693 results

page 1 of 32

Lauren Smart

Visit my author page »

Nobody Cares That I Don’t Like Pop-Up Museums

By Lauren Smart
Jan 31, 2019

I don’t think there’s a way I can possibly talk you out of going to the latest rainbow-colored, unicorn vomit, sweet-toothed photo booth, anachronistically futuristic, cotton candy-headed, pop-up “art” exhibit, is there? After all, it’s time for you to stir up some FOMO with your #squadgoals real-life friends by duck-lipping...
Alia Tavakolian of the Podcast Breach Has Entered a World of Internet Hacking

By Lauren Smart
Mar 29, 2018

Late last fall, a strange voicemail popped up on Alia Tavakolian’s cellphone. It was an automated female voice saying, “Goodbye from Yahoo.” It’s the kind of message you receive when you’ve permanently shut down your account or when it’s been hacked. No cause for alarm. Unless, of course, you’re about...
She Kills Monsters Feels Like Your High School Reunion

By Lauren Smart
Mar 23, 2018

After the Gamergate controversy in 2014, the harsh realities of being a female nerd became the topic of endless think pieces. The harassment campaigns targeting women made it easy to spot issues of misogyny in video game culture, but what about more subtle, everyday name-calling or exclusion? Even in the age...
Thirty-Five Years After It Was Written, The Color Purple's Lessons Are No Less Relevant

By Lauren Smart
Jan 29, 2018

“Leave your pain here and go out and do your magnificent things.” This was one of the reassurances offered by Judge Rosemarie Aquilina to the female gymnasts who testified against the USA Gymnastics doctor who repeatedly abused the girls in his charge. But it could been a line from The...
Miller, Mississippi Is Important but Difficult to Sit Through

By Lauren Smart
Sep 19, 2017

All the characters in Miller, Mississippi at Dallas Theater Center die. And playwright Boo Killebrew traps the audience in the house with the family as the body count piles up. Miller, Mississippi paints a harrowing portrait of a politically active, white family as the civil rights movement shakes the foundations...
Falstaff Is No Caesar, but There’s a Bit of Trump in 'Merry Wives'

By Lauren Smart
Jun 30, 2017

In early June, Shakespeare Dallas began receiving death threats from passionate supporters of President Donald Trump. These callers confused the Dallas company with New York’s Public Theater, which was producing Julius Caesar with a title character who closely resembled the president. But Shakespeare Dallas wasn’t parodying Trump in its summer Shakespeare...
See a Cat in the Role of Macbeth at the One-Night-Only Internet Cat Video Festival

By Lauren Smart
Aug 24, 2016

In 2007, Carolyn Sortor was rehearsing a few lines from Macbeth for an amateur Shakespeare party when an idea struck her. “I knew there’s some juicy dialogue with Macbeth, in which they talk about whether he’s a man or a beast, and at one point Lady Macbeth compares him to...
Kitchen Dog Theater's Quarter-Life Crisis

By Lauren Smart
May 23, 2016

If you're planning to attend a production of Steve Yockey's Blackberry Winter or The Thrush & the Woodpecker from Kitchen Dog Theater, plug in directions to Undermain Theatre. For more than a decade, Kitchen Dog Theater was housed in the bright blue building on McKinney Avenue known as The McKinney Avenue...
Artist K. Yoland Explores Marginalized Dallas Neighborhoods in Two-Part Exhibition

By Lauren Smart
May 6, 2016

The first thing multimedia artist K. Yoland brings up over coffee in her second floor apartment in the M Streets is the Ku Klux Klan. For the British-born artist, who now divides time between Dallas and Marfa, the strong historical presence of the white-hooded terrorist group in Texas was quite...
Jeff Baker Makes Photographs That Don't Look Like Photographs

By Lauren Smart
Apr 27, 2016

In 2009, when Jeff Baker retired from a 35-year career as a commercial photographer in New York City, he moved back to his hometown, Dallas, and began to feel directionless. He also began to feel portents of death in the form of three serious diseases: atrial fibrillation, macular degeneration in...
Dallas Art Fair Honoree Debora Hunter Peers Into Windows to See the City

By Lauren Smart
Apr 15, 2016

Debora Hunter is standing in front of the windows of Neiman Marcus peering in. It's an overcast Wednesday morning just days before the Dallas Art Fair where Hunter, a longtime Dallas-based photographer, is the 2016 honoree. With that title comes an opportunity to give a talk at a pre-party for...
The Ultimate Guide to Your Weekend in Dallas, April 15-17

By Lauren Smart
Apr 15, 2016

Do This! There is so much art to see in Dallas this weekend, it's hella exciting for the artistically inclined. One can't-miss exhibition is Paolo Pivi's Ma’am. The Milanese artist works with friendly, fluorescent polar bears and fanciful multimedia installations. We've been promised canvases of pearls, the bears and a number...
Five Best Things to Do in Dallas this Week

By Lauren Smart and Jennifer Davis-Lamm
Mar 14, 2016

There's plenty to do in Dallas this week from talks from famous authors to wine crawls. Authors Live: A.O. Scott 7 p.m. Monday It’s a fallacy that everyone’s a critic. Everyone has an opinion—that much is certain. But criticism implies critical thinking, insight and consideration, all or most of which...
The Ultimate Guide to Your Weekend in Dallas, March 11-13

By Lauren Smart
Mar 10, 2016

Do This! The Dallas Flea quickly became one of the largest shopping events in the city. It became so big that they've expanded, changed locations and even re-branded. This year, Flea Style takes over Fair Park's 85,000-square foot Automobile Building (1010 First Ave.) with a huge array of vendors selling handmade...
If You Like House of Cards, You Should See All the Way

By Lauren Smart
Mar 8, 2016

The first scene of All the Way, now playing at Dallas Theater Center, lasts approximately four minutes. President Kennedy has just been shot; Lyndon B. Johnson is on his way to take over. Dramatic music, lights fade, scene change. This Tony Award-winning political drama moves along at TV speed, written...
DMA Acquires Rare Jackson Pollock Sculpture. Don't Run Out of Time to See It!

By Lauren Smart
Mar 4, 2016

I knew this would happen for some of you. You've been telling yourself that you have plenty of time to see Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots at the Dallas Museum of Art. It's up through March 20, you said. That's the distant future, you said. I'll get around to it, you...
The Most Extravagant Spa Treatments in Dallas ... For Your Dog

By Lauren Smart
Mar 3, 2016

Feeling tense? Need to take a load off? Looking to treat yo'self? These are all questions you should be asking your dog. In this stressful, fetch-fetch-fetch world, isn't it time you give that special four-pawed someone a day of being pampered? Sure, you cook her food to keep her coat...
The Ultimate Guide to Your Dallas Weekend, March 4-6

By Lauren Smart
Mar 3, 2016

Do This! If you're obsessed with Zombies —and let's be honest who isn't? — the Walker Stalker Con is the place to be this weekend. Hundreds of living dead enthusiasts in one place? Yes, please. It takes place from 10:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. Saturday and 10:30 a.m. - 5...
5 Art Exhibitions to See this Weekend

By Lauren Smart
Mar 2, 2016

American DirtArtists' using found objects, or trash, in their work is old hat, but that's not what photographer Jeff Ferrell does. Nope, he documents his dumpster dives photographically. This weekend, the Reading Room (3715 Parry Ave.) teams up with Gavin Morrison and Fraser Stables/Atopia Projects to present American Dirt, a...
How Dallas Fell in Love with Opera Star Stephen Costello

By Lauren Smart
Feb 29, 2016

Before Stephen Costello finished graduate school, he was charming North Texas audiences. Enrolled in Academy of Vocal Arts in his hometown of Philadelphia, the operatic tenor was tapped to fill in for a night as Rodolfo in a Fort Worth opera production of La bohème. "I'd worked with director David...
Questions for Dallas Theater Center's Romeo & Juliet

By Lauren Smart
Feb 26, 2016

What is Shakespeare for a young audience? What should it be? Should it accessorize a high school lit class? Should it be a training tool for emerging actors? Should it be a compelling work of theater? Does it need to be forever produced to preserve and progress the theatrical...
The Ultimate Guide to Your Weekend in Dallas, Feb. 25-28

By Lauren Smart
Feb 25, 2016

Do This! If you want to give yourself over to absolute pleasure this weekend, you won't want to miss the Oh, Rocky! Burlesque at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Texas Theatre, 231 W. Jefferson Blvd. The Texas Burlesque Peepshow pays tribute to the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a classic...