If you’d never seen a river portrayed on stage by actors holding long swaths of silky blue cloth, waving them up and down to make the “water” ripple, then the images evoked in The Magic Rainforest, An Amazon Journey would seem, well, magical. But unless you’re 8 — about minimum…
“It’s always been my dad’s dream to do something with the theater,” Katy McBride Reynolds says of her father, Glen McBride, part owner of Denton Fine Arts Theater. “I mean, obviously, he’s held onto it for this long. We’ve had offers from companies, individuals over the years that want to…
When the weather gets hot and sticky, schools start to close, and we all mentally check out and start dreaming of beers and beaches and sleeping until noon. But dancers never stop. The beginning of June marks the end of many companies’ spring seasons and the start of professional training…
Last year at Austin’s experimental theater festival, Fusebox, the Rude Mechs workshopped a little show about wealth, societal expectations, and greed. It was two parts Pygmalion, one part musical, a little bit tap show and a whole lot of theatrics. This troupe of theater provocateurs would go on to premiere…
In 2012, CBS canceled Rob Schneider’s self-titled sitcom ¡Rob!. Rather than wait for another network to give him a shot at his own show, he decided to give himself one instead. “We averaged 11 million viewers and the premiere had 13.5 million viewers and it wasn’t enough for them,” Schneider…
Friend. Brilliant choreographer. Tenacious. Humorous. A fighter. Stubborn. Advocate for dance. Committed. Collaborator. There are not words to adequately and appropriately describe the man who helped to usher in this new era of dance in Dallas. Bruce Wood was a tidal force in the city’s culture, a man born to…
Chances are that your high school prom was so full of sadness and regret that it still comes up in dreams brought on by alcoholic blackouts and crying therapy sessions that can drive up the stock price for Kleenex. The Dallas Comedy House offers a chance to replace that memory…
Bruce Wood, founder of Bruce Wood Dance Project and perhaps one of the areas most esteemed choreographers and advocates for the Dallas dance scene, has died of complications from pneumonia and heart failure. He was 53. His death was extremely unexpected. I just saw Bruce a couple of weeks ago…
Closing out their first year as a company, Pedestrian Dance Movement will be moving into the Courtyard Theater in Plano for two shows of their original production, Acceptance. Pedestrian Dance Movement is a contemporary dance company based in Dallas with the mission to connect with audiences by bringing a human-like…
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…
