Arts & Culture

We’re over British boy wizards. Bored with angsty teenage vampires. But romantic Christian sci-fi? Color us intrigued! Mesquite author Frank Lewandowski ventures into this uncharted literary territory with his novel Light Years From Paradise. The book centers on an isolated space colony having to deal with unexpected celestial visitors, including…

If you were a star in the teen comedies, sitcoms or early reality shows of the late ’80s and ’90s and you haven’t parlayed your role into a successful film or television career, then the odds are pretty good you’ve taken to the stand-up circuit. The schedules of clubs like…

The Spitfire Grill isn’t just a ’90s movie about a recent parolee from prison who moves into an idyllic town looking to start over, only to encounter suspicion and find that things aren’t what they seem–it’s also a musical. Percy arrives in town, starts working at the Spitfire Grill and…

Brothers Benny and Phil, played by Joe Cucinotti of Allen and Charles Bates of Dallas, go from extras in a set of 3,400 to director and star as they take over the larger-than-life film Exeunt Omnes–more epic than Gone With the Wind and Ben-Hur–in the play Epic Proportions. The cast…

Summertime is when community theater really shines, and the Greater Lewisville Community Theatre brings the shimmer by putting on the ever-sparkly Chicago. Murder and betrayal make for a great show, and this one is absolutely peppered with vaudevillian song and dance, with added pizazz steeped in the style of legendary…

You’ve got to respect the Jim Rose Circus. Rose is perfectly willing to let Cirque Du Soleil try to spiff up circuses into something intellectual and highbrow. He, however, has stuck to the opposite approach since the early ’90s, turning the bottom-feeding, train-wreck, lowest-common-denominator appeal of the sideshow into the…

Leave it to Dr. Seuss to have a secret art collection. Theodor Seuss Geisel–the man known for such whimsical classics as If I Ran the Circus, Horton Hears a Who and, of course, The Cat in the Hat–is the subject of the latest retrospective and national touring exhibition of Storyopolis…

Traditionally, the term “lucky stiff” refers to some average a-hole who finds himself in a suddenly fortuitous situation, liking winning the lotto or bedding some beautiful dame who’s way out of his league (all of this starts to make a lot more sense if you talk about it in a…

I’ve personally never been thanked for loyalty and (ahem) patronage with a really good bang, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. Starting Saturday, Thornwood Gallery is thanking, nay, rewarding its collectors/patrons with a big ol’ group exhibition (which is not as naughty as it sounds) of more…

You saw, or maybe even read (gasp!), High Fidelity, right? So you know about a guy who can’t figure out where he screwed things up. But not everyone is Rob Gordon. Some folks have it way worse. Some folks don’t take a break-up as a sign to examine their failures,…

Ever since the first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on our own KERA back in 1974, the silliness has caught on like the plague. If you are one of the millions who can’t get enough Python, then here is an event that will do a silly walk all…

There’s nothing classier than spending a Texas summer night drinking on-the-house Grey Goose cocktails while watching ’90s movies at The Angelika theater’s pavilion, right? The dark high school comedy Election, starring (younger) familiar faces Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, will be playing this Thursday as part of the Summer Outdoor…

When life gives you lemons…you stand up to the Israeli government that tries to destroy them on the grounds that you’re a Palestinian and may use them as a hiding ground for potential terrorists. That’s what Salma–the heroine in Eran Riklis’ film Lemon Tree–does when she finds her way of…

Some children want to grow up and become graceful ballerinas, or perhaps fight crime on the dangerous streets like their daddies did. Others want to put on a big, puffy, white marshmallow suit with an oversized helmet and float away into space. Then there are the rare ones who want…

Like any improv troupe, Section 8 has great shows and “meh” shows. But that uncertainty is part of the appeal. A flubbed joke from one performer might lead the guys into a bizarre tangent, or it might just result in merciless onstage ball-busting from the others. Either way, it’s usually…

Have you cooked every recipe in Julia Child’s famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking? Probably not, unless you are Julie Powell, who probably doesn’t read the Dallas Observer. But Powell will be in Dallas on Wednesday as part of the Julie & Julia movie, dinner and book-signing event…

Andrew Lloyd Webber had a masterpiece on his hands when he created Phantom of the Opera and the role of Christine Daae for his then wife, Sarah Brightman. Take away the props, costumes and sets, though, and the “most successful entertainment venture of all time”–as the official Web site boasts–would…

May be B.S., but I heard about a guy acting like a wine expert at a party, remarking about the characteristics of a glass that somebody handed him–until the host said, “You’ve been boxed,” revealing it was box wine. The guest shot himself. At $75 for one session or $120…

In light of the U.S. Men’s soccer team’s fairy tale-like rise to the Confederations Cup finals for the first time in history, beating out Spain only to lose to Brazil (but hey, it’s Brazil), it looks like it’s becoming more and more acceptable for Americans to become soccer fans. So,…