David Lindsay-Abaire’s two-act dramedy Good People at WaterTower Theatre argues both sides of the same argument. Are good choices or good luck the reason why some people succeed and others don’t? Struggling South Boston single mom Margie (marvelous Jessica Cavanagh), desperate for work, begs old high school boyfriend Mike (James…
In the past month, I have received five press releases about upcoming productions of 13 Shakespeare plays. Well, technically one is a performance of his sonnets. If Mama Mia! is ubiquitous, Billy Shakes is omnipresent. As a nerdy lit major in college, the idea that I would someday grow tired…
“They are all untitled, and I think he did it on purpose, so as to minimize preconceptions that might influence anyone looking at them,” curator Dr. Karin Oen tells me as she walks me through the installation of artist Shen Wei’s exhibition at the Crow Collection of Asian Art. The…
“What I hope people gain from my work is a glimpse of beauty, and to engage in the mysteriousness of the unknown.” Shen Wei. Dancer. Choreographer. Painter. Art historian. Creator of the internationally lauded Shen Wei Dance Arts in New York City, and coming to Dallas’ Winspear Opera House on…
When The Dallas Opera decided to stage Death and the Powers, Tod Machover’s challenging modern sci-fi opera, they called on conductor Nicole Paiement to handle the complex score. Paiement was a smart choice: as Artistic Director of San Fransisco’s Opera Parallèl, a professional company dedicated to producing contemporary operas, she’s…
Plan to treat yo self, Dallas. Tom Haverford Aziz Ansari announced via Twitter this morning that he’ll be bringing his swag to the American Airlines Center September 13. All year, he’s been taking his cheesy smile and well-pressed suits to cities across the U.S. on his “Modern Romance” tour and…
On the heels of a number of dance companies following the theatrical standard of announcing their season’s offerings, fledging company Avant Chamber Ballet is presenting a line-up that promises to keep audience and dancers busy in the coming year. Avant Chamber Ballet is one of the newest ballet companies on…
Playwrights seek inspiration everywhere. Dallas-based writer Jonathan Norton is no exception. The prolific dramatist is constantly on the hunt for a good story, particularly one that strikes a chord with him. For his newest play Mississippi Goddamn, inspiration arrived on a trip to the titular state where he was reminded…
When a new play hits a stage in near-perfect form — like Matt Lyle’s Barbecue Apocalypse, the sizzling comedy headlining as a world premiere at Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Fest this month — it can look too easy. Dialogue crackles with originality; the plot veers off in unexpected directions…
If you’d never seen a river portrayed on stage by actors holding long swaths of silky blue cloth, waving them up and down to make the “water” ripple, then the images evoked in The Magic Rainforest, An Amazon Journey would seem, well, magical. But unless you’re 8 — about minimum…
“It’s always been my dad’s dream to do something with the theater,” Katy McBride Reynolds says of her father, Glen McBride, part owner of Denton Fine Arts Theater. “I mean, obviously, he’s held onto it for this long. We’ve had offers from companies, individuals over the years that want to…
When the weather gets hot and sticky, schools start to close, and we all mentally check out and start dreaming of beers and beaches and sleeping until noon. But dancers never stop. The beginning of June marks the end of many companies’ spring seasons and the start of professional training…
Last year at Austin’s experimental theater festival, Fusebox, the Rude Mechs workshopped a little show about wealth, societal expectations, and greed. It was two parts Pygmalion, one part musical, a little bit tap show and a whole lot of theatrics. This troupe of theater provocateurs would go on to premiere…
In 2012, CBS canceled Rob Schneider’s self-titled sitcom ¡Rob!. Rather than wait for another network to give him a shot at his own show, he decided to give himself one instead. “We averaged 11 million viewers and the premiere had 13.5 million viewers and it wasn’t enough for them,” Schneider…
Friend. Brilliant choreographer. Tenacious. Humorous. A fighter. Stubborn. Advocate for dance. Committed. Collaborator. There are not words to adequately and appropriately describe the man who helped to usher in this new era of dance in Dallas. Bruce Wood was a tidal force in the city’s culture, a man born to…
Chances are that your high school prom was so full of sadness and regret that it still comes up in dreams brought on by alcoholic blackouts and crying therapy sessions that can drive up the stock price for Kleenex. The Dallas Comedy House offers a chance to replace that memory…
Bruce Wood, founder of Bruce Wood Dance Project and perhaps one of the areas most esteemed choreographers and advocates for the Dallas dance scene, has died of complications from pneumonia and heart failure. He was 53. His death was extremely unexpected. I just saw Bruce a couple of weeks ago…
Closing out their first year as a company, Pedestrian Dance Movement will be moving into the Courtyard Theater in Plano for two shows of their original production, Acceptance. Pedestrian Dance Movement is a contemporary dance company based in Dallas with the mission to connect with audiences by bringing a human-like…
It’s not the end of the world if your dinner party is a bust. Or is it? In the smart new comedy Barbecue Apocalypse by Matt Lyle, a big city husband and wife struggle with adulthood. “We are in our 30s and have movie posters thumb-tacked to the walls!” wails…
The staging of Booth, the world premiere drama by Dallas actor-writer-director Steven Walters at his Second Thought Theatre, is small. Just 60 seats in Bryant Hall. The main acting space is about 12-feet-by-12 of wooden planks. But the scope of this historical tragedy is huge, covering events leading up to…
I should open this blog post with a caveat. These are the 10 best theater companies in town that aren’t the Dallas Theater Center. The budget of the Dallas Theater Center sweeps it out of the competition. It’s our local member of the League of Resident Theaters (LORT), which implies,…
Boston native Bill Burr may sound bothered and on the constant edge of a nervous breakdown on stage but he has a weird, almost Zen-like attitude toward his aspirations, or as close to Zen as most clinically depressed comics can achieve. While comics may dream of getting their own self-titled…
