The way is clear, the light is good and the singing, acting and comedy in Lyric Stage’s to-the-hilt production of Into the Woods are absolutely enchanting. From the frantic overlapping lyrics of the opening prologue to the sweet, soaring poetry of “No One Is Alone,” the hopeful ballad at the…
Yeah, you think you’re a hot shot all right. Someone once in the 11th grade called you funny and just like a bad STD, it stuck with you forever. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Kirsten Wiig are so funny and you’re just like them, a drunk guy at a…
In a once-in-a-year event, dancers from Dallas and surrounding cities and states will showcase their talents to an amazed audience at the Dallas City Performance Hall for Dallas DanceFest. Throughout Labor Day weekend, more than 150 dancers will perform a wide array of styles of dance, including ballet, hip-hop, theatrical,…
Working in ballet for nearly 50 years, Texas Ballet Theater’s artistic director Ben Stevenson is a modest legend who has always focused on telling a story with his art. Dracula: Dangerous New Terrain was first performed in 1997 in Houston and has now become a seasonal ballet, like The Nutcracker…
Comedian Josh Johnson has made some great strides in his life and not just as a comic. His progress shows as he talks about Tabitha, the first album he’s set to record on Thursday at Andy’s Bar in Denton. “For the most part, I have to tell myself that it’s…
Longtime filmmaker/podcaster Kevin Smith returns to town for a Q&A and a live podcast recording on Friday night at the Texas Theatre. He loves to do these kinds of events, as they are part storytelling, stand-up act and fan interaction, all in one. He’s done them his entire career, from…
Summer’s on its way out, fall is coming, and even though we may not measure our lives in semesters anymore, I have a goal for you to make with me, a leaf to turn over. Let’s see more theater this year? Whadya say? There’s something really great stuff hitting the…
“True always trumps clever,” says character actor and podcast raconteur Stephen Tobolowsky at the top of his one-man show The Tobolowsky Files, playing through the end of August at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Speaking directly to a crowd of about 50 in a small corner cabaret bar at…
Few names from pop culture can draw as much joy and pure glee out of people than “Weird Al” Yankovic. He’s like a walking antidepressant. Just bringing up his name in conversation or mentioning one of his songs can perk up even the lowliest soul. Telling friends you’ve personally crossed…
Benedict Cumberbatch may be getting heavy ink for his Hamlet at London’s Barbican Theatre. But 400 miles north in Edinburgh, Lake Highlands High School grad David Carl, 34, is playing all the roles, plus one, in his hit solo comedy Gary Busey’s One-Man Hamlet as Performed by David Carl at…
For multiple generations, episodes of The Simpsons contain an entire lexicon of examples and comparisons. “That’s just like one time Bart did …” Or “That reminds of the episode when Homer said…” The show has more than 25 seasons under its belt, so avoiding the references to the bright yellow,…
On a Monday night last September, a gaggle of verbose, bright-eyed young people dressed in miniskirts, jeans and tennis shoes filled with the backyard of the Oak Cliff literary watering hole The Wild Detectives. With little warning and at a great volume they began to tell jokes and sing poetry to…
Amanda Wingfield, 1930s tiger mother. The matriarch in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, now playing at Theatre Three, fits the profile: overbearing, controlling and obsessed with pushing her adult children toward her idea of success. She wants son Tom to work his way up in the St. Louis warehouse where…
There’s a long held idea, fabricated by an optimistic adult that the stories we tell teenagers should be optimistic, aspirational. Maybe that’s why it comes to picking books for curriculums we ban the ones that even sniff of hardship, violence or reality. But if you give a group of teenagers…
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and musicals go together about as well as milk and stomach problems. Or at least that’s what you might think. Somehow, though, a Dallas Comedy House troupe made it work. And it’s hella funny. On Friday night, Law and Order SVUiscal premiered to a…
WaterTower Theatre in Addison has trouble getting musicals right and just about every aspect of its current production of Sweet Charity is wrong. That’s being charitable. Actors who can’t sing. Dancers with no sense of rhythm. A set better suited for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. So much dark lumber…
Some musicals are plot-driven, with a few numbers interspersed here and there, but a musical about one of the most beloved record labels of all time and its founder should have lots of them. In that sense, Motown: The Musical surely delivers — perhaps even beyond what is desired or…
For three weeks in July, Undermain Theatre’s co-artistic director, Katherine Owens, was shuttling between a rehearsal hall and a luxurious mountain home, where she roomed with a handful of nationally renowned theater artists. Owens was there as part of Sundance Institute’s Theatre Lab to work alongside Len Jenkin in the development…
What has 54 legs and flies? Catch Me if You Can, the 27-person musical now cruising along at high altitude at Uptown Players at Kalita Humphreys Theater. What a show! What a cast! What a way to close out the strongest season yet for the little company out-producing the Dallas…
It’s a scientific fact. Somewhere in the world, there’s at least one screen showing an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old person watching a rerun on USA because they mistook it for Matlock or a serial downloader watching an illegally obtained episode…
Be afeard, the aisle is full of noises. Also the stage, the exits and the stairwell in Second Thought Theatre’s slam-bang-hollerin’ production of Othello at Bryant Hall. What’s with all the Shoutspeare going on this summer? Shakespeare Dallas put microphones on all the actors in its outdoor Romeo & Juliet…
Three of Dallas’ oldest theater companies — Kitchen Dog Theater, Theatre Three and Dallas Theater Center — are undergoing major transitions that could usher in dramatic changes as their shows go on. For Kitchen Dog, it’s a new temporary home inside the Green Zone, a smallish stand-alone performance space on…
