A strong Patti LuPone vibe buzzes through Lyric Stage’s Gypsy, running through September 18 at the Irving Arts Center, and not just because the company purchased all the costumes from the most recent Broadway production, the one that starred LuPone as that mother of all stage mothers, Momma Rose. The…
Here’s the set-up: Long-time laughers, short-time bloggers. We here at the Mixmaster love comedy and from before the launch of this blog we were looking to do a series of Q&As with local comics (stand-up, improv, musical, all of it). But we had to get it right. Finally, we settled…
The votes are in from the Dallas/Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum for the latest round of honors recognizing the best work on local stages big and small. The awards are decided at an annual potluck lunch at critic Martha Heimberg’s Lakewood home, where the critics writing for DFW’s magazines, newspapers…
George C. Scott has been forced to watch the Jack & Jill trailer recently, and now he’s pretty fed up with Rick Perry. Follow the Mixmaster on Twitter and Facebook…
Whatever you had planned for tonight, forget it. Go see The Sunshine Boys at the Eisemann Center in Richardson. If you can’t make it tonight, see it Saturday night at Casa Mañana in Fort Worth. After that, it’s gone, possibly to Broadway (there’s an offer on the table), or maybe…
The Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs and a bunch of Dallas theaters are once again offering free tickets for performances as part of the National Free Night of Theater. Starting today, September 9, enter to win tickets for performances at local theaters in October. Once you’re on the site, you’ll…
Over the past year he’s played Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and a Nazi officer in Cabaret. Now, cast in the lead as Prospero in Shakespeare’s mighty drama The Tempest, actor Chamblee Ferguson steps into the biggest role of his long career at Dallas Theater Center. The Tempest, opening…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. Playwright A.R. Gurney has written more than 40 plays, but it’s a good bet Sylvia…
Tom Green is best known for livening up MTV with the weirdness of his Tom Green Show, tormenting his parents, strangers and, by having viewers request his “Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song)” on the secretly-not-really-live Total Request Live, the network itself with pranks that ranged from bizarre performance art…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. Make Eugene O’Neill’s drama Long Day’s Journey into Night into a knockabout comedy? Who in…
Just to shorthand it: If The Simpsons did Long Day’s Journey into Night, you’d have Morphing, the latest, funniest, most brilliantly perverse piece of original theater yet by Matthew Posey and his Ochre House gang. It takes a few ticks to realize that the characters in Morphing, written, designed and…
One reason actor Justin Locklear is sure to stick around Dallas for a bit longer: His car, a 1985 Toyota Land Cruiser, is parked for the next few weeks as part of the scenery in the Ochre House theater’s latest production, Morphing. Good thing he lives within walking distance of…
Of all the stand-up comics booked in all the venues in town, Tig Notaro and The Kessler seem to go together like indie kids and vinyl. And The Kessler folks couldn’t have picked a better comedian to launch their new Comedy at The Kessler series, tonight. Notaro, who once toured…
Imagine Gilligan’s Island starring Jerry Van Dyke as Little Buddy and Carroll O’Connor as the Captain. They were the first choices for leads in the 1960s sitcom, but both actors turned down the roles that then went to Bob Denver and Alan Hale Jr. Television history is full of stories…
Heat has taken a toll on our theater actors this summer. During Shakespeare Dallas’ run of Cyrano and As You Like It at Samuell Grand Park, lead actors Chris Hury and Joanna Schellenberg experienced symptoms of heatstroke, not just once but several times. Even ice packs in their costumes couldn’t…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. A lame effort like Wild Oats is no way for Theatre Three to launch its…
Are sunspots making shows go haywire in local theaters? Is Mercury in retrograde? Two productions at neighborhood playhouses opened last week, or tried to, and they proved that old adage true again: Dying is easy; comedy is hard. Theatre Three has started its 51st season with Wild Oats, a play…
On Saturday night, actress and singer Liz Mikel performed in concert at the Music Hall at Fair Park. The performance was part of a new series at the venue, and it was Michael Jenkins, President and Managing Director of Dallas Summer Musicals, who called Mikel while she was in New…
As we have seen in the past few days the belly dancing community is quite the passionate one, taking to phone lines and the Interwebs to defend and promote its art and culture. But even more impressive and impactful than on message boards and social media sites, was the passion…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. Under the gigantic dome at Fort Worth’s 1000-seat Casa Mañana theater, the cast of the…
Theater Caps are bite-sized punch-packing capsule reviews by resident theater critic Elaine Liner. Use them as a reminder — or a teaser, if you procrastinate — of her full-length reviews in The Mixmaster’s weekly sister. There is nothing on any local stage right now like Elvis August. Created and performed…
Good morning, Baltimore! And howdy-do again to Hairspray, the wholesome American musical comedy whose low-art origins as a non-musical 1988 film by gross-out king John Waters have almost been obliterated in its evolution into family-friendly entertainment. First there was the clean-up for its transition to the Broadway stage, then the…
