Raising children can feel like the world’s most thankless and demanding job, especially if you’re new at it. You cater to the whims of a demanding human being who can’t take care of his or her basic needs and is immune to reason, logic and the construct of a speakable…
Comedian Margaret Cho has never been afraid to tackle tough subjects. So naturally, her new Fresh Off the Bloat tour covers subjects like the #MeToo movement, the rise of Trumpism and Asian-American representation in entertainment, including her controversial ABC sitcom All-American Girl. The challenge has changed, though. Thanks to social…
When Anthony Anderson went home from school, nobody could help him with his homework because no one in his family could read music. The youngest of seven kids, Anderson was the only one in the house whose homework included sight-reading music sheets and studying German and Italian. Now 19, Anderson…
Over the next three days, a select group of aspiring DFW comedians will achieve their dreams of being on Comedy Central. Superstar comedian Kevin Hart will bring his Comedy Central show, Hart of the City, to the DFW area, and he’s looking for stand-up comedians to feature. The Arlington Improv…
Fixer Upper aired its last episode Tuesday night on HGTV, and everyone was sad. People love TV shows about couples renovating homes together, and when they are denied the privilege of watching them, they become really sad. But there is no need to be sad. Chip and Joanna Gaines, the…
Dallas Summer Musicals, for many years as the sole provider of Broadway entertainment in the city, has been presenting live theater in Fair Park since 1941. Then in 2009, the AT&T Performing Arts Center — another organization vying for the same productions and the same audience — opened. Its inaugural season included…
Grant Redmond didn’t bother to put on clothes when his partner, Cody Tidmore, told him their comedy short had been nominated for a Webby. “I woke up to Cody yelling at me from his room that we got in,” Redmond says. “I jumped out of bed and ran across the…
#The Count refers to the fact that only 22 percent of plays performed in regional theaters are written by women, and only 3 percent are written by women of color. Down for #The Count is a one-act play festival going on through April 15 at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center…
Dallas music and performing arts festival Soluna returns next month for its fourth year with the theme “Shadow and Light.” The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s three-week celebration of music and art is May 6-28 in various locations throughout Dallas. Professional skater and multimedia artist Jennifer Wester will present the world premiere…
In 2010, a small building in Deep Ellum known as Dallas Comedy House hosted the first Dallas Comedy Festival. This week, DCH, now one of the neighborhoods’ longest-running establishments, is welcoming performers from all over the country for its ninth year of the festival, which is expanding to two locations…
Sasheer Zamata is a woman of many talents. While she gained prominence as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, she is also an accomplished writer, actress and stand-up comedian. On March 30-31, she will perform both her stand-up and her variety show, Sasheer Zamata’s Party Time, at the Dallas Comedy…
Terrance M. Johnson describes the seven men and seven women who make up his eponymous dance company as ambassadors. Dancers don’t audition for the Terrance M. Johnson Dance Project but are invited, and they must serve the community with their talent and be willing to help him on his mission…
After the Gamergate controversy in 2014, the harsh realities of being a female nerd became the topic of endless think pieces. The harassment campaigns targeting women made it easy to spot issues of misogyny in video game culture, but what about more subtle, everyday name-calling or exclusion? Even in the age…
A bad day at work is never fun. At a typical 9-to-5, a bad day could involve being forced to stay late, getting into a fight with a co-worker or visiting to HR after they looked at your browser history. For a stand-up comedian, a bad day at work is…
FCC, the first and only all-black sketch comedy troupe in Dallas, is here to give audiences an irreverent dose of sketch comedy you won’t see on censored late-night TV. FCC (the meaning is a mystery to anyone outside the group — the troupe has never gone on record with any…
The Dallas Opera presented the U.S. premier Friday night of Sunken Garden, a modern one-act opera first performed in 2013 at the English National Opera. The innovative composer Michel van der Aa collaborated with novelist David Mitchell, who wrote the libretto, to create a multimedia dramatic performance that is part opera…
Sex and power are stripped down and put on full-frontal display in GiANT Entertainment’s production of Terry Johnson’s Hitchcock Blonde — a pitch black, dark comedy timed perfectly for the era of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. “GiANT Entertainment started last year,” says the play’s producer, Ryan Matthieu Smith, “and…
Michel van der Aa and I have a bad connection. We’re chatting through Facetime to sidestep international calling fees, but my tech reality isn’t equal to the Grawemeyer Award-winner’s. He’s explaining how he created, composed and filmed the world’s first 3D opera, Sunken Garden, which gets its U.S. debut in…
Performance night for the Mavericks ManiAACs, the all-male dance team that has spent the last 16 years shaking their exposed guts for adoring crowds at American Airlines Center, starts long before the ref throws the opening jumpball. At last Wednesday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the ManiAACS’ duties began as…
Passion, satire and professionalism collided when Day of Absence cast members met in the basement of Oak Cliff’s Arts Mission this week for rehearsal. “The play is a reverse minstrel show,” says director Aaron Zilbermann, “which means it has an almost entirely black cast that is made up in white…
On Saturday night, audience members packed themselves to standing-room-only capacity at Full City Rooster to watch a comedy show. Throughout the night they heard heartbreaking tales of loss, isolating periods of self-doubt and tearful recollections of moments that forever defined a life. They also laughed hard. These are the sharp…
It’s difficult to describe a comedy act like Tape Face, but comedian Sam Wills, the real name of the man behind the strip of electrical tape, says that going into one of his shows cold enhances the bewilderment and surprise he wants his audience to feel. “The less you know,…
