Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell were trying to come up with an idea for a musical, one that would change the world, transform people’s lives and win Tonys. They sat around together trying to come up with ideas until they noticed that their conversations about their ideas were more interesting…
For Dylan Hollingsworth, the end of the beginning is another beginning–or something like that. Three years ago, the artist picked up a camera and, as they say, the rest is history. Documented history, that is. A three-year retrospective of Hollingsworth’s photography, The End of the Beginning (2007 – 2010), is…
Put a little jazz in your step at the 20th annual Denton Arts & Jazz Festival. There’s no “Austin wanna-be” about it, this free weekend festival is all Denton, from the sounds and sights to the flavor and jazz tradition that make up the city. Friday’s headliners include the Chick…
Everyone knows that the main reason to keep a rodent as a pet is to have fodder for cute or funny YouTube videos. Just take a look at “Hamster on a Piano” or “Dramatic Chipmunk”–being in the presence of rodents often leads to hilarity. And that’s why you should take…
There’s been some debate about whether William Shakespeare, as we think of him, really existed. The flesh-and-blood William Shakespeare lived and breathed, obviously, and was a playwright. But scholars have long argued whether one man could have produced such a varied, almost disparate, body of work. I can see their…
If you’re anything like the rest of the planet and can’t get enough of the DIY Network, HGTV and all the home remodeling shows on television (yes, even Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), stop by this year’s White Rock Home Tour from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday to see…
OK, so New Jersey gets a bad rap, and has for awhile now. It’s only gotten worse since the Jersey Shore kids have taken over America with their GTL (gym, tan, laundry) routine and fist-pumping dance moves. Also, watching Jersey Shore is bad for your eyes. Staring at the guidos’…
During the life of artist and musician Wesley Willis, many a pair of liberal white hands were wrung over the mindset of his audience. Did the hooting, hollering people in the crowds at his shows genuinely appreciate the efforts of this “outsider artist,” or were they abetting a twisted modern-day…
A raven is to a writing desk as a lobster is to Alice? Yup, you heard correctly. Absurd isn’t it? Ridiculous is more like it. Well, forget about the SAT analogies and let go of your normality for a while, because you’re late, you’re late for a very important date…
When you’re sick, it’s hard to get your act together enough to look good–the classic look is old pajamas and matted bed head. But sometimes, with a little help from friends, even a serious illness, like cancer, can’t stop you from shining. The Children’s Cancer Fund hosts the Beyond the…
The Dallas Arboretum’s gonna get crazy with an off-the-chain tea party this week. Holla! No picketing, just drinking actual tea and partying old-lady style. From 11 a.m to 2p.m. Thursday, come to The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party fundraising event hosted by the Women’s Council at the Arboretum, 8525 Garland Road…
Some people say they wish their lives were more like musicals. Well, those people should be happy because it seems like everything’s a musical these days. Ten years ago, who would have guessed that Monty Python would tackle Broadway as Spamalot, or that the cast of Evil Dead would sing…
You knew the old saying. You knew better than to watch. And still, you spent a year by your TV soaking up all the tea-bagging, name-calling and spin as you watched the new health-care law being made. Maybe they were wrong this whole time–maybe you like watching the law get…
Ahh, film parodies–they don’t make them how they use to. Sure, Scary Movie got a few giggles out of us, but you lost us after 2, 3, and 4. And now you have the whole thing going on where the people behind the film are too lazy to even come…
This show has been canceled. Aisha Tyler is smart. She is also knockout-gorgeous and tall, and she even knows how to do all that makeup, hair and clothes stuff really well. And she is funny–really funny. The actress and comedian is also an activist, a feminist, a writer and an…
The English language is full of peculiar words–just ask anyone who’s studied for the GRE or LSAT. Here’s one of recent discovery: dramaturg. The definition is as unconventional as the word itself. It’s a person in the theater whose responsibilities range from casting a play and assisting the director to…
The Eclipse: The Eclipse is a curious Irish ghost story that fiddles with the recipe just enough to produce interesting results. Solidly built and middle-aged, Michael Farr (Ciarán Hinds) isn’t the kind of vulnerable-looking nightgown-clencher usually cast to jump at bumps in the night. Working for a literary festival in…
The Joneses: For a while, at least, a pitch-black tale of our times: Four business partners masquerading as a happy family move into suburbia and sell their friends and neighbors on their early-adopter, newer-than-brand-new layaway lifestyle. David Duchovny, Demi Moore, Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth are the client-sponsored grifters; they…
The Perfect Game: Director William Dear now appears to be your go-to guy for forgettable, family-friendly baseball flicks. Following his Angels in the Outfield and The Sandlot: Heading Home is this Downy-soft, by-the-numbers biopic with Christian undertones about nine poor kids from Monterrey, Mexico, who became the first non-U.S. team…
The Secret of Kells: Brendan (voiced by Evan McGuire) is a medieval boy monk who dreams of illuminating sacred books. The carrot-topped lad possesses more imaginative brio than can be contained by the cloistered life he leads under the sternly overprotective eye of his disillusioned uncle, the Abbott (Brendan Gleeson),…
Vincere: According to Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere, Mussolini was nearly as much of a bully in the bedroom as he was in office. Il Duce would eventually get busy with the Pope, but in the mid-1910s, he screwed—and screwed over—one Ida Dalser, who becomes this epic melodrama’s nobly suffering Jeanne d’Arc…
The pretty girl gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop in reasons to be pretty, the third and last installment in Dallas Theater Center’s ongoing trilogy of Neil LaBute’s Beauty Plays. In the first two—The Shape of Things and Fat Pig—the good-lookers have all the power. But in pretty, directed…
