During the mid-1960s, films about beach parties were all the rage. If you’re of a certain generation, or you have an affinity for classic movies, you may have grown up watching these niche films, escaping with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon to the simple joy of partying like hell in…
When Shakespeare is trending, it’s usually for historical reasons. Perhaps the burial site of Richard III has been discovered, or there’s renewed conjecture over whether the Bard wrote all of his plays himself. What you don’t see are many debates over content. In 400 years, we’ve worked that out —…
No one in the theater world works harder than an actress who’s also a mom. Don’t believe it? Gal Godot famously reshot certain scenes of Wonder Woman while five months pregnant. Google “baby brain.” That’s a real thing that happens where your kids suck all of your mental energy. When…
Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm is a playwright learning to channel his rage. In 2014, the St. Louis native was away from home when a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, a northern suburb of the city. The riots and protests that followed the highly disputed and emotionally charged…
Demetri Martin performs at the Majestic Theatre on Thursday, June 15. Between national tour dates and pesky deadlines for his third book, If It’s Not Funny, It’s Art — due out later this year — comedian Demetri Martin has a pretty hectic schedule. Last year, he decided to complicate his life…
Heather Chandler is popular, pretty and pitiless. She says things like, “Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw.” She treats her friends, two of them also named Heather, with deep contempt, and she treats her enemies worse. Another girl invites her to lick up a puddle of vomit. One morning,…
Matt Lyle knows a thing or two about straddling worlds. The 38-year-old, Dallas-based playwright and dad got his chops doing theater in high school and college but realized early on that performing comedy was also in his bones, and he just couldn’t live without it. This month, he’s merging those…
Aaron Zilbermann was fresh out of college and teaching middle school in one of the worst neighborhoods in Oakland, Calif., when one of his sixth-grade students was shot and killed in front of the school. As the dying 13-year-old crawled in front of a crowd of children looking on, the…
Bill “Earl” Ray had one major goal upon taking the reins of Jubilee Theatre in early 2016: cut the theater’s deficit. Jubilee is North Texas’ longest-running African-American theater and was forced to replace its fourth artistic director since the death of its co-founder, Rudy Eastman, in 2005. After Eastman’s death,…
“I don’t give a shit what you do here.” That’s what Jeffrey Schmidt, newly appointed artistic director of Dallas’ longtime uptown staple Theatre Three, said to PrismCo, the young, movement-based theater that will produce a new take on King Lear this fall. Schmidt is giving full license to playwrights and…
Baby boomers love Julianne and Derek Hough. Old women especially. Their old-man husbands are just there because their wives forced them out of the house to see two blond-haired, blue-eyed siblings tango with each other. But the men aren’t too upset because they love Julianne. But the women really love…
James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, Into the Woods, opens today at the Winspear Opera House, but it’s not the show you’re used to. This version is a bare-bones, stripped-down story that forces the audience members to use their imaginations and enter the woods themselves. But don’t worry, says music…
Last year, Stage West artistic director Dana Schultes came across a playwright who immediately resonated with her: Annie Baker. She’d read Baker’s 2010 The Aliens, which won an Obie Award that year for best new American play. It takes place in the alley behind a Vermont coffee shop and features…
Each week on HBO’s Crashing, budding comic Pete Holmes stays on the couch of a different, established comic as he struggles to build a career in New York City. This story is a familiar one to Della Temple, who also endured homelessness on the path to a career in comedy…
It’s not easy to wrap one’s head around the work of theater troupe Dead White Zombies (DWZ), but why would it be? It’s the brainchild of Thomas Riccio, a University of Texas at Dallas drama professor, world traveler and metaphysical hobbyist who’s all about bucking convention. DWZ always engage the…
The call came at 8:30 last Saturday morning. It was Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League phoning to let Kevin Moriarty know that the Dallas Theater Center had won the regional Tony Award. Within the next four hours, Moriarty would see nearly 200 members of the Dallas theater…
Arts Mission Oak Cliff, a new multi-use arts venue built inside of the old Winnetka Heights Church, has opened its first production. Cara Mia Theatre Co.’s De Troya is a world premiere by Obie Award winning playwright Caridad Svich. It is the story of Mara, who rescues a mysteriously wounded…
We’re Gonna Die is a cabaret-style musical about something we all have in common – certain death. This is not, as director and producer Jack Nice points out, the story of star-crossed lovers who “come together, sing about their love for each other, then turn to the audience and do a…
The Dallas Opera is ending its 60th season on a high note with a masterful production of the bel canto opera Norma. The company’s first ever presentation of Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 masterpiece fills out what company director Keith Cerny has called “a noticeable gap in the company’s repertoire.” This grand…
In 1899, French actress Sarah Bernhardt famously played Hamlet and brought an impishness to the Danish prince that audiences had never seen before. There is a movement catching fire now for women to take on these classic, meaty Shakespearean roles traditionally played by men: The latest production of Twelfth Night…
Sebastian Maniscalco performs at the Majestic Theatre on Thursday, April 13. Sebastian Maniscalco recently got one of the highest compliments any comedian can receive. Another comedian said he’s funny. On his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, host and show creator Jerry Seinfeld described Maniscalco as someone who “just…
For the last 10 years, Kevin Moriarty has been the resident chemist in the Arts District, where his latest concoction is an outdoor production of the Greek tragedy Electra. As the Dallas Theater Center’s artistic director, manipulating text and space are his bread and butter. Moriarty comes by his curiosity honestly. At…
