Friday
Tonight, the Dallas Museum of Art hosts authors Daniel Woodrell and Ron Rash for a Fresh Ink conversation. You’ll get a taste for both authors and their work, which frequently revolves around their respectively familial roots in the Appalachian Mountains and the Missouri Ozarks. Of course, Jennifer Lawrence appeared in the indie adaptation of Woodrell’s novel, Winter’s Bone, to critical acclaim. Playing the role of a brave Ozark Mountain teen who fights for her family’s survival, it was our first real look at the self-effacing, preternaturally talented actress before she was cast in The Hunger Games. Just a few years later in 2012, Lawrence and now frequent screenmate Bradley Cooper starred in the film version of Rash’s Serena, a Depression-era novel about ambitious yet callous newlyweds returning to the countryside from the big city to head up a timber business.
Meanwhile in Fort Worth, the Dallas Black Dance Theatre performs Dancing Beyond Borders at the W.E. Scott Theatre. This showcase of new and original works choreographed by company members Katricia Eaglin, Richard A. Freeman, Jr., and Nycole Ray. Both professional companies, DBDT and DBDT II, will perform. The program also includes a reprisal of repertory piece …And Now Marvin, choreographer Darryl Sneed’s tribute to the activist music of singer Marvin Gaye.
Saturday
If you know the plays of Neil LaBute, you know they’re pretty brutal. Fun House Theatre and Film has teenagers tackling The Shape of Things, a story about a shy, overweight college student who falls for strong, sexy Evelyn, a graduate art student. But how far will he—or, rather, should he—go for love? When they embark on an intense relationship, Adam changes nearly everything about his life—and alters his relationships with his best friends in the process. These student actors perform out in Plano, but the productions are worth the trip.
It’s Savor Dallas time, and Saturday is the big tasting at the convention center here in Dallas. SideDish has the six events taking place over the course of the weekend you don’t want to miss.
Sunday
The opera Die tote Stadt, which the Dallas Opera opens Friday evening, repeats Sunday afternoon with a matinee performance. Erich Wolfgang Korngold was just 23 when he composed Die tote Stadt, German for The Dead City, a sweeping work of art that explores the hallucinatory experience of memory and the pain of lost love in a society ravaged by the first World War. It’s generally considered a forgotten gem from the 20th century, though its beauty has prompted favorable comparisons to the orchestrations of the Italian master Puccini and fellow German Richard Strauss. All of this makes me feel sort of generally down in the dumps about my own accomplishments.
For more to do this weekend, go here.
