins its ascent. So while it may be too late to (comfortably) go camping, it’s never too hot for high camp,…
Summer is taunting us, with its beady eyes peeking around every corner, so to relish these final fleeting days of spring, the Texas Ballet Theater offers up amazing dance performances as part of SpringFest. Slated for the final weekend of the TBT festival is a can’t-miss double feature at the…
Apocalyptic drumbeats and blazing brass are quickly followed by the hushed, pulsing chants of a choir as Carl Orff’s darkly seductive masterpiece begins. The opening notes of Carmina Burana, performed live by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on Saturday, are an instantly recognizable and menacing soundtrack. You’ve heard its…
There was a time when being a royal male meant more than helping to camouflage a baby bump or dodging zoom lenses on exotic Grecian islands. Not many years ago, being royalty meant being a proper diplomat, strategizing with heads of state and spending every spare moment attempting to wrangle…
This weekend, the DFW International Community Alliance brings more than 85 nations and cultures together to wave their flags as part of the second annual Dallas International Festival. Relocating to Centennial Hall at Fair Park (1300 Robert B. Cullum Blvd.), the family-friendly fest will feature three stages of global music…
Dallas has two excellent plays about power failures currently running: Dallas Theater Center’s colorful, charming Fly By Night, and the Jeffrey Schmidt-directed Enron, over at Theatre Three (2800 Routh St.). The latter takes us all the way back to 2001, when it was revealed the Houston-based energy giant had made…
Tomatoes are all kinds of awesome. The magical fruit, which mistakenly poses as a vegetable from time to time, comes in as many varieties as it has uses. But there’s one hard and fast rule with the almighty tomato: Overripe ones are disgusting. So, what’s one to do with old,…
Podiums are boring. A sculpture deserves a befitting platform, and while a rectangular box painted gallery white with a matte finish might be appropriate for formal work, pieces that veer toward the avant garde deserve something special. Or so believes fabric artist Chesley Williams, whose new show Consciousness Couture is…
If drafting up a list of things that feel lucky, you’d have to include the following: A day off from the rat race. Getting to choose from a wide variety of awesome food that comes from a festival of mobilerants (aka food trucks). Bounce houses and pony rides, hello. All…
Did you know Deepak Chopra gave spiritual advice to 50 Cent? Why that relationship was never turned into a reality show is an unsolvable riddle, but he taught Curtis Jackson how to meditate by giving him the mantra “I am.” Chopra’s status as a celebrity advisor might often overshadow the…
Dallas Theater Center’s recent production of Neil Simon’s 1965 play The Odd Couple, which focuses on the dynamic between neat freak Felix Unger and his slob roommate Oscar Madison, showed how timeless the story is. However, Pocket Sandwich Theatre (5400 E. Mockingbird Lane) thought it was time for an update,…
Dallas started gearing up for the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination a year ago, and it will be interesting to see how much revision and hand-wringing goes into November’s “festivities.” On a more interesting note, the Dallas Museum of Art (1717 N. Harwood St.) is presenting Hotel Texas:…
