Each week on HBO’s Crashing, budding comic Pete Holmes stays on the couch of a different, established comic as he struggles to build a career in New York City. This story is a familiar one to Della Temple, who also endured homelessness on the path to a career in comedy…
It’s not easy to wrap one’s head around the work of theater troupe Dead White Zombies (DWZ), but why would it be? It’s the brainchild of Thomas Riccio, a University of Texas at Dallas drama professor, world traveler and metaphysical hobbyist who’s all about bucking convention. DWZ always engage the…
The call came at 8:30 last Saturday morning. It was Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League phoning to let Kevin Moriarty know that the Dallas Theater Center had won the regional Tony Award. Within the next four hours, Moriarty would see nearly 200 members of the Dallas theater…
Arts Mission Oak Cliff, a new multi-use arts venue built inside of the old Winnetka Heights Church, has opened its first production. Cara Mia Theatre Co.’s De Troya is a world premiere by Obie Award winning playwright Caridad Svich. It is the story of Mara, who rescues a mysteriously wounded…
We’re Gonna Die is a cabaret-style musical about something we all have in common – certain death. This is not, as director and producer Jack Nice points out, the story of star-crossed lovers who “come together, sing about their love for each other, then turn to the audience and do a…
The Dallas Opera is ending its 60th season on a high note with a masterful production of the bel canto opera Norma. The company’s first ever presentation of Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 masterpiece fills out what company director Keith Cerny has called “a noticeable gap in the company’s repertoire.” This grand…
In 1899, French actress Sarah Bernhardt famously played Hamlet and brought an impishness to the Danish prince that audiences had never seen before. There is a movement catching fire now for women to take on these classic, meaty Shakespearean roles traditionally played by men: The latest production of Twelfth Night…
Sebastian Maniscalco performs at the Majestic Theatre on Thursday, April 13. Sebastian Maniscalco recently got one of the highest compliments any comedian can receive. Another comedian said he’s funny. On his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, host and show creator Jerry Seinfeld described Maniscalco as someone who “just…
For the last 10 years, Kevin Moriarty has been the resident chemist in the Arts District, where his latest concoction is an outdoor production of the Greek tragedy Electra. As the Dallas Theater Center’s artistic director, manipulating text and space are his bread and butter. Moriarty comes by his curiosity honestly. At…
The Fort Worth Opera is set to open their 2017 season with a daring lineup that includes the regional premiere of a bizarre courtroom drama and a straight-from-the-headlines mariachi opera about the effects of immigration on families. It seems to be business as usual even though just two months ago…
Flooding in the Texas springtime is not unusual. But the Dallas Theater Center is suffering flood damage for reasons completely unrelated to weather. Last week, during a routine test of the fire system, an outside vendor triggered the release of the fire suppression pipe, or “deluge curtain,” which dumped water…
Steve Martin and Martin Short will perform at Verizon Theatre on April 8 When you’re talking to Steve Martin and Martin Short, everything is a setup to a joke. Even a joke. “I’m originally from Waco,” Martin says when we ask him a question about his hometown. “I moved away…
Almost one year ago, Prism Co. created what founders Katy Tye and Jeff Colangelo consider to be the company’s most successful work. That piece pitted a real Mixed Martial Arts fighter against a Dallas actress in an immersive, staged, competitive MMA fight. As with all Prism works, Animal vs Machine…
Midway on his life’s journey, 31-year-old René Moreno fell through a five-story window and was paralyzed from the waist down. The freak accident, which occurred in his then-home in Washington D.C., was the impetus for his return to Dallas, where he received physical therapy following the injury. What could have…
Women are often accused of talking too much, or feeling emotions too acutely, and a new theater company, Goat Song Theatre Collective, is taking this as inspiration for their four-part season, which is all about gender equality. Abigail Birkett, one of three “goats,” alongside Carissa Jade Olsen and Lauren Ferebee, says Goat…
If you haven’t heard about White Rabbit Red Rabbit, you’re doing it right. You aren’t supposed to know what it is. Though this play has been performed in theaters all over the world nearly 1,000 times, no one is allowed to talk about it. Not even the actors. Only those…
TV only shows the cruel words, not the hugs she gives after.
Local theater stalwart Kitchen Dog Theater is in the midst of its 26th season, and big changes have been coming left and right for the company. One is the introduction of a new program that will release 20 free tickets for every performance. In 2016, Kitchen Dog Theater was forced…
It’s hard to review a production as huge as Public Works Dallas’ The Tempest, which featured 200 Dallasites in the cast and five professional actors. On the one hand, you had the play: lights, music, acting, words, dancing, chaos. And there was chaos. The Friday premiere was a gorgeous mess at…
On Saturday, Cara Mia Theatre Co. will give a Dallas debut to a play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, who also collaborated with Hamilton playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda on his first musical In the Heights. The play, Yemaya’s Belly, is the story of a Cuban boy’s dream to…
Today the Dallas Theater Center announced the full lineup for their 2017-2018 season. The season includes two world premieres, a sequel to 2016’s All the Way, and another round of the Public Works initiative. Seeming to respond to prior criticism regarding lack of diversity, DTC will produce works by two…
This weekend, Dallas will become the first city outside of New York to participate in the Public Works project, which taps hundreds of non-actors for productions of Shakespeare. The first play being tackled here is The Tempest. According to Dayron Miles, who moved here to head up Public Works Dallas, the…
