Comedy Central is always on the lookout for the next big comedy star, and to speed up their search, they’re hosting a nationwide talent contest this fall. The Comedy Central Up Next Talent Search kicks off with the preliminary rounds, hosted by 26 participating certified clubs. One of those clubs…
Recycling is a big theme with Peter and the Starcatcher, the Tony-winning play onstage at the Winspear Opera House through September 29. This “prequel” recycles the story of Peter Pan, Wendy, the Lost Boys and Captain Hook – yeah, we’re a little tired of that crowd, too. But it puts…
Silly and surreal, Matt & Ben says out loud what some have long suspected: that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had help writing Good Will Hunting, the script that earned them Oscars and launched them into Hollywood superstardom. How’d that screenplay fall into the laps of the barely known young…
Prolific Dallas playwright Jonathon Norton has a new one called Homeschooled, directed by Regina Washington at African American Repertory Theatre in DeSoto. At 85 minutes, it’s the right length for the play’s extended bouts of angst among three women at odds over how to teach the most violent episodes in…
Undermain Theatre is presenting the world premiere of East Coast playwright Sylvan Oswald’s Profanity, directed by Katherine Owens. The title could serve as a warning, for you will curse Undermain for choosing to produce this unremarkable drama and curse yourself if you’ve already bought tickets to it. It’s a damn…
“Welcome to Luby’s. Salad fer you?” drawls actor Paul J. Williams, playing one of a cafeteria full of characters in his gently tossed solo comedy Dishing It Out. Williams’ show is at the top of the menu for Uptown Players’ annual smorgasbord of short plays for the two-weekend Pride Performing…
Twelve-year-old actress Kennedy Waterman, the late Jerry Russell and lots and lots of Shakespeare are on this year’s list of honorees chosen by the 12 members of the DFW Theater Critics Forum. The annual luncheon and voting session was held Saturday, September 7. Maybe it was the heat, maybe we’ve…
Jerry Russell, founder of Fort Worth’s Stage West theater and father of state Senator Wendy Davis, has died. The sad news came from Davis, who released this statement Thursday morning: “I am heartbroken to report that my father, Jerry Russell, passed away peacefully in the early hours of this morning…
The Winspear Opera House’s underground parking can be a mess, but it doesn’t exactly sneak up on you. From the moment you pull your car in for a big performance, you’re reminded, Oh yeah, this is three-act: Two acts in the theater, one in the garage. It’s maddening, but you…
It’s intermission at Book of Mormon and my face feels like I fed it psychedelic mushrooms instead of dinner. I’m explaining this to the lobby bartender who asked if the show is as good as everyone says. I point to my teary eye ducts and try to push down my…
I walk through a somewhat ordinary office — some desks, chairs, white boards — to a storage area in the back. It’s dark in here. Stacks of shipping boxes line the walls and litter the floor. Someone hits the lights, my eyes focus, and I see them. Round, beige heads…
By the time I muscled through the traditional Fair Park gridlock traffic and made it inside Gexa Energy Pavilion for last night’s Oddball Comedy Festival, the place was flooded, with thousands splayed on the lawn waiting for the main stage and hundreds more in the concession area. The “Curiosity” part of the…
Comedian Hannibal Buress has a lot of items on his to-do list these days. He’s not only shooting a new pilot for Comedy Central but he’s also part of their episodic remake of the Broad City web series and the sidekick for the insane Adult Swim talk show The Eric…
“It was never my intention to die at this place. If so tell me to wake up and walk out of here.” That’s how Ann Williams, the founder and artistic director of the Dallas Black Dance Theater, succinctly sums up her thoughts on her pending retirement. It must be apt…
It’s the Monday after closing night, and the director is cleaning up the last set pieces from his performance space. There are video-game consoles stacked in the bathroom, disconnected security cameras hanging from the ceiling, and a pair of blank-loaded pistols that, thankfully, he just a moment earlier removed from…
The members of Samurai Drunk, the comedy improv group from the Dallas Comedy House, have been hanging out at a nearby Cafe Brazil after almost every rehearsal since their first days together in the club’s “Level 1” improv training sessions. Founding member Brian Moody said they would spend two or…
It only takes about five minutes for someone in the noisy crowd of social drinkers at the Old Monk pub on North Henderson Avenue to recognize comedian Paul Varghese. An attractive blond woman recognizes him just as we sit down on the patio to talk about his new album Paul…
We all grow older, but until we die we’ll be shadowed by the boy who never grows up, Peter Pan. The rotten little imp is everywhere. Always has been, always will be. As inescapable as Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse. Instead of new ideas, big-time musical theater keeps reaching back…
Dallas’ comedy scene can feel disjointed at times, but there’s no shortage of places to see funny people say, and do, funny things. So for the moment, consider us the Siri of North Texas comedy, but way less warm and creepy-sounding. Addison Improv Comedy Club, 4980 Belt Line Road, #250,…
Be afraid of Virginia Woolf. She’s drunk off her ass. In Edward Albee’s epic 1962 drama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, main characters George and Martha pour 17 drinks — hard liquor on the rocks — in the first act alone. Nine or 10 more in the second act. Another…
As far as titles go, Craig Cackowski and Lucas Neff could certainly do worse than The Better Half, the name of the show they’re performing at Dallas Comedy House this weekend. “I think we’re a good contrast in styles,” Cackowski said by email. “Lucas is boundlessly energetic and physical. He’s…
It doesn’t suck to be the cast of Avenue Q at Theatre Too in The Quadrangle. A year after opening the first local production of the Tony-winning puppet-centric musical, the same seven Dallas actors still have their hands up the backsides of the fuzzy felt-mericans. Their performances, brighter and funnier…
