It’s not the end of the world if your dinner party is a bust. Or is it? In the smart new comedy Barbecue Apocalypse by Matt Lyle, a big city husband and wife struggle with adulthood. “We are in our 30s and have movie posters thumb-tacked to the walls!” wails…
The staging of Booth, the world premiere drama by Dallas actor-writer-director Steven Walters at his Second Thought Theatre, is small. Just 60 seats in Bryant Hall. The main acting space is about 12-feet-by-12 of wooden planks. But the scope of this historical tragedy is huge, covering events leading up to…
I should open this blog post with a caveat. These are the 10 best theater companies in town that aren’t the Dallas Theater Center. The budget of the Dallas Theater Center sweeps it out of the competition. It’s our local member of the League of Resident Theaters (LORT), which implies,…
Boston native Bill Burr may sound bothered and on the constant edge of a nervous breakdown on stage but he has a weird, almost Zen-like attitude toward his aspirations, or as close to Zen as most clinically depressed comics can achieve. While comics may dream of getting their own self-titled…
Something’s been missing from the past few years of the Festival of Independent Theaters. It’s been difficult to pinpoint exactly what was missing and the upbeat festival organizers aren’t ones to complain. But it seemed from the outside that must have been a lack of truly engaging submissions. Of course,…
Each year, season subscribers to The Dallas Opera get a chance to vote on their favorite of all the singers who debuted with the company during the previous season. Votes are tallied and the winner receives the “Maria Callas Debut Artist of the Year” award. This year’s award-winner was no…
The eternal swan. That might a better name for the ballet we love to hate. OK, so maybe hate is too strong a word, but more often than not, when we dance writers see Swan Lake on the bill for a company’s season — it’s being performed by the Texas…
When Booth opens at Second Thought Theatre this Friday, it will be the product of many years of friendship and work by co-creators Steven Walters and Erik Archilla. The pair met as freshman at Baylor University and have sporadically worked on the political thriller about John Wilkes Booth since they…
Doomsday forecasters have offered plenty of scenarios in recent years, but Kitchen Dog Theater’s upcoming production of Barbecue Apocalypse promises to be a funnier account of the end of times than any you’ve likely heard. The play opens Friday and serves as the centerpiece of the theater’s New Works Festival…
Have you ever noticed how funny drunk people are? Danny O’Connor has. In fact, he’s turned it into an entire solo show. Bouncing Ugly chronicles his time as a bouncer at New York City’s infamous club Coyote Ugly. His stories about the bar patron’s revelry and drunkenness elicited ews, aws,…
Remember how the election of Barack Obama was supposed to define the era of “post-racial” America? That lasted about a minute. Then out they came, the ravening racists. Liberated at last, they no longer felt constrained about expressing their abhorrent views in public. That includes those in public office. Remember…
Are you ready for some kick-ass theatre? Brad McEntire is ready to give it to you, if you think you can handle it. Opening Thursday and running until May 25, the Dallas Solo Fest, under McEntire’s helm, is packed full of entertainment to take you out of your weekend rut…
Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s annual Spring Celebration Performance and Gala is coming around this weekend. Taking the stage at the Winspear Opera House, DBDT will be commemorating the end of their 2013-2014 season and ushering in the end of an era. For the two performances are not just a way…
If you were looking for Tina Parker last month, she was hiding in a dark corner booth somewhere, slurping whiskey mixed with energy drinks, wading through 400 full-length play submissions. Her friends are used to her annual month-long absence though, because this is year 16 for Kitchen Dog Theater’s New…
Fort Worth Opera’s 2014 festival wraps up this weekend with finale performances of two contemporary American operas and a classic comedy by Mozart. There’s a lot of room for diversity within the operatic genre and this year’s FWO festival has celebrated the wide range of musical and dramatic styles opera…
North Texas is springing up with creative dance companies full of talented artists looking to expand their skills beyond their graduate studies and carry college projects through to workable careers in the metroplex. Meaning for you: there are a plethora of interesting physically creative shows happening nearby. For instance, Big…
Who’s your favorite Sherlock Holmes? Sexy-arrogant Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC’s fast-paced modern-day version of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories? Muscular Robert Downey Jr. in the action-packed big-budget feature films? The most elegantly droll was British actor Jeremy Brett in the long-running series on PBS years ago. The facial profile…
No actor in a five-state area says “Go fuck yourself!” better than Dallas actor Terry Vandivort says it in Nicky Silver’s The Lyons, now playing at Uptown Players at Kalita Humphreys Theater. Vandivort plays Ben Lyons, an angry old cuss who knows he’s dying. From his Manhattan hospital bed, he…
In Game of Thrones, the ominous line “winter is coming” would be far more terrifying for a Dallas resident if it said “summer is coming.” With the arrival of May, the mercury is rising, as the temperatures swiftly approach triple digits. Lucky for us, even when our cars run out…
Nearly four years have passed since the Mark Morris Dance Group last came to Dallas, and upon their much-anticipated return, I wonder what this nearly 40-year old institution has up its sleeve? If you ask Morris, like I did recently, you’ll get this response: “I hope you like it.” Chances…
Dallas has a new dance company on its hands. Well, maybe not “new,” as it is in its second full season in Dallas, but you might not have heard of them yet. And that’s because they were first based in South Korea (and still have a branch there). I’m talking…
Steven Michael Quezada hears some form of the following statement just about every time he goes out on the road: “I’m kind of surprised that you’re a stand-up.” I learned that because that’s the simple-minded, poorly worded statement I used to open our 30-minute conversation. He doesn’t seem to mind…
