The sound of artists at work can be heard in Trinity Groves. On Monday afternoon, at the intersection of Bataan Street and Singleton Blvd, the sound of drills, paper shuffling and loud conversation filled a bright green warehouse. Throughout the space visual artists install site-specific work; at the center, Prism…
Get to know the people behind some of Dallas’ interesting, unique, art-inspired local businesses. Know any good ones? Drop us a tip in the comments. Matt McCrimmon makes mirrors. Not the big sheets of nothing you find on bathroom walls, but ones that are circular, inspired by astrology and wrapped…
It was just before the start of the Texas Pinball Festival, the annual gathering of pinball enthusiasts and collectors who brought their prized machines to Dallas/Fort Worth over the weekend for three days of quarter-less play, and an odd quiet filled the 30,000-square-foot play area. Machines from pinball’s heyday filled…
At the center of a crowd of colorfully clothed My Little Pony fans sit two teenage boys, eyes locked on the television screen in front of them, thumbs moving rapidly. They’re guiding the Nintendo iconic green dinosaur Yoshi, Mario’s friend/mode of transportation through Pickachu’s lightening bolt. This is happening because…
Dear Mayor Rawlings, The first thing I’d like to say in this very public letter is a big thank you for Dallas Arts Week. From what I can gather, it’s your way to bring awareness to the arts, which is, in a sense, my job as well. Samesies! Even if…
We’ve told you plenty about Halt and Catch Fire. Now you can see it for yourself, at least 30 seconds of it, sliced up and laid under some sweet 80s dreams. It premieres June 1, and having seen the pilot I can assure you: It starts with a bang…
Wondering how the hell to navigate the more than 170 films gracing the screens of the Dallas International Film Festival? Well, how about some help from two DIFF-going veterans — Merritt Martin and Jennifer Medina — offering their best-intended, possibly challenging, but definitely enthusiastic assistance. Grab your hoodie (you’ll need…
Last night a tall, skinny teenager with an unruly mop of straw-blonde hair reminded Dallas Symphony audience members that not all millennials are created equal. Jan Lisiecki celebrated his 19th birthday last Sunday, and while I’m sure he knows his way around a smart-phone as well as any other kid…
Do you remember about a month ago when I first complained about being an underpaid journalist? You joined my father in the knowing chuckle of someone saying, “You could’ve been an accountant.” Let’s ignore the cliches about hindsight for a second, while I present to you homes that neither you…
April 8th is like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, your birthday and first time you had sex all rolled into one, lightly fried and smothered in a tangy tomatillo sauce. That’s because April 8th is Rex Manning Day. You don’t know who Rex Manning is, you say, or why on Earth he…
The inspiration for Mark Goshorn Jones’ quirky comedy Tennessee Queer was anything but funny. The Shelby County Commission in Memphis wanted to pass an equal rights law in 2009 that protected LGBT city workers from job discrimination. They eventually did, but they were met with harsh and heated opposition for…
Chances are if you haven’t heard back from Conan O’Brien’s people about tickets to one of his live tapings at The Majestic Theater next week, then you aren’t getting one. So stop crying and using an eyedropper full of food coloring to make sure you cry orange tears to fully…
We haven’t published an article about Conan’s visit to Dallas yet this week. It’s already Thursday. You probably assumed this meant that his visit to our city couldn’t get any better. You thought wrong. Next week, while Conan camps out at the Majestic Theatre, the “Cone Zone” will make various…
It’s Wednesday afternoon and Jesse Morgan Barnett paces through the cavernous space at 2604 Main Street, arranging his works of art. “When you do an installation the space is always in a defensive posture,” Barnett says. “The space looks different now than it will look Saturday. I like to bring…
If you could live your life like Jay Gatsby, wouldn’t you? The suits, the women, the music, the cars, the parties. Of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest character didn’t live happily ever after, but that was then. This is now. There’s no reason you can’t dress up, pack a picnic,…
Seeing a play at Theatre Three is like going to Sunday dinner at the home of an elderly relative. When the old girl feels sharp, she’ll whip up a hot homemade meal with all the trimmings. When she’s having one of her “spells,” you might sit down to a plate…
Dallas Children’s Theater has a charming, heartwarming family comedy in Mariachi Girl. A Latina fifth-grader named “Cita” (Aisha San Roman, in her 20s and a bit curvy to play a 10-year-old) idolizes her dad (David Lugo), a Mexican-born carpenter who moonlights as the leader of a mariachi band. She begs…
The Chicano labor leader César Chávez can now join Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the pantheon of heroes whose world-altering achievements are dutifully recounted in timid, lifeless films any substitute can pop into the school DVD player when the regular history teacher is out. With César Chávez, Mexican director…
To hear Darren Aronofsky tell it, in the interviews he’s given recently to the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker, there was no way in hell he’d let his special-effects extravaganza Noah, years in the planning, be your run-of-the-mill, candy-ass Biblical epic. The ark built by Russell Crowe’s…
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name is only about one-seventh the font size of the title on the poster of Sabotage, formerly Breacher, formerly Ten, his third attempt — after the full-auto western The Last Stand and the goofy Stallone-co-headlined prison-break joint Escape Plan — in 14 months at a post-gubernatorial comeback. A…
Broadway brings us many wonders: soaring story lines, uplifting anthems, dazzling sets. It’s also chock full of annoying little idiosyncrasies: over-enunciation, stupid stunt casting and a propensity to burst into song as a lame plot device. But we love The Great White Way, despite the fact that it takes itself…
Did you know that the role of Rosina in Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville was originally written for contralto, but a general shortage of contraltos — who apparently are the operatic equivalent of rhythm and blues’ Big Mama Thornton — means the role is mostly performed by mezzo sopranos? Or that…
