A tight, quippy, gay-centric stage comedy like Chad Beguelin’s Harbor fits snugly at Uptown Players, where the 2012 play is getting its regional premiere in Kalita Humphreys Theater. Director Coy Covington has cast four actors so good they clearly outclass the so-so script. Uptown leading man Kevin Moore plays Kevin,…
Unless you’re a diehard George Bernard Shaw fanatic (and if you are, keep it to yourself), there’s little to recommend in WingSpan Theatre’s current Dear Liar at the Bath House. It’s a creaky old thing by the late Jerome Kilty, who wrote the play in the 1950s and got it…
Ask comedian Sebastian Maniscalco what he’s currently stressing over, and he doesn’t hesitate – home remodeling. Specifically his. “We have the contractors, and trying to figure out what tile to pick out,” he says. “People out there they can’t get work and they’re hungry and in the grand scheme of…
The future of theater in Dallas should be what The Drama Club is doing with Faust. This all-local consortium of disgustingly talented writers, actors, directors and designers has created a fresh and contemporary version of the old Goethe tale (with shades of Christopher Marlowe) of a doctor who sells his…
There never was a Jack the Ripper, you know. Between 1888 and 1891 in London’s Whitechapel, 18 women were killed by sharp instruments. Some victims were prostitutes. Five were thought to have been murdered by the same person. He, or she, was never found, never brought to justice. Suspects…
When a musical bills itself as scary, it’s natural to be a little dubious. Unless what scares you are chorus girls or people who sporadically break into song and dance — which, granted, can sometimes be pretty horrifying — the odds of a staged musical sending a shiver down your…
The horror. The horror of following more people on Instagram than you have followers is something unique to Millennials. The disappointment. The disappointment of feeling like a failure because you’re 30 and not famous yet. These ideas and themes are explored in the House Party Theatre play #basic. The play…
In The Mountaintop, the provocative one-act about Martin Luther King Jr., now playing in the sixth-floor studio at the Wyly Theatre, we learn that the revered civil rights leader smoked Pall Malls on the sly and had smelly feet. He also had a thing for hot coffee and a wandering…
Travel now back to the 5th century B.C., to the Theatre of Dionysus in ancient Greece. In the shadow of the Parthenon, a couple strolls out of opening night of a new satirical comedy (with satyrs) by early Greek playwright Aristophanes. Scowling, the woman turns to her date and says,…
Don’t let the title fool you. Fix Me, Jesus, the new play by Helen Sneed that just got its premiere at Theatre Three, isn’t about religion. Not unless you put your faith in shopping as an answer to prayer and think of the NorthPark Center Neiman Marcus as the Vatican…
Saffron Herndon and her dad, Steve, are at Uncle Uber’s right next to Dallas Comedy House in Deep Ellum on a Saturday afternoon. The 10-year-old approaches me and shakes my hand. We immediately begin discussing music, including the band The Cure. I embarrassingly tell her I’m unfamiliar with them. “You’re…
The message of Matilda the Musical is that words have power. How awful then that at the London-to-Broadway-to-national-tour production that opened Thursday night at the Winspear Opera House the audience was powerless to understand most of the words coming off the stage. It’s not a microphone issue; they actors are…
Imagine a world in which the actors are the greatest rebels and theater is contraband. This is the world of Meg Miroshink’s new play, The Droll (Or, a Stage Play about the END of Theatre), which has its world premiere at Undermain Theatre Saturday. Inpspired by the Puritan Interregnum in…
Bill Burr’s has a career worth bragging about. He’s more than just a very funny and clever stand-up comedian with a legion of dedicated fans who pack houses like The Majestic Theatre, which they will do tonight when he steps out on the stage at 8 p.m. He has released…
When talking about Dry Land, director Sarah Hamilton explains, “It’s not necessarily an abortion play, but it’s clear from the first scene that an abortion is going to happen.” The latest show from Upstart Productions, which opens Friday night in a cavernous warehouse space near Trinity Groves, is a female…
This is your bat signal. If, like me, you need rescuing from the dumbed-down high-dollar hillbilly hogwash passing itself off as an important “world premiere” right now at that shiny Arts District venue, then The Adventures of Flo and Greg at the humble Bath House Cultural Center is here to…
If Moonshine:That Hee Haw Musical is redundant, predictable and precariously sexist, the audience doesn’t seem to mind. Taking its title from the long-running variety television show, it’s roughly five minutes into the story that the ending becomes clear and five minutes after that when the heroine looks more like a…
Consider Dracula––really consider him. Despite what commerce and fandom suggest, the story of Dracula (any vampire, really) is hinged on emotional intelligence and moral complexity. To put a finer point on it, the reader or viewer is forced to confront certain issues in ways that challenge the accepted moral and…
Not much dialogue, but wow, what sizzling drama in Matthew Posey’s latest play, Buñuel Descending, which enjoyed a short sold-out run at Ochre House. A revival is a must, the sooner the better for this sexy one-act that let music and flamenco dance take the place of words. This is…
Pause now to consider The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter. The 1957 one-act opens the 25th season for Kitchen Dog Theater, now working in its new (temporary) home at The Green Zone on the edge of the Design District. The smaller theater is an awkward fit for a company used…
There was some yelling but nobody got punched at this year’s DFW Theater Critics Forum luncheon. Nobody left angry either, which might be a first. Every September the print and online theater critics of Dallas and Fort Worth eat chicken and brownies together and hash over the previous year’s productions…
Last June, Claire Wilcher of Indianapolis, Indiana started a trip that most people only get to talk about taking in their lifetime. She quit her job, packed up her stuff and threw into a renovated RV for a 23-city trip that will take her to major cities across the country…
