When season one of Stranger Things aired, everyone inside the Allen-based game development studio BonusXP became an immediate fan. At lunch, they had to separate into camps just to safely discuss spoiler-ridden anecdotes and fan theories…
Chip and Joanna Gaines are headed for world domination. What started with a TV show called Fixer Upper has turned into an empire. There’s the Magnolia Market, a home-renovation business, a bakery, a garden shop, a restaurant, multiple books, a magazine, multiple home decor lines at Target, Pier One, Anthropologie…
Jennifer Hudson’s performance with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this weekend for the SOLUNA Festival will be a sampling of her 15-year career. Hudson tells the Observer she’ll sing songs from Hairspray, when she played Motormouth Maybelle on NBC’s live version of the musical. She’ll also sing songs from Dreamgirls, the movie…
Thursday Chelsea Handler is back and you should be happy. The world feels like a friggin’ mess with every new “breaking news” update, and Handler’s is the only vodka soaked mind who can make some kind of sense out of it. If she can’t, at least her effort will be…
The 20th day of every April is a unifying holiday. A day when college professors and Jack in the Box employees can come together to stare blankly at an episode of Sanford and Son. A day when weekend dads and their estranged children can bond inappropriately. A day when white…
Thanks to the rise of movie streaming subscription services like Netflix, movie theaters have had to step up their offerings to compete for audiences. The Alamo Drafthouse’s national chain plans to roll out its own subscription service by the end of the year to all of its theaters, which will…
This past Saturday, This World Won’t Break had its world premiere at the Dallas International Film Festival. The film, directed by Josh David Jordan, is a modern-day musical that tells the story of Wes Milligan (Greg Schroeder), a Texas troubadour who fails to find success as a musician. One day,…
During the 15th annual Diversity & Leadership Conference last week, actress and activist America Ferrera came to talk about inclusion. The event was a Most Powerful & Influential Women Breakfast on Thursday morning, toward the end of the conference that would later feature President Barack Obama. The Golden Globe and…
In Remember Rudy, the latest original production from Dallas’ Ochre House Theater, the self-described “alternative theater” asks audiences some intriguing questions. “Do you believe in ghosts?” reads the musical’s promotional materials. “Do we create our ghosts? Or do our ghosts create us?” Set to make its premiere on Saturday, April…
Dallas’ Cara Mía Theatre began in 1996 and has grown into the largest Latinx theater in Texas. In their annual Teatro En Fuga: A Festival of New Works, Cara Mía will present minimally staged workshop productions of three experimental plays written by members of the company. Set to kick off…
When Saturday Night Live star and writer Seth Meyers moved from the Weekend Update desk that he shared with the likes of Amy Poehler and his insane, gay lover, Stefon, to NBC’s Late Night desk, he says he and his team thought the audience would gravitate toward bits and segments…
When people see game show host and television producer Marc Summers outside of their TVs or childhood memories, he says he loves it when they come up to him, politely introduce themselves and tell him that they grew up watching him host Nickelodeon’s messy kids’ game show Double Dare. “I get…
The Dallas International Film Festival is back, and this year it’s bringing some new additions. The most important for moviegoers is the new e-ticketing, reserved seating policy. After a year of development and collaboration, DIFF and Atom Tickets built a platform from scratch. Brandon Jones of FilmFrog Marketing says the…
“I wish I was labeled as just my name, instead of being the ‘transgender wrestler,’” says Mack Beggs in Mack Wrestles, an upcoming documentary for ESPN’s 30 for 30 series. In 2017, Beggs was the subject of much media attention after winning the Texas high school girls state wrestling championship…
Is Hamilton overhyped? The musical created by some guy from Puerto Rico about a treasury secretary in the 1700s set to hip-hop sounds a little strange. With all the buzz around it, it seems bound to be. Dallas doesn’t seem to think so, though. We’ve been waiting for this hit…
Stan Lee might have created multiple comic book characters, but most people would agree he was a terrible stand-up comedian. That’s not the case for Dallas native Thomas Nichols, a touring comedian who just saw the second issue of his comic book, Just Us Cops, hit store shelves. Just Us…
Thursday From humble beginnings in Cuba, husband and wife Emilio and Gloria Estefan came to America and broke all barriers to become a crossover musical sensation. But just when they thought they had it all, they almost lost everything in a near-tragic tour bus accident. Broadway bio-musical On Your Feet!,…
Many of the paintings by Laura Roosevelt inside her tony, wood-floored townhouse in Uptown Dallas are abstract. Canvases where the paint is layered on thickly, with muted colors that would look great over a new gray or tan leather sofa. One recent afternoon, though, Roosevelt had a different sort of…
Brooklyn and Bailey McKnight didn’t become the clean-cut mega popular YouTubers they are today without following a few rules from their parents. No social media until age 13. Parents will monitor all texts and social media activity. A multi-page contract will be signed before you’re given a phone, computer or…
In Running With Beto, a documentary directed by David Modigliani, the director captures Beto O’Rourke’s run for Senate in the 2018 midterm election, showcasing a more human side of a politician with a large platform and a big following. Although O’Rourke didn’t win, Modigliani believed his story would be an important one to…
The DSO’s annual SOLUNA Festival kicks off this week with performances of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, featuring virtuoso Augustin Hadelich. Contemporary music has been a key part of SOLUNA from the beginning, which makes for the perfect time to introduce Dallas to Julia Wolfe, the DSO’s composer-in-residence. “Composer-in-residence” is a…
Every day 200 new shows are added to Netflix (only a slight exaggeration), so why shouldn’t you be in one of them? Fortunately, fate smiles upon you, Dallas residents, because The Circle, a new reality game show being produced exclusively for Netflix, is hosting auditions Saturday, April 13. The Circle,…
