Snackin’ On Drama

Corn-nuts are the worst snack ever. Apparently, those tooth-cracking chunks of halitosis have a part in Vicki Cheatwood’s play about a bride who falls for the groom’s brother at her own wedding. “Love, marriage, sex, liquor and Corn-nuts: 10:10 is the relationship you’d never go back to, and the sex…

The Battle of Red Nose

It’s not uncommon to suffer from coulrophobia, a.k.a. the fear of clowns. Lots of people have it. Those people might think twice before seeing Joey Seeman’s exhibition at Canvas Gallery. But it might be worth overcoming that fear to see the work, some of which stars Ronald McDonald, and uses…

Fly Write, Right?

It’s hard to believe it’s already been 19 years since Spike Lee made Do the Right Thing, which put Lee on the map and also launched the career of Martin Lawrence. Looking to boost his street cred, former Southwest Airlines CEO James Parker wrote a book by the same name…

Tap, Tap, Tappin’

Roundabouts mid-March, everybody starts getting a little Irish in them. Most folks take this to mean they have the right to wear ridiculous hats, get drunk in the daytime and talk like the Lucky Charms guy. But not only do we have the right to do these things on St…

Green Day

As you probably know, a lot of people like to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. And that’s cool, I guess, but when I was a kid, we reserved that day for the birthday celebration of someone whom we considered to be a true saint: Billy “Bullet With Butterfly…

Debbie Does Dallas

What happens when you combine Dancing with the Stars, American Idol and Singin’ in the Rain? Other than a potential hot mess, you get a legend against a backdrop of trendy reality television. Debbie Reynolds (yes, the Debbie Reynolds) hosts a one-night-only show of Simply Ballroom with the Dallas Symphony…

Bird’s Eye

What does a view from the top really look like? Artist Christine Gedeon shows us in what her artist statement calls “top view explorations” of prominent works. She shares space at the And/Or Gallery with Marisa Olson, who uses video and drawings to depict the intersection of culture and technology…

Your Wildest Dreams

You didn’t need drugs to catch a psychedelic ride in the late ’60s. You found a darkened room, friends and a few beanbag chairs, put the needle on “Nights in White Satin” and spent 6-plus minutes between heaven and feeling no pain. 1967 was the year of music evolution from…

Three-Day Drink-On

One of my best friends, a 37-year-old mother of two, just had a double mastectomy because of breast cancer—a disturbing reminder that the disease doesn’t discriminate. Wanna fight it? Arcade Bar, 1825 Abrams Parkway, is hosting a benefit at 8 p.m. Thursday for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s…

Body Movin’

Musicians, painters and bearded writers all share something in common—they love to talk about the pain and sacrifice of art while sitting in a comfy chair letting their bodies go flaccid. The Romanian gymnasts arriving to perform in the TITAS presentation of Aeros might have something to say about sacrifice…

Paul Slavens’ Improvisational Therapy

J. Paul Slavens holds his stoic composure as he takes a seat behind his Casio keyboard for his weekly residency at Dan’s Sliverleaf. After taking a nip from his whiskey and water on the rocks, Slavens leans closer to the microphone and starts crunching. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The slow, rumbling…

Junk Lady

The play Opal’s Husband tells the story of Opal Kronkie, a junk collector on a quest to find her best friend a husband. (In my head I like to picture Meg White as Opal, mostly ’cause of the White Stripes’ song “Rag and Bone”—”Well can’t you hear we’re selling rag…

Downtown Suburb

If you’ve never had a proper welcome to the city of Irving, then by golly, you are in luck. Because if the dirty white-top of Texas Stadium isn’t satisfying your hospitable standards, then the Irving Archives and Public Library will sure try to. The two departments present Welcome to Irving,…

Awkward Adolescence

As phenomenal as High School Musical and its sequel are, every time I watch them I can’t help but wonder how much better they’d be if the characters were ice-skating. The first time Troy and Gabriella kissed, I imagined Zac Efron crouching, then lifting Vanessa Hudgens spread-eagle above his head,…

Step By Step

I hope she takes this as a compliment, but I wish local artist Pauline Hudel-Smith would consider creating fabric and wallpaper. Her illustrations, filled with popping color and geometric design, are just beautiful enough to surround yourself with and quirky enough to be out of the norm. Or maybe I’m…

Two-Death Minimum

Not your parents’ dinner theater, the Improv (4980 Belt Line Road, Suite 250) is hosting Tales from the Hood’s dinner play Sex, Lies & Desperate Housewives. Dubbed “the Who Done It with Ghetto Flair,” the Murder Mystery Theater event sounds like a cliché if I’ve ever heard one—no wonder it’s…

Scrappy Doo

And the award for longest high school name ever goes to…Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts! Congratulations, BTWHSPVA! And, on that note, more congrats for the school will soon be in order when renovations on the downtown campus are completed and students can return from…

Blood Money

The Counterfeiters may be a Holocaust movie by virtue of its setting and plot, but it actually reads as a morality tale that is truly food for thought in this age of twisted ethics and “every man for himself”-style schadenfreude. The film features a group of miscreants in a concentration…

Taking It Global

In 1978, two artists named Will Hipps and Richard Childers converted a circa-1916 tire factory and air-conditioning warehouse into an art gallery. They wanted to provide a place where fledgling artists could display their work without outside pressure and dealer restrictions. At the 500X, artists can spread their wings and…

Ducks, Chicks, Bunnies and Pups

Easter is the only holiday I can get away with not spending with my family. I opt not to see a rampant number of second cousins that I don’’t know hunting for eggs. What’s better, no guilt trip from the parents. For whatever reason, the resurrection apparently doesn’t have the…

Magic Time Machine

I have mixed feelings about how effective Dancing Through Time is as the title of the newest Collin County Ballet Theatre performance. At first, it seems exciting, because you picture ballerinas doing the Charleston, then swing dancing, then disco dancing, etc. That would be one hip ballet! But then you…

Legendary Lens

Afterimage Gallery in the Routh Street Quadrangle is showing (and selling) the work of revered LIFE magazine photographer and editor John Loengard. Loengard, who began shooting for LIFE in 1961, has produced a broad range of work from esoteric landscapes to breaking news journalism, all of which is on the…