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05/08/2008
Set stars in Broadway's 'Sunday in the Park'
The set would be the star of the Broadway revival of Sunday in the Park With George – if the actors weren't so sensational.
05/09/2008
Opera review: Cuts to 'John Brown' would make it gripping
KANSAS CITY – With the volatile mix of race, religion and politics stirred up in the presidential primaries, the new opera introduced Saturday by Lyric Opera of Kansas City is unexpectedly au courant.
05/08/2008
Morgan Freeman returns to Broadway to show his vulnerability
Morgan Freeman has returned to Broadway with one goal in mind: to try to kill the Morgan Freeman you know and love.
05/06/2008
'Mid-Life' winningly obsessed with inevitable
What do you want from a musical revue? Great singing? Big laughs? Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical has it all – if you're over 40 or so.
Organist David Briggs: Insouciantly brilliant to overly blatant
If I say "Huh?" a lot this week, it's because I lost a chunk of hearing Monday evening at Park Cities Presbyterian Church. In a town with several very loud organs, PCPC's new Schoenstein may be the loudest of all.
05/05/2008
Nevilles return to a rejuvenated Jazz Fest in New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS – The shattered trees that line this city's western approach along Interstate 10 are showing signs of regrowth, much like the city itself: The waterline is almost completely erased, street signs are back up, and there are fewer FEMA trailers.
05/04/2008
Ex-Cliburn medalist gives first-rate performance with RSO
RICHARDSON – Pianist Olga Kern, one of the surest crowd-pleasers in this area, performed her magic once again Saturday night. A large audience heard her play with the Richardson Symphony Orchestra and conductor Anshel Brusilow in the Eisemann Center.
25 years later, the greatest Broadway flop of all time is being restaged
NEW YORK – It is generally not a good sign for a Broadway show when people leave the opening-night party early. That is what Arthur Bicknell noticed at the celebration for the premiere of his play. A friend finally approached with a report on the reviews.
05/03/2008
Haydn's 'The Creation': A-
Haydn's largest, most grandiose work, The Creation , received many commensurately grand performances when it was new 200 years ago. These days, though, the fashion is to play classical-period works with small orchestras and even smaller choirs.
Rachmaninov: A-
Beethoven, Mozart: C+
Henry Brant, who composed piece for opening of Meyerson, dies at 94
American avant-garde composer Henry Brant, who died April 26 at 94, was famous for compositions widely spacing separate groups of performers.
05/02/2008
Percussive fireworks spark Corigliano's 'Conjurer'
With a brand-new percussion concerto, a flashy sendup of fandangos and Elgar's Enigma Variations, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra can't be accused of boring programming this week.
05/01/2008
Beatles homage band works it out in 'Rain'
Rain — The Beatles Experience really conveys the power of the Beatles' music and makes their era come vividly alive onstage.
Actress Morgana Shaw humanizes 'Freakshow'
It's genuinely chilling when you enter the theater for Freakshow and see Morgana Shaw perched atop a table -- armless and legless.
Cast changes at local theater offices
Wednesday was a big day for announcements of comings and goings on the area theater scene.
Composer John Corigliano gives in to the lure of percussion for latest concerto
John Corigliano admits he didn't want to write a percussion concerto.
04/30/2008
DTC's 'Misanthrope' lacks Molière's delicate touch
One thing you can say for the Dallas Theater Center's The Misanthrope is that all the jokes land.
Meadows Symphony students prove to be experienced travelers
Every so often, a concert leaves you scratching your eyes – or ears – in disbelief. One of them was served up Tuesday evening by the Meadows Symphony Orchestra, at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.
04/29/2008
Wolfgang Wagner to step down as director of Bayreuth festival
Wolfgang Wagner is stepping down after 57 years as director of the Bayreuth opera festival founded by his grandfather, the composer Richard Wagner, Bavaria's culture minister said Tuesday.
Margaret Cho talks a blue streak
GRAND PRAIRIE – For Margaret Cho, the body is political. She never met an orifice she wasn't eager to explore for social meaning.
04/28/2008
Laurence Fishburne stars as Thurgood Marshall
The Apocalypse Now and Matrix actor's latest challenge is Thurgood, his first one-man play, on Broadway.
Atlanta troupe begins 10-year project on French playwright
ATLANTA – Two men, known to the audience only as The Dealer and The Client, meet on a street corner late at night. "Tell me the thing that you desire and I can provide it for you," the dealer says.
Happy feet at Dance for the Planet
It was cool and cloudy Saturday afternoon at Annette Strauss Artist Square at Samuell-Grand Park. Hot dogs and ice-cream vendors were in full swing. Kids ran around with their faces painted. A ballet dancer in Don Quixote costume warmed up on hard concrete.
Magical notes in 'Bohème' from Houston's Grand Opera Orchestra
HOUSTON – The people – critics included – who go on and on about how the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is the best in the world, how others are far inferior, should have been in Houston's Brown Theater on Saturday night. You'd have to catch the Met on an awfully good night to hear the nuance and finesse Patrick Summers consistently coaxed out of the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra in La bohème .
04/27/2008
Meadows Dance Ensemble on pointe with student, teacher work
Whatever magic dust Southern Methodist University is sprinkling, it worked Friday night.
Dallas Theater Center's David Kennedy exits to a new stage of life and work
David Kennedy is going to miss road trips to West Texas, his Oak Cliff apartment and the "refreshing straightforwardness" of Dallas folks.
Lyric Stage's Julie Johnson breathes life back into 'Hello, Dolly!'
IRVING – How do I love Julie Johnson? Let me count the ways ...
Houston Grand Opera's 'Billy Budd' sails straight
HOUSTON – Even the people we think we know best move to forces we cannot know or understand. And ambiguities of motive and morality fascinated Benjamin Britten, never more so than in his 1951 opera Billy Budd . Alas, it's coarsened in the new Houston Grand Opera production that opened Friday at the Wortham Center.
04/26/2008
Managing director John Toohey to leave Texas Ballet Theater
Managing director John Toohey announced Friday that he will be leaving Texas Ballet Theater. But fans who prefer their drama onstage instead of behind the scenes should not panic: He remains at the helm of the company until the end of the year.
Maze of problems plague Labyrinth Theatre's 'Perimeters'
RICHARDSON – A road paved with good intentions still ends up at the same place, even if it runs through a church.
Glazunov, Tchaikovsky concertos: B+
Glazunov, Tchaikovsky
04/25/2008
'Sonnets for an Old Century' features frank, candid monologues
FORT WORTH – "We are the pages written in the book of God's mind."
Van Zweden and Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus give a taste of things to come with Verdi's Requiem
From apocalyptic blasts of chorus, brass and percussion to all but inaudible high violin tremolos, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center was the scene of a sonic extravaganza Thursday night. In his last program here before taking over as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's music director, in September, Jaap van Zweden whipped up every possible bit of drama in Verdi's Requiem, at the same time imposing intense discipline.
04/24/2008
An unsentimental finale for UNT's Anshel Brusilow
Conductor Anshel Brusilow, still vigorous at age 79, closed a nearly 30-year tenure at UNT with Tchaikovsky's Pathétique.
FireStarter's Jaime Castañeda supplies many demands on his talent
FORT WORTH – Jaime Castañeda has been rehearsing Sonnets for an Old Century all over the country – in New York and Los Angeles and his apartment living room in Las Colinas. Given his schedule, he hasn't had a choice.
04/23/2008
Jaap van Zweden conducts this week as he prepares to take over DSO
Jaap van Zweden doesn't take over as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's music director until September. But already he's in the thick of planning for a 2010 European tour with the orchestra, not to mention picking a new assistant conductor and expanding the orchestra's repertory.
04/22/2008
'Gone With the Wind' is now a musical
LONDON, England — Scarlett O'Hara: Southern belle; feminist icon; West End star.
04/21/2008
Dallas Black Dance Theatre II second in name only
Dallas Black Dance Theatre II proved its mettle with No More Dry Tears during the Spring Fiesta! Series at Latino Cultural Center.
Cappies review: Scooter Thomas Makes it to the Top of the World
Memories are a funny thing. They show us the best and worst moments of our lives without discrimination, and are simultaneously cherished and reviled for their emotional potency. Even when someone has faded out of our lives forever, their memory still remains, so it's almost as if they're there with us for the rest of our lives, laughing and smiling within our hearts.
Cappies review: The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is one of the most popular pieces of musical theater by the famed pair Rogers and Hammerstein. Most remembered for the film adaptation featuring Julie Andrews, this musical centers on the life of a convent-girl-turned-governess named Maria as she deals with seven children and falls in love with their widower father, Captain Von Trapp.
Budding opera stars learn to think on their feet in elite LA program
LOS ANGELES – They slide, run and leap, morphing into anxious cops and wily robbers.
Pianist Alessio Bax and friends mix things up, brilliantly, at Caruth
It was called "Meadows Underground Project," and the two-day mix-up of classical music, jazz and something in between closed with quite a concert Sunday evening at Caruth Auditorium. The brainchild of pianist Alessio Bax, it was sponsored by Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts. And it was stimulating enough – and brilliantly performed – that one hopes for more in the future.
04/20/2008
Dancers go out on a limb with their bodies
The light was subdued, the tone somber, the style elegant. Or, to use a metaphor, it was gray upon gray upon gray, a palette that under other hands could have easily canceled itself out. But Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, appearing under the auspices of TITAS on Friday night at SMU's McFarlin Auditorium, proved that as in music, variations on a theme have the cumulative effect of drawing you in, while widening the scope of the theme.
Get ready for Houdini, the Broadway musical
NEW YORK – The man can get out of a locked trunk, but can he sing and dance? Escape artist Harry Houdini will be the subject of a Broadway musical that will open in New York in spring 2010, producers Scott Sanders and David Rockwell have announced.
Chamber Music International comes across loud and clear
Featuring ad hoc ensembles of musicians drawn from far and wide, Chamber Music International concerts often leave one wanting better-seasoned interpretations. But Saturday evening's program of three romantic masterpieces was tautly timed and tuned, and there was real depth to the music-making.
04/19/2008
'Bent,' a drama about gays in Nazi era, needs a bigger spritz of freshener
04/18/2008
Composer Philip Glass charms in Nasher Salon lecture
The hearty-looking 71-year-old composer was interviewed by WFAA-TV newsman John McCaa at Nasher Sculpture Center.
04/16/2008
Artful ways to enjoy quality entertainment for less 
It seems as if everyone's pinching pennies nowadays, so we've found some ways to help you get more for your entertainment dollar. We've roundedup a sampling of deals that are both high-quality and wallet-friendly.
Dallas Summer Musical's 'Wedding' overdoes '80s
The Wedding Singer opened the '08 season with references to briefcase-sized cellphones, junk bonds and Cyndi Lauper.
Fliter brings clarity to the Kimbell's Steinway
FORT WORTH - Pianist Ingrid Fliter gave an eloquent performance in February of the Chopin F minor Piano Concerto, with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. So interest was certainly piqued for her solo recital Tuesday evening at the Kimbell Art Museum, in the Cliburn Concerts series.
04/15/2008
Voices of Change gives 'Orpheus and Euridice' its Dallas premiere
For thousands of years, the story of Orpheus the musician has been one of the most popular myths. So beautiful was his music that wild beasts were tamed when he sang and strummed on his lyre. Even rocks and trees were moved.
String quartet plays with brilliance, bravado
The St. Lawrence String Quartet's Monday night concert was certainly stimulating, and played with astonishing brilliance and high-profile personality.
Troupes dance away the weekend at Eisemann Center
RICHARDSON – For three days, the Eisemann Center and the Renaissance Hotel were abuzz with master classes, lectures and performances as some 600 dancers in 25 companies descended for the annual Regional Dance America/Southwest Festival.
Premieres and musicals enliven Dallas Theater Center's coming season
The Dallas Theater Center takes a leap into new and uncharted waters with the 2008-09 season announced on Monday.
04/14/2008
Orpheus Chamber Singers delivers gorgeous singing at cathedral
You'll not hear choral singing more gorgeous– more fastidiously formed, balanced and buffed–than that produced Sunday evening by the Orpheus Chamber Singers. And it washed lusciously through the Cathedral Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the area's one setting with the reverberation of the European churches and cathedrals for which so much great choral music was conceived.
Chamberlain Performing Arts charms in 'Dances at a Gathering'
Garland. What if Kyle Schlaefer let loose his hold on this little featherweight of a girl? Would she flutter away like a moth?
Dallas Children's Theater's 'Eat (It's Not About Food)' gutsy
People starve every day in a world of ever-increasing scarcity. And in America, some starve for other reasons.
04/13/2008
Theater productions bound for Dallas bask in their London success
LONDON – There is a moment in The God of Carnage when Ralph Fiennes is prancing about the stage – yes, the same actor who eerily defined a Nazi goon in Schindler's List – and the husky-voiced Janet McTeer is announcing that "we're eccentric enough to believe in the pacifying influence of art."
04/14/2008
'Rhapsody in Blue,' 'I Got Rhythm' Variations: B-
'Violin Concertos': A
Schoenberg, Sibelius
Stravinksy DVD 'The Rake's Progress': A
04/12/2008
Pianist Chen plays well but is largely uninspiring
If you're a concertgoer, surely you've had the experience: hearing a performer of skill and taste make all the right moves without ever quite moving you.
04/11/2008
Romano and Garrett are amusing but not laugh-out-loud funny
GRAND PRAIRIE – You couldn't really fault fans of the popular TV show Everybody Loves Raymond for expecting comedy pair Ray Romano, who played the titular Ray Barone, and Brad Garrett, who played his dour brother Robert, to just re-create the show.
Actors find heart in difficult characters at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas
Actors love to be loved. So Sue Loncar and Matt Savins have a lot of uncomfortable moments in Marvin's Room at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas
Journeying Fourth
What's with Dallas Symphony Orchestra audiences? Whatever's on the second half of the program, the crowd noticeably thins at intermission.
04/10/2008
Podium pioneer JoAnn Falletta to conduct DSO
Marin Alsop has gotten a lot of press recently as the first woman to be music director of a major American orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony. But, depending on your definition of "major," JoAnn Falletta was there first, taking over the Buffalo (N.Y.) Philharmonic in 1998.
Eisemann to host Southwest regional dance festival
Like bouquets of flowers neatly arranged, 16 dancers in pastel tutus rehearse for their performance of Festive Overture this weekend. Right in the middle, playing the star role, is 14-year-old Brittney Dito, all of 4 feet, 10 inches and intense.
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