The Best Man Holiday Brings Back the Black Ensemble Comedy

From the mid-1990s to somewhere around 2006, Hollywood bankrolled a number of romantic entertainments targeted to — though not made exclusively for — black audiences. Pictures like Love Jones, Brown Sugar, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Something New provided a showcase for actors of color, a refreshing change…

Grilling JFK’s Killer

Nobody wrote down what Lee Harvey Oswald said during the many hours he sat under interrogation in the office of Dallas police Captain Will Fritz on November 22, 23 and 24, 1963. Nobody turned on a tape recorder or called in a stenographer. So most of what playwright Dennis Richard…

Kill Your Darlings Misses the Beat

How is it that no one had yet made the Lucien Carr-David Kammerer murder story into a movie? It’s an irresistible tall tale from the Beat back catalog — how, once upon a time in the mid-’40s, the finger-snapping legends-to-be (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs) all coalesced around the radiant rebel Carr…

Dear Mrs. Kennedy …

This has certainly been the Year of the Kennedy with all the hullabaloo over the anniversary of the JFK assassination. Amidst all the talk about conspiracies and the City of Hate and what this all means for America, there’s been little discussion about other people more intimately affected by the…

Art Versus Auction

Competition can be a wonderful thing, if properly applied. Bring together bragging rights with a good cause and you’ve got a winning combination. Artist vs. Architect isn’t a typical fundraising auction. A panel of experts in the fields select emerging and known local artists and architects of standout talent, then…

Get Drunk. Learn Things.

The DMA’s monthly Late Night series is more than just a free date night, it’s a fascinating exploration of local talents — so cheers to the Dallas Museum of Art (1717 N. Harwoood St.) for bolstering the emerging folks doing good work, right now. This month’s edition is all things…

War Is Hell, Angel

For the last three years, area film lovers have found a second home in the Texas Theatre. While it entered history books thanks to Lee Harvey Oswald, it’s made its way into our hearts by screening repertory and independent films in a movie-house setting. So it’s fitting that the theater’s…

Burlesque, Shaken and Stirred

Bond girls are universally recognized as some of the hottest chicks on the planet. If we had to take bets, it’s likely that the only ladies who could give them a proper run for their money would be the stunning gals of the burlesque circuit. So the brilliant minds of…

I-69? Repeat: I-69?

If “It’s Raining Men” is running through your head, there’s a good reason. It’s the third Saturday of the month, which means it’s time for GAYBINGO at S4 (3911 Cedar Springs Road)!!! It’s the last Gaybingo of the year — even queens gotta reset — and the theme is “Happy…

Ron. Effing. Swanson.

What do you suppose an evening with Nick Offerman consists of? Hand-sharpening straight razors, then fine-tuning our collective facial-hair growth? Possibly. Sipping scotch while minimally discussing ex-wives? Could be. “Building a Respectable Table: A Tutorial”? Also a feasible option. What we do know is that Offerman is at House of…

Nerding Out With Guy Noir

Garrison Keillor’s longevity is an interesting play. Broadcasting live from St. Paul for nearly 40 years, his throwback production honors that relatable, wholesome, oh-so-NPR Middle-Americana. But what’s kept him fascinating is the peculiar subversive undercurrent seeping up between the Powdermilk Biscuits commercials. Keillor isn’t as spit-shined as the Lake Wobegon…

Sheesh, What A Show-Off

He’s played with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Edited and posthumously released Charles Mingus’ final work, Epitaph. He won the freaking Pulitzer Prize for Of Reminiscences and Reflections, is a celebrated author and even snatched up the 1991 MacArthur Foundation Genius Award — the last of those due solely to…

Put A Bird On It

The holidays are almost here and if you really love someone, you spend a lot of money on them. And if you really, really love them, you make a homemade gift. Trouble is, according to a Gallup poll, most Americans have no discernible gift-making skills. True story. Hey, we can’t…

My Family Arrived On DART

Conservative talk show hosts like to pretend that “true” Americans just magically appeared on these great lands one day, inhabiting the 50 states via divine providence and transporter technology. It’s a fun little hallucination, but there’s no escaping the fact that we all came here from somewhere else in some…

Embrace Your Bearded Lady

Sometimes all of life seems like a circus. One minute, you’re taming proverbial lions; the next, you’re playing the role of World’s Strongest Man. Seems there’s never enough time for clowning around, though, which is why it never hurts to let a little spectacle take a load off. The Circus…

I Love You, But I’ve Chosen Keaton

Attention comedians of 2013: I’m not interested in that crazy sexual anecdote you just tweeted. I don’t want your Vine. Also, I won’t download your podcast. My comedic demands are simple and finite: Be as funny as Buster Keaton. Whether he’s riding a horse backward into a lake or diving…

Living in the Past

In 1976, Pilot Grove Church, then 75 years old, disused since 1938 and badly in need of repair, was picked up from its foundation and moved from southeast of Sherman to Dallas’ Old City Park, where the Dallas County Heritage Society restored it. Hauling a wooden clapboard building nearly 60…

Black and White and Played All Over

The term “post-racial” is a surprisingly popular one these days, and one that also seems to be pretty undefined. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about race. From now until mid-December the Kitchen Dog Theater, 3120 McKinney Ave, will perform Race, one of the newest plays by David Mamet,…