The conductor’s podium at the Meyerson Symphony Center is hot right now. Just two months after Jaap van Zweden was named the next music director of the New York Philharmonic, the Solti Foundation U.S. announced that Karina Canellakis, the Dallas Symphony’s quickly rising assistant conductor, is the recipient of this…
Flanked by cops and men in cowboy hats, hometown idol Kerry Von Erich strides toward center stage at Texas Stadium as 30,000 friends, family and fans roar. Emotions generally run hot at high-profile wrestling matches, but this bout is something special. The fourth son in the Von Erich wrestling dynasty…
There might not be a more appropriately titled show on television right now than The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth, Showtime’s new weekly documentary series where two reporters and a political strategist follow the presidential candidates on the campaign trail. The show’s resident strategist, Mark McKinnon, the…
These days, what with the trendiness of vintage stores and everything looking like it got fished out of a mid-century dumpster, garage sales have sort of gone by the wayside. Sure, it’s super cool to fish around a musty thrift store until you find an old plaid shirt that only…
You know that if you let yourself, you’ll spend the whole week holed up on your couch picking through jellybeans and justifying the slaughter of hollow chocolate bunnies. But spare yourself: there are so many alternatives to that sugary rabbit hole you’re about to head down—all of which are infinitely…
The Dallas Symphony and music director Jaap Van Zweden indulge, this weekend, in the time-honored classical music programming tactic of matching a new, unfamiliar work with a standard box office cash cow—in this case, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. This strategy can, and often does, result in an odd evening in which…
Improvised comedy is experiencing another renaissance of sorts thanks to television and for once, I’m not talking about another reincarnation of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” The TV Land sitcom “Teachers” about a group of barely functional educators who let their personal lives bleed into their work came from the…
When comedian Ithamar Enriquez walks on to a stage, his presence commands an audience’s attention. He doesn’t capture it by yelling obscenities into a microphone to punctuate his jokes or screaming like a banshee to exorcise some deep seeded emotional pain that brings some comics to a stage. Enriquez never…
Immediately upon sitting down with artist Tiffany McAnarney, an Oak Cliff-based painter, designer and muralist, it is impossible to ignore the precision, perhaps even compulsion, with which she describes her work. “We specifically crafted the pieces in this series to fit one exact space in the living room, the sun will hit it…
If you’re new to the performance art world, or you slept through the 1990’s, or you’re too young to have been there as it happened, then you probably didn’t flip out when Wordspace announced Karen Finley would be performing not as Karen Finley but as Jackie O on April 1…
Texas Ballet Theater has nailed the perfect fairy tale in its production of Cinderella, a dreamy and funny ballet that appeals to aspiring princesses and cynical mamas alike. The Ben Stevenson version, using Sergei Prokofiev’s wide-ranging score, is a beautifully danced and vivid rendition of the classic tale. For parents…
Ask weary WWE viewers to identify why the professional-wrestling titan’s creative direction has gone so stagnant and you’ll hear one answer time and again: lack of competition. It’s no coincidence that the company’s late-‘90s heyday ran concurrent with the rise of Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling, which at one point…
Like the Juggernaut or St. Patrick’s Day drunks, nothing can stop the hundreds of hours of filmed superhero junk that hits our faceholes each year. But rest easy, true believer! Once in a while, the onslaught can still offer surprise and pleasure. A shiver of both hit me minutes into…
Brash yet intimate, writer-director-editor Trey Edward Shults’ observant, unnerving first feature transcends the notion of a “promising debut.” Here, the promise is already fulfilled on the screen, which bustles with chaotic family life — and prickles with anxiety. Krisha is a heartsick family story that plays as psychological horror, its…
The joke was on me when I first saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding back in 2002: I watched the film at a press screening that also happened to be attended by a large group of older female tourists. While I grimaced through the movie’s obvious gags and not-ready-for-prime-time direction,…
Thunderous, ponderous and occasionally exciting, Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens with one of those grim proclamations that the creators of modern superhero movies are so fond of: “There was a time above, a time before,” intones the voice of Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), over a by-now…
Will Eno has much to say about life in the 21st century and a deft way of saying it in The Realistic Joneses, a play which premiered on Broadway in 2014 (in a production directed by Sam Gold) to rave reviews. The same could be said of director David Denson’s…
When Margo Jones opened a Dallas theater she wanted to establish a theater community outside of New York. Jones created much of what would become the regional theater model- theater that existed within a city’s own community and reflected its identity without just regurgitating Broadway hits. Jones wanted theater that…
FOUND at Level Gallery After seeing pollution in the ocean and researching the effects, longtime underwater fashion photographer Jeremy McKane decided he wanted to do more than take pretty pictures. McKane uses his art to raise awareness of this urgent issue. FOUND is McKane’s latest ocean conservation exhibit featuring eleven…
Given the amount of rain we’ve had in the Metroplex this winter (and now, this spring), it’s fitting that the most anticipated musical to hit Music Hall at Fair Park takes place under the sea. Disney’s The Little Mermaid, part of the Dallas Summer Musical series, is wowing sold-out audiences…
Prestige cable flatters us about the past. It lets us vacation in the backwardness of previous generations, usually while throwing some empathetic side-eye. Gape at Mad Men’s blithe white dudes, each convinced he earned every bit of authority he commands over women and minorities. Or thank Jezebel that we’ve evolved…
Can you oversaturate yourself in culture? Overdose on the arts? Get lit on literature? Because if that’s a thing, we are in serious danger this week. Local cultural offerings over the next several days offer an amazing array of experiences—highlighting gender issues in the arts, bringing a New Orleans flavor…
