“It’s not easy having a good time,” moans Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the glam-rock, cross-dressing mad scientist diva of The Rocky Horror Show. So true. Seeing three different productions of this rock ‘n’ roll musical on the same weekend offers a dizzying, exhausting six-hour hop through the good-time warp of kitschy-goth costumes,…
The time is 1950. The place is the St. George’s Park Tea Room in Port Elizabeth, the Detroit of South Africa. On a rainy afternoon free of customers, the tiny café’s black employees, Sam and Willie, kill time practicing choreography for an annual ballroom dancing contest. Willie, the younger of…
For the creators of The Road to Qatar, the giddy little musical getting its world premiere at Irving’s Lyric Stage, a real-life deal to write a made-to-order spectacular for a Middle Eastern emir turned out not to be such a big break. Instead, it was more of a sheik-down. So…
Not until the second act of the musical Grey Gardens, now playing in a rather splendid production at WaterTower Theatre, do we see the Edith Bouvier Beales whom we know from the Maysles brothers’ 1975 documentary. The images we have of Big and Little Edie, as they were known, are…
Those high school misfits who sing and dance their way to higher self-esteem in the new TV series Glee could be the older siblings of the six middle-school oddballs who compete for the trophy in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Now playing in a B-plus production at Theatre…
Enjoy a tasty plot twist in your drama? With Mauritius, running one more weekend in a crisp little production by Echo Theatre at the Bath House, playwright Theresa Rebeck serves up a two-act mystery so yummy you could eat it for dinner. Check out her recipe for suspense: Problem: Jackie…
Funny Girl, now running at Irving’s Lyric Stage, is Broadway’s great musical comedy Cinderella story. Up from the ash heap of cheap vaudeville arises a gawky nobody, comedian Fanny Brice. She sings and clowns her way into the glossy Ziegfeld Follies, marries a charming prince of a fella and reigns…
A comedy-mystery about triple murder; a filthy-funny R-rated puppet show; and a gentle, amusing piece about the unlikely bond between a middle-aged gay dance instructor and a dying Southern Baptist widow—three plays, three small theaters and more evidence of the diversity and depth of talent on Dallas’ always-busy stages. In…
Among items decorating the set of Garland Civic Theatre’s production of the musical Phantom: four ceramic lion statues, a gold-plastic dragon, a small forest of droopy silk trees in gray plastic pots, a vase stuffed with leaves and peacock feathers, three plastic shields, a framed drawing of a chair, a…
“American consumers are demanding more God in their entertainment every day!” So chirps Matthew, lead singer of an adorably clueless, Bible-based pop quintet called Altar Boyz—also the title of the satiric musical about the group that’s been a smash Off-Broadway hit going on five years now. The regional premiere, full…
Powerful gusts of fabulosity must whip around the stage to blow the scent of mothballs off a comedy like The Royal Family. It’s an antique by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, one that doesn’t hold up as well as some of its contemporaries. Any successful revival had better be…
There is a prima facie case that Legally Blonde The Musical, the latest Broadway tour to roll through the Music Hall at Fair Park this summer, is an equal opportunity offender. Nobody comes off looking good in this lead-feathered movie-to-musical adaptation: not lawyers, not law students, not sorority girls, not…
The slightly scaled-down Festival of Independent Theatres is the tapas bar of local theater, a chance to spend just a few dollars to sample offerings by new and small companies sharing the stage at the Bath House Cultural Center. It’s the 11th year for the month-long “FIT fest,” as it…
The 24 dancers going through the “step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch” combination in the iconic opening moments of A Chorus Line are such nobodies they’re referred to not by name but by number. Collectively, they are perpetually “boys” and “girls,” though some are pushing 30 or have gone a…
Bad times make for good music. Woody Guthrie’s American Song, now playing at Theatre Too in The Quadrangle, celebrates the Okie balladeer who blended stories of the Great Depression with simple tunes and made them anthems of working-class America. In this warm and well-informed two-hour revue, conceived and adapted by…
With Romeo and Juliet, the problem is this: Cast seasoned actors who look a little too old for the title roles or use young ones who can pass as teenagers (Juliet’s barely 14 in the play) but might be too green to wrap their heads around the characters’ intense emotional…
Serious theater exploring the existential boundaries of the human condition, provoking deep thoughts and stirring the soul—Uptown Players’ production of Jamie Morris’ Mommie Queerest does none of that. Thank God. After months of downers and drear, we kvell in the quick quippery of Mommie Queerest, an all-male tribute to and…
Seeing Greater Tuna performed by two actors other than Joe Sears and Jaston Williams is like going to a concert knowing it’s a cover band. Even with reasonable facsimiles on the stage, you’re a little let down at not getting the real thing. Until the current production at Flower Mound…
Pocket Sandwich Theatre takes a break from its usual popcorn-throwing fluff to give audiences something better to chew on, the premiere of Death: The Musical, a new R-rated musical comedy by Dallas composer-writer Scott A. Eckert. The title might be a harder sell than Macbeth, but the show itself is…
Nuns are funny. They must be, or why would so many playwrights type so many comedies about goofy brides of Christ in black-and-white get-ups? This week there are two funny-nun shows going on: Hail Mary!, a new Tom Dudzick comedy at Fort Worth’s Circle Theatre; and at Artisan Center Theater…
Take four or five of those deluded fame-seekers of American Idol’s audition episodes—the lumpenproles in tutus and tiaras who sing like they’re gargling tapioca—and you’ve got the main characters of John Guare’s hauntingly funny-sad play The House of Blue Leaves, now onstage at Theatre Arlington with a cast that never…
Too rare is the transcendent theater experience. Now there is one in And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank, onstage at Dallas Children’s Theater. In 90 minutes, this play does some extraordinary things, going beyond mere entertainment-with-a-message to offer true stories of the Holocaust told…
