Tom Sawyer was quite the little pickup artist. “D’ya like dead rats?” he says to the new girl in town, Becky Thatcher. She doesn’t, but she does take a shine to Tom, America’s pre-Bart Simpson symbol of boyhood mischief. Be re-introduced to Tom and his dead-rat-and-dead-cat-swinging pals Huck Finn, Joe…
Dallas Theater Center’s artistic director Kevin Moriarty loves big-budget visual gimmickry, but for Oedipus el Rey, playwright Luis Alfaro’s contemporary adaptation of the 2,500-year-old Greek myth, now running in the Studio Theatre at the Wyly, he’s held his usual instincts in check. Instead of tatting things up, Moriarty and his…
Comedy Central’s newest sitcom Broad City is only two episodes into the current season, but it has already gained an impressive audience, heaps of critical praise and some wel-deserved buzz. The network is so impressed with the show’s opening that its stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson are getting their…
If the future of theater, in Dallas or anywhere else, has more shows coming up with the thrilling ideas, energy, talent and art of On the Eve, then we have a lot to look forward to. This time-hopping rock musical (with Irish step-dancing! puppet sheep! giant disco ball!) was born…
How many dick mentions are in an interview with a comedy collective? Only three, surprisingly — at least when you interview Riley Morris and Naaman Rodges of Shut Up and Prance. Instead they lead with homicide and wiretapping. Morris was calling in from Los Angeles and said he was forced…
Five years ago, Dallas Comedy House founder Amanada Austin risked a cushy job at a Lexus dealership to follow a dream of bringing Chicago-style improv comedy to Dallas/Fort Worth at a time when its comedy scene was still in its infancy. “When we opened, I was really more concerned with…
A trio of University of North Texas (UNT) improvisers who went to Austin to compete in the College Improv Tournament came back to Denton with a first-place plaque. UNT seniors Daniel Matthews, Colten Winburn and Ryan Goldsberry, known collectively as Cell Block Tango, beat 11 other teams to win the…
Being nervous about sketch comedy is natural. One bad experience and you’re convinced the medium disagrees with you. Like that time you drank all of the melon-flavored whiskey and said, “Nope. Never again.” But maybe you just drank the wrong shit, right? Nobody should drink melon-flavored whiskey, especially when the…
It’s been a good year for Kennedy Waterman. She earned a DFW Theater Critics Forum Award for her performance in a re-imagining of Glengarry Glen Ross, she’s premiering her first solo performance piece this week and she’s about halfway through seventh grade. Her short play Allergic Me, directed by Dallas…
Make no mistake, there’s a big Boo Boo in this year’s Broadway Our Way, the upbeat annual musical comedy fundraiser put on by Uptown Players at Kalita Humphreys Theater. You’ll recognize Honey Boo Boo, the reality TV starlet, played for Uptown by the drag-mazing comic actor B.J. Cleveland. Out (s)he…
Here’s something that ought to happen more often between theaters on opposite sides of the Trinity: Fort Worth’s Stage West has imported the entire cast, and their puppet alter egos, of Theatre Too’s hit production of the musical Avenue Q. Back onstage again with their arms up the backsides of…
The Out of the Loop Fringe Festival has been premiering new work for more than a decade. WaterTower just released the 2014 line-up, which includes 18 artists and performing arts organizations, 12 of whom make their festival debut.
Since hashtags became a thing, the four-letter slogan “YOLO” has been attached to more than 16 million pictures on Instagram of bleary-eyed frat parties, foolhardy stunts and ill-advised trips to tattoo parlors. After all, you only live once. Over at the Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park, this motto of…
Here’s what I wrote about actor Brian J. Smith in 2002 when he was a 21-year-old student starring as Alex, head of the Droogs, in Collin College’s production of A Clockwork Orange: “His command of this difficult role is impressive and memorable. Smith, who grew up in Allen, has the…
The children are indeed the future. Local preteen KJ Takahashi is competing in a video contest, Marquese Scott’s Shut Up and Dance: Dance Among Dragons, in which he’s currently ranked third. This isn’t a kid-specific contest. KJ’s competitors are grown-ass adults, and he’s closing in on the second- and first-place…
She’s the Program Coordinator and Visiting Scholar in Dance at Eastfield College, the Director of University of Texas at Arlington’s Dance Ensemble, a guest choreographer for Dallas Neo-Classical Ballet, and a dancer at Contemporary Ballet Dallas and the Big Rig Dance Collective. Phew! Such is the life of Danielle Georgiou…
Comedian Brian Regan, a Letterman regular and car buddy of Jerry Seinfeld, will perform this Friday in Big D. I set up a phoner with the G-rated comedian from his home in Vegas to get his take on his act, taking a car ride with the comedy king and growing…
You might think that a show that features nothing but bizarre moments from the starry-eyed days of the VHS tape wouldn’t last five minutes when anyone with two thumbs and an iPhone can download one of a billion embarrassing moments from YouTube or laugh at tragedy after tragedy along with…
Colin Quinn brings his one-man show Unconstitutional to the Wyly Theater at 8 p.m. Friday. While he might be an SNL veteran, TV host, and stand-up comedian, Mr. Colin Quinn is better known these days for his conceptually ridiculous Twitter account. Sounding absolutely nothing like Colin Quinn himself, his account…
You’re never quite sure where you are when you talk to Neil Hamburger. The standup walks a fine line that can leave you dancing between genuine reality and some bizarre universe where you’re not sure if the hand you hold in front of your face is real or even your…
A comedian, storyteller and founding member of the sketch troupe The State is bringing his deep and dark storytelling podcast to the Dallas Comedy House next month. Kevin Allison will record a live episode of his popular Maximum Fun podcast Risk! at 10:30 p.m. Friday, February 7. The podcast is…
It’s all there in black and white. For nearly 30 years Pegasus Theatre has been presenting Dallas writer-actor Kurt Kleinmann’s comedy take-offs on old B-movie murder mysteries and Hitchcock thrillers. The shows are presented in Kleinmann’s trademarked visual style that eliminates everything but shimmery shades of black, white and gray…
