Standing on stage recently at the Amsterdam Comedy Festival at a flat 4 feet tall and only 57 pounds, it’s no wonder this up-and-coming DFW comic is called the “next little thing.” She started her set by letting the audience know that she’s written everything she’s about to say. “If…
Sweet as a bushel of sugar cookies, light as a snowflake, ‘Twas the Night before Christmas is safe family fare on the big stage at Dallas Children’s Theater. The play-with-music pretends to tell the back story of how 19th century American journalist Clement C. Moore came up with that poem,…
Dead White Zombies’ latest, Bull Game, written and directed by Thomas Riccio, promises more than it delivers. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe not. Staged in a drafty warehouse in the new Trinity Groves hipsterhood west of the Trinity River, the show is an overstretched metaphor about the American obsession with…
Enough with the feelgood shows of the season. Bring on the feel-bad entertainment! If you’re feelin’ Scrooge-y and would rather throttle Tiny Tim than sit through another Christmas Carol, here are five alternatives amid the blizzard of holiday fare. Race, Kitchen Dog Theater, through December 14. David Mamet’s tight little…
That battle for comedy dominance known as the Funniest Comic in Texas is about to get under way and the tributes have received their invitation to join the games. OK, so the annual comedy contest doesn’t have the excitement of a futuristic reality show in which teenagers slaughter each other…
David Mamet writes great arguments. He is, arguably, the current American theater master at constructing conflict among smart characters driven by greed, anger or envy. Mamet’s best plays — Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo, Speed-The-Plow — are built around tense back-and-forth verbal battles among vicious, ambitious, often desperate men. And…
The Movember Comedy Show this Sunday at Hyena’s in Dallas is part of November’s mustache-loving fight against cancer. Members of Movember team Dallas Comedy are banding together to grow creepy mustaches and perform some stand up to put money where it’s needed — to fight prostate and testicular cancers and…
Nick Offerman likes red meat. This much is clear. The lines between him and the comic creation Ron Swanson, one of the most consistently funny sitcom characters ever made, are distinctly blurred. Both are huge fans of woodworking. Both enjoy self-sufficiency. Both would rather there were less government encroachment into…
Before you fill up on turkey and stuffing and can’t move your extremities, come out to The Amsterdam Comedy Festival for three kick-ass days of laughs from some of DFW’s best comedians. It’s all free, so don’t worry about wrecking your pie budget. The shows are November 22-24 at The…
On Saturday nights for a couple hours, the good old days still exist on National Public Radio. For nearly 30 years, Garrison Keillor’s old-fashioned variety show A Prairie Home Companion has transported its listeners to a simpler time with musical performances from American folk musicians, celebrity guests from the literary…
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…
The two-time Tony-winning musical that’s kept Broadway rooms booked since its 2012 release is coming to Dallas. It was just announced that Newsies will have a two-week special engagement run at the Winspear Opera House, anchoring the 2014-2015 Lexus Broadway Series. Details on tickets and dates haven’t yet been announced…
Playwright Dennis Richard leaves it up to the audience to argue conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination. His play, Oswald: The Actual Interrogation, onstage in its regional premiere at Casa Manana Fort Worth November 9-17, just sticks to the facts. Or as many as Richard could find about the hours…
Maxine is a well-to-do old widow living out her last days in a nice nursing home. Or is she dying a little sooner than she should be? She thinks so. Maxine believes her demise is being hastened by her inheritance-hungry daughter, who’s in cahoots with the Haitian nurse, Tina. Deadline…
“Do you really cut into someone’s arm during the show?” Dallas-based playwright and performer Brad McEntire hears this question after almost every performance of his kinky solo show Chop. “An uncomfortable number of times, actually,” he says. Since premiering at WaterTower Theatre’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival in 2010,…
When Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette pair up for their weekly podcast “Uhh, Yeah Dude,” they morph into twinspeak, dissecting American culture’s warbling state through the lens of modern men. It’s a topical kaleidoscope, ripped from the recesses of magazines, newspapers, television, science reports or just all-around living. What keeps…
We’re lucky that some of the great American dramas have graced Dallas stages in recent seasons. To Kill a Mockingbird, Inherit the Wind and The Grapes of Wrath all feature leading characters with a conscience, and they explore with great literary style important themes about justice and enlightenment of the…
On these Monday nights, the Hamon Hall turns into a safe place for revealing intimate details and sharing heartwarming or gut-wrenching stories.
The state of Missouri is No. 1 in crystal meth lab accidents. According to comedian and Missouri native Kathleen Madigan (who dares you to Google the stat), it’s basically an affront to the Missouri school system. They just can’t teach science. Rednecks plus chemistry equals a disaster. She would give…
Last night two of our number saw the frankly magnificent Dylan Moran swoop through Dallas. A lot of his set is a stream of consciousness, and so being in Texas, he had some typically European thoughts, served with a dash of surrealism, about our state that we thought were worth…
Master Pancake is an Austin staple, run by former Jeopardy champion, host of KO-OP radio’s Elk Mating Ritual and all-around Chill Dude John Erler. He and his revolving clutch of film mockers occupy the Alamo Drafthouse’s front row to riff on popular movies. They even break the things apart, halting…
Comedian Dylan Moran is a freewheeling delight to behold in person. A veteran of the comic circuit (as he admits, as part of a fantasy sequence, he’d really like to have a job, he’s just never had a real one), he doesn’t seem to have a plan as such. Sure,…
