If you pitched me a musical theater revue in the end times that weaves obscure show tunes with original music, I’d spit my burnt coffee in your face. But we’re talking about you, not Taylor Mac and Mandy Patinkin. Those two could spill a jar of toothpicks and spend two…
If you’ve ever considered yourself a “theater person” or the type of human who enjoys a good performance, then run don’t walk to the Eisemann Center this weekend. Mandy Patinkin (you know, Evita… or Princess Bride… or “Homeland”…) is joined onstage by the endlessly likable Taylor Mac in The Last…
The Dallas Chamber Symphony is coming to the end of its season; Tuesday they performed Bumpin’ Into Broadway at the Dallas City Performance Hall, the fourth of 5 concerts that comprise this season’s offerings. It was a cold and rainy evening, but the concert was a near sell-out. The performances…
On Valentine’s Day, if you were wandering the streets of Deep Ellum, it’s possible you saw a woman plucking at a typewriter outside Twilite Lounge. A closer look would’ve told you that this woman was writing poems by request for total strangers. Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi has been setting up her…
This year Dallas theaters are in love with Shakespeare’s suicidal teenagers. Get ready for half a dozen productions of Romeo and Juliet, including big ones at Shakespeare Dallas and Dallas Theater Center. Plano’s Fun House Theatre and Film is doing a small one, but it’s lovely, with heartfelt performances by…
American Sniper notwithstanding, the first fresh multiplex trend to emerge in 2015 is Old White Dudes Learning How to Share Their World. First came Kevin Costner in the sour Black or White, playing a coot who discovers that black folks love their kids, too, even in South Los Angeles. Who…
It seems as if, for every 10 issue-oriented documentaries that essentially function as long-form magazine articles with images attached, we get perhaps one doc that exemplifies the methods of “direct cinema” — the observational mode of documentary filmmaking that allows audiences to observe from a detached remove. That mode is…
Here at last is peak Kendrick: In intimate long takes and in comic montage, she belts, hurts, swoons, and rages, always remaining appealingly human. You can tell, when Anna Kendrick scraps for her big notes, that she’s not a natural, that she’s working hard, that she’s living a dream. All…
Five years ago, four losers passed out in a jacuzzi, boiled back to 1986, healed their past wounds, rocked out to Poison, and returned to their timeline as gods. Thusly, Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink was hailed as a minor deity: He’d taken a dumber-than-huffing-hairspray premise and made…
Shove off, John Hughes. The DUFF, a high school comedy by Ari Sandel, opens by declaring that The Breakfast Club’s social categories are, like, way passé. Explains lead Bianca (Mae Whitman), “Jocks play video games, princesses are on antidepressants, and geeks rule the world.” Today, be ye goth kid, science…
Mary Helen Specht’s debut novel, Migratory Animals, is a story of friendships that stretch into adulthood. She writes elegantly of the heartbreak of drifting away from the people you care about, and about fear and loss. She builds recognizable characters and sends them on separate journeys, all the while weaving…
Imagine a society that’s run by computers where older people are deemed unfit for existence and shuffled away from the public’s eyes and conscience. Bummer, huh? OK then, dummy, stop watching the damn news and head out to Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.). At 8 p.m. Saturday the Oak…
The traditional American New Years has come and gone, but if yours was a total flop, you have a chance to make up for it. The Chinese New Year is upon us and it’s the Year of the Ram. To celebrate this old tradition, Flora and Harwood streets will be…
We are 25 years removed from 1990, which means it’s officially time to host ’90s- themed parties. And luckily for you, Kitchen Dog Theater is throwing Hooch and Pooch 2015: Glow, a ’90s-style rave. There will be all rave things there: alcohol, dancing, black lights and even a silent auction…
Dallas-based comedian Paul Varghese has been a bright spot on the local comic map for some time now. It would be easy to overlook him when so many so-called Big Names come to town regularly if he wasn’t so damn hilarious. Indeed, he’s made a name for himself outside of…
“Comedy king of Twitter” isn’t exactly the most regal title ever created. It’s up there with Queen of the Trailer Park or the Earl of the Fry Vat. In the case of comedian Rob Delaney, thought, it’s actually quite a compliment. If you can be ridiculously funny in 140 characters…
The fans of the Canadian comedy trio the Trailer Park Boys are more than just fans. Ricky, Julian and Bubbles aren’t just characters on a TV screen, they’re like family — if that family includes three three dope-peddling dimwits who steal things out of parked cars to make a living,…
Ever feel like your voice just isn’t being heard? Like in that last election when a bunch of cringe-inducing nutbags got elected to run all the things? Or when you spent the night texting Dancing with the Stars and they still crowned that played-out Fresh Prince dude over your Duck…
Kinky Boots is a Tony-winning Broadway musical with book by Harvey Fierstein, that raspy-voiced effer whose writing in all gold, baby, gold, and score by Cyndi Lauper, which is like double gold. Top it off with the story of the unlikely friendship between Charlie Price, a struggling shoe factory owner,…
References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot is a play that’s every bit as surreal as its title would have you believe: Melting clocks are in short supply, but the talking moon and scandalous relationship between a kitty and a coyote more than make up for that. They also make…
A classic and searing Nina Simone song from 1964 summed up the civil rights struggles in the Deep South pretty succinctly: “Alabama’s got me so upset, Tennessee’s made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi, goddamn.” Local playwright Jonathan Norton riffs on Simone’s indictment of the state in…
Empire most certainly wasn’t built in a day, but its reputation as a breakout hit has been made in virtually no time at all. Since the series debuted six weeks ago, every episode has drawn more viewers than the one before it. Buoyed by positive reviews and especially word of…
