Three tours with the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan left Raul Sanchez with post-traumatic stress disorder, crippling anxiety attacks and, at one time, a substance abuse problem. So, naturally he turned to comedy. That might sound odd, but for Sanchez, the San Antonio standup comedian recently named the Funniest Comic…
Ladies, take a bow. And another and another. This was your year on North Texas stages. Local actresses turned in a remarkable number of memorable performances in musicals, comedies and dramas in 2013. And it’s not every year that women get so many good roles in live theater in Dallas…
A theater critic character is murdered in the first act of Ken Ludwig’s comedy-mystery The Game’s Afoot (or Holmes for the Holidays). Meanwhile, in an aisle seat at WaterTower Theatre, an actual critic wishes for the sweet release of sudden death. The Game’s Afoot, surely the worst play on any…
Sunday night’s Funniest Comic in Texas finals featured six very funny sets from six talented comedians, but the crown went to Raul Sanchez. The San Antonio native beat out Brad LaCour, Linda Stogner, Ryan Perrio, Josh Johnson and Jason James to win the trophy, a big check and a week’s…
The harmonal balance is way off among the quartet of singers in One Thirty Productions’ Plaid Tidings, the holiday musical now doing matinees at the Bath House Cultural Center. But does it matter? This is writer Stuart Ross’ terrible sequel to his awful show Forever Plaid, which was about a…
Beneath the groaning puns, audience singalongs and glow-in-the-dark puppets, Theatre Britain’s annual Christmas “panto,” The Three Little Pigs, offers some cunningly subversive comedy. Good pantos always do. It’s taken 16 years for Theatre Britain, now based at the Cox Building Playhouse in Plano, to educate the audience about this style…
Amy Schumer is coming to town next April and tickets go on sale this Friday. In the grand tradition of female comics (or comic — Kathy Griffin) she’ll be performing at the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie. If you haven’t heard of Amy Schumer, that’s OK. She’s an up-and-comer so…
All five people in Other Desert Cities, the 2011 Pulitzer finalist drama by Jon Robin Baitz, now at Theatre Three, talk to each other in a way only characters in grim, smug New York plays like this do. In complete sentences. Complete paragraphs. Using words like “hagiography” (which an actress…
Robert Wilson is a master of the silence. On Monday night as part of the Nasher Sculpture Center’s Salon, he stood steps away from his director’s chair staring into the audience before he repeated: “Theater 101, learn how to stand on stage.” The accidental theater artist crafted a career as…
Standing on stage recently at the Amsterdam Comedy Festival at a flat 4 feet tall and only 57 pounds, it’s no wonder this up-and-coming DFW comic is called the “next little thing.” She started her set by letting the audience know that she’s written everything she’s about to say. “If…
Sweet as a bushel of sugar cookies, light as a snowflake, ‘Twas the Night before Christmas is safe family fare on the big stage at Dallas Children’s Theater. The play-with-music pretends to tell the back story of how 19th century American journalist Clement C. Moore came up with that poem,…
Dead White Zombies’ latest, Bull Game, written and directed by Thomas Riccio, promises more than it delivers. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe not. Staged in a drafty warehouse in the new Trinity Groves hipsterhood west of the Trinity River, the show is an overstretched metaphor about the American obsession with…
Enough with the feelgood shows of the season. Bring on the feel-bad entertainment! If you’re feelin’ Scrooge-y and would rather throttle Tiny Tim than sit through another Christmas Carol, here are five alternatives amid the blizzard of holiday fare. Race, Kitchen Dog Theater, through December 14. David Mamet’s tight little…
That battle for comedy dominance known as the Funniest Comic in Texas is about to get under way and the tributes have received their invitation to join the games. OK, so the annual comedy contest doesn’t have the excitement of a futuristic reality show in which teenagers slaughter each other…
David Mamet writes great arguments. He is, arguably, the current American theater master at constructing conflict among smart characters driven by greed, anger or envy. Mamet’s best plays — Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo, Speed-The-Plow — are built around tense back-and-forth verbal battles among vicious, ambitious, often desperate men. And…
The Movember Comedy Show this Sunday at Hyena’s in Dallas is part of November’s mustache-loving fight against cancer. Members of Movember team Dallas Comedy are banding together to grow creepy mustaches and perform some stand up to put money where it’s needed — to fight prostate and testicular cancers and…
Nick Offerman likes red meat. This much is clear. The lines between him and the comic creation Ron Swanson, one of the most consistently funny sitcom characters ever made, are distinctly blurred. Both are huge fans of woodworking. Both enjoy self-sufficiency. Both would rather there were less government encroachment into…
Before you fill up on turkey and stuffing and can’t move your extremities, come out to The Amsterdam Comedy Festival for three kick-ass days of laughs from some of DFW’s best comedians. It’s all free, so don’t worry about wrecking your pie budget. The shows are November 22-24 at The…
On Saturday nights for a couple hours, the good old days still exist on National Public Radio. For nearly 30 years, Garrison Keillor’s old-fashioned variety show A Prairie Home Companion has transported its listeners to a simpler time with musical performances from American folk musicians, celebrity guests from the literary…
Nobody wrote down what Lee Harvey Oswald said during the many hours he sat under interrogation in the office of Dallas police Captain Will Fritz on November 22, 23 and 24, 1963. Nobody turned on a tape recorder or called in a stenographer. So most of what playwright Dennis Richard…
The two-time Tony-winning musical that’s kept Broadway rooms booked since its 2012 release is coming to Dallas. It was just announced that Newsies will have a two-week special engagement run at the Winspear Opera House, anchoring the 2014-2015 Lexus Broadway Series. Details on tickets and dates haven’t yet been announced…
Playwright Dennis Richard leaves it up to the audience to argue conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination. His play, Oswald: The Actual Interrogation, onstage in its regional premiere at Casa Manana Fort Worth November 9-17, just sticks to the facts. Or as many as Richard could find about the hours…
