Ever feel like your voice just isn’t being heard? Like in that last election when a bunch of cringe-inducing nutbags got elected to run all the things? Or when you spent the night texting Dancing with the Stars and they still crowned that played-out Fresh Prince dude over your Duck…
While some of us prefer our tales of romance a little more ride-off-into-the-sunset-y, there’s no denying that the gold standard of love stories is a rather depressing account of teen suicide. For 400 years, Romeo and Juliet has been inspiring us to seek a love worth dying for — whether…
Spain beats all other European destinations in the romantic flair category. Great Britain is hospitable and lovely, to be sure; Italy has monuments that awe; and France has pastries to make a man weak in the knees. But Spain has a devil-may-care appeal that sets it apart from its neighbors…
It’s been said by many a drama critic that the plays of Russian writer Anton Chekhov are more about what’s being said between the lines than the dialogue itself—that they revolve around subtext. And if that’s the case, then it’s not sacrilegious that the Dallas Actor’s Guild has brought modern…
It’s generally agreed upon that art, if it truly speaks to you, is priceless. And owning a piece that inspires you on the daily—that still resonates years after its purchase—is worth a pretty good sum. But the reality is that it’s an expensive endeavor to buy art, and a luxury…
There’s committing to your art…and then there’s committing to your art. Artists give up pieces of themselves all the time to make a statement, but few go to the extremes that controversial performance artist Carlos Martiel does—the man certainly goes all in for his work. Consider the time he allowed…
This stands to be a memorable weekends in performance art in Dallas: not only can you see the provocative Carlos Martiel likely bleed out in Expo Park’s CentralTrak, there’s also an honest-to-goodness performance art festival just down the street at Beefhaus, 833 Exposition Avenue. In the Room We Discovered An-Other…
Much has been made of the fact that author Mitchell S. Jackson, a black man, grew up in what has to be one of the whitest cities in this country—Portland, Oregon. And Jackson himself has admitted that it’s not the most likely place for the story he told in his…
By now, you’ve seen the approximately 400 billboards that have popped up along area thoroughfares: They’re black, with a white horse, and look a lot like advertisements for wine. I was actually fairly certain that Cavalia Odysseo was a nice Riesling until a couple of weeks ago when my daughter…
We humans have done some pretty amazing things in our time: We’ve built temples and walls and giant pyramids that seemingly defy engineering principles; we’ve created technologies that allow us to see and interact with friends and family on the other side of the planet; and scientists have mapped out…
Even those of us who consider ourselves art junkies are guilty of not giving architecture its props. It surrounds us, supports us, inspires us and makes its way into all manner of media, but it’s not talked about in the same terms as sculpture, paintings and photographs. It’s taken for…
For those of you hoping for a lectures series that explores the challenges of straight, white men in theater, we deeply apologize. WaterTower Theatre wanted to do that, they really did — the stories were so interesting and captivating! — but it seems that stories of men in performing arts…
From the outside, Texas has a lot going on. To some, it’s a state struggling to reconcile its outlaw reputation with its cultural riches; to others, it’s a place full of good ol’ boys who keep us mired in ’60s-era social policy; and there are those who regard us a…
The legend of Stagger Lee goes like this: A man got so pissed off at his “business partner” for taking his cowboy hat that he shot and killed him. In this day and age, it seems a little tame, but in late 19th century Missouri, Stagger Lee was a hat-retrieving…
Cirque du Soleil is an amazing spectacle, to be sure, but it could use way more horses. Cirque co-founder Normand Latourelle thought that adding an equine element to the mystical acrobatic artistry would really take things up a notch — and he was right. The product of that vision is…
Something that is awesome about Annie Get Your Gun: the music. Irving Berlin’s original songs are some of the most enduring in Broadway. Even if you’ve never seen the show, you know most of the songs: “Anything You Can Do,” “They Say It’s Wonderful” and “There’s No Business Like Show…
Some events are so horrific that time can never diminish them. This is particularly true in the case of the Holocaust, the worst genocide in history. Though we are nearly three quarters of a century removed from the unthinkable fates of six million Jewish men, women and children at the…
Swing, Sister! In the mood for a little nostalgia? Hide your cellphone and put in your pin curls or dust off those wingtips: “In the Mood” will help you escape to a time when text was a noun and necking was a thing. This Thursday, you and your main squeeze…
The proverbial good old boys club is a pain in the ass, stymieing ladies in endeavors both personal and professional for eons now. It’s a place where slaps on the back are currency, and tradition is nine-tenths of the law. As a society, we’d like to think we’re past its…
Tap dance is the great unifier of the performing arts world — seamlessly marrying the visual with the aural, peppering the air with rhythmic raps and claps and generally being the life of the arts party. There’s no such thing as sad bastard tap dancing. It’s lively even when the…
If your last ‘Murica-induced chill-down-the-spine was on the Fourth of July, you’re due for a fix. Forget all of our domestic troubles — the ugly politics, inequalities, hardships and Toby Keith songs — and let a wave of patriotism wash right over you during the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s latest ReMix…
Alcohol and literature have a long, cozy history. It hasn’t all been fun and games (see: Hemingway, Williams, et al), but at times it has been a mutually beneficial relationship — like when you finished that Flannery O’Connor book and headed straight to the bar. Tim Federle understands that great…
