Actor Kieran Connolly sits in full view for 20 minutes before the first word of Red, the two-man bio-drama about artist Mark Rothko now running at the Wyly Theatre. As patrons take their seats, Connolly leans back in a chair, silently, intently staring at a huge red and black painting,…
There are great gay playwrights like Tennessee Williams whose plays have become classics because they deserved to be. There are good gay playwrights like Terrence McNally whose work is perceived as great because it’s just a little better than a lot of other stuff out there. And there is Del…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Frank Caliendo at the Addison Improv You might think you’re watching FOX NFL Sunday or MAD TV, but it’s all Frank Caliendo, one of the best celebrity voice impersonators working. He’ll create an…
In Death by Microphone, local Brit and barbecue blogger Gavin Cleaver attends stand-up comedy classes at the Dallas Comedy House and reports back for our amusement and education. Check back next week to revel further in his failure. The showcase thing, in which I’m actually appearing in front of an…
This weekend, SMU plays host to something called the North East Texas Humor Research Conference, pithily titled “Humor in the Professions, Psychology, Philology: Intercultural perspectives.” The conference is co-hosted by SMU and Texas A&M-Commerce, and features sessions like “Crowdsourcing Cartooning,” “Neuroscience of Humor” and “Evaluative Formulas Behind Psychology Jokes.” Sounds…
Some shows never change. Like Wicked, A Chorus Line, Chicago. Some do, however, and two that have changed for the better are big comedies with music on Dallas stages for one more weekend. The splashy Broadway tour of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes is at the Winspear. Set on a transatlantic…
What’s it all about, Aphra? Echo Theatre continues its season of plays by 17th century wit Aphra Behn with the Restoration farce The Lucky Chance, or The Alderman’s Bargain, directed by René Moreno, running one more weekend at the Bath House Cultural Center. Behn (rhymes with “rain”) is regarded as…
Lipstick red, heart ballon towers framed the stage of Hyena’s in Dallas. The lights went out, the spotlights came on, and a skinny Bangali kid named Usama Siddiquee took the stage. The Osama bin Laden joke? Immediate. The beat boxing? Unexpected. The Super Humor Funny show (Pt. 2) was underway…
If you missed On the Eve, the thrilling new rock musical by Dallas’ own Michael Federico (book) and Seth and Shawn Magill of the band Home by Hovercraft (music), during its sold-out run at the Magnolia Lounge last fall, you’ll get your chance to see it on a bigger stage…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. All Star Comedy Jam at Verizon Theatre Since this jam has been going strong for four years now, we assume that Shaq is now officially better at putting together comedy shows than making…
Kitchen Dog Theater’s production of Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs is perfectly absurd. Also absurdly perfect. Change hats. It takes a few minutes, 15 or 20, to get into the rhythm of the thing. At first it’s slow, but for good reasons. The pace gradually picks up, like the assembly line…
In Death by Microphone, local Brit and barbecue blogger Gavin Cleaver attends stand-up comedy classes at the Dallas Comedy House and reports back for our amusement and education. Check back next week to revel further in his failure. There are lots of styles of stand-up comedy, from the surreal to…
Inside Comedy, Showtime’s series of interviews with big-name comics, returns Monday with the premiere of its second season. It’s an impressive roster of funny people: Will Ferrell, Betty White, Bill Maher, Steve Martin, Tina Fey and others. Their opening punch is their strongest, though: Louis CK, who explains in the…
In Death by Microphone, local Brit and barbecue blogger Gavin Cleaver attends stand-up comedy classes at the Dallas Comedy House and reports back for our amusement and education. Check back next week to revel further in his failure. After the success last week of appealing to the lowest common denominator…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Chris Porter at Hyena’s in Dallas Spreading his drunk and stoned Midwest musings around the country is what Chris Porter does best. This Kansas City native has been making his way around the…
Good actors are doing their level best with a not-so-good play and a sub-standard production at African American Repertory Theatre in DeSoto. The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years — whew — is a dull period comedy that deals…
Sometimes it’s worth it to wait and catch a show at the end of its run rather than on opening night. By the third or fourth week, actors have it down. No stumbling over dialogue. No loss of focus. So it is with the ferociously good production at Theatre Three…
The first Friday of every month brings Viva Dallas burlesque to the Lakewood Theater, and this past Friday included an extra helping of sauce: a Mardi Gras theme. Hosted by Violet O’Hara, the show included performances by Iris Le Mour, Ruby Joule, Jolie Goodnight, Honey Cocoa Bordeaux and Pearl Lux,…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Greg Fitzsimmons at Addison Improv A regular guest of David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jay Leno, Fitzsimmons’s set is infused with his acerbic wit and scathing sarcasm. For example, did you…
In Death by Microphone, local Brit and barbecue blogger Gavin Cleaver attends stand-up comedy classes at the Dallas Comedy House and reports back for our amusement and education. Check back next week to revel further in his failure. After last week’s disaster, morale was low on the Good Ship Cleaver…
Actor Brian McEleney is the luckiest person in the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre during Dallas Theater Center’s production of King Lear. He’s the only one in the hall who doesn’t have to watch his performance in the title role. For this co-production with Rhode Island’s Trinity Repertory Company, DTC…
Dallas actor and playwright Danny O’Connor first performed his one-man show Zero at WaterTower Theatre’s black box studio five and a half years ago. Since then, he’s lost 60 pounds and he and his show have gained some comedy muscle. Now he’s a taller, younger, leaner version of Louis C.K…
