DATE NIGHT GATEWAYS
Depending on how drunk and afraid you want to be, the always enjoyable House Party Theatre has two choices this month. Their classic Thirsty Thursday, which I would argue is the best couple-skate in Dallas for twenty and thirty-somethings, is, of course, Halloween themed, and will feature several spooky short plays and a drinking game. That’s 10/19, and it’s a perfect event if you’re venturing into Dallas’s independent theatre community for the first time. For something more intense, snag a ticket to HPT’s original horror play Shadow Woman by Claire Carson, which chronicles the haunting of a young woman’s home by a supernatural force that only she can see. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Hannah Weir is in this play, and her talent is immense both as a self-directed performance artist and actress in the service of another writer.) See Shadow Woman October 14 – 28.
Don’t want the pressure of a premiere? Two fantastic musicals are already in full swing here in Dallas to make choosing easy for the less-informed. The classic counterculture musical Hair is playing at the Wyly Theatre and Adding Machine, the revenge story of a murderous accountant at Theatre Three, will both continue showing until 10/22.
Haunted is the story of a man searching for answers thirty years after the murder of his parents. The show premieres 10/26 at the Medical City Lewisville Grand Theater. Less serious but equally Halloweenish (arguably the Halloweeniest) is The Rocky Horror Picture Show (that’s the musical, not the midnight…double feature…picture show…by RKO) which will have nine shows 10/13-28 at the Backdoor Theatre.
Most die-hard musical fans will have one show they think of as having first turned them on to the genre, and for me that musical is Rent. See the homage to starving artists surviving the AIDS epidemic in New York that first warmed and broke my queer little heart at Bass Performance Hall, part of the Broadway at the Bass series, beginning 10/17.
GET WEIRD
Been a while since you’ve seen a live show? Don’t worry, these guys have never put one on before. Rhett and Link, known for their upbeat and cheerful humor on Youtube, are celebrating the release of their first book with their first touring live show, Rhett & Link’s Tour of Mythicality. See if you can grab tickets to see them at Dallas’s iconic Majestic Theater 10/20.
The regional premiere of Life Sucks, a play loosely adapted from Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, premieres 10/12 at Stage West in Fort Worth where it will run for one month. Also at Stage West 10/17-31 is Stiff, actress Sherry Joe Ward’s comedic account of reassessing her goals and ambitions after being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome.
The Drama Club will present Parables (for sleeping in daylight or dark) at the Bryant Hall Theater on 10/8-9 with the intention of developing it for larger productions in the future. A woman named Eveline loses her grip on reality. I, for one, can’t wait to see this original musical.
Gear up for RE-TALES coming 11/30 from Soul Rep Theatre Company, a remix of fairy tales and nursery rhymes with an R&B bent.
GET SMART
Ironbound by Martyna Majok explores the American dream and immigrant experience from the far too often overlooked and forgotten woman’s perspective. It’s runs 10/26 – 11/12 at Kitchen Dog Theater, in its regional premiere. More historical fiction: Amphibian Stage productions restyles the Renaissance with A Lost Leonardo, a depiction of Leonardo Da Vinci torn between his love of invention and utility and artistic beauty. That’s 10/13 – 11/5.
One wonderful experience that I would recommend to everyone: go to a staged reading of a play still in process. Engage with a work that is still in progress; watch it grow and change. Cara Mía Theatre offers a regular chance to do this with In The Works; the first is 10/21 at Dallas Children’s Theatre with The Legend of the Bluebonnet by Roxanne Schroeder-Arce and María F. Rocha which centers the wayward ten-year-old María and her hearing of an ancient, restorative story via her Coahuiltecan grandmother. The New Works Festival offers two such opportunities soon, too, at Pocket Sandwich Theater with staged readings of Off Your Feet 10/28-29 and Shiny Objects 11/4-5.
Are you a playwright? Would you be one, if you could just begin? There’s a playwright’s workshop and gathering for you 10/7 at South Dallas Cultural Center. It’s free and it happens every month.
I’ve been telling everyone constantly for the last five years to see Prism’s brilliant and unique movement theatre, which incorporates elements of dance and clowning to tell stories with no words. The fact that their flagship project this season is an adaptation of my favorite Shakespeare play will only make talk louder and more frequently about this. Lear premieres 10/27 at Theatre Three. You can get involved and purchase tickets by supporting their Indiegogo campaign.
CLASSICAL APPRECIATION
Kate Hamill’s original take on Pride and Prejudice with WaterTower Theatre has something to do with basketball. Find out beginning Friday 10/13.
SMU Theatre’s Iphigenia Project combines Euripides plays Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris into one production. It’s on at the Greer Garson Theatre from Oct. 18-22, in a very affordable two-fer at $14 for adults.
The Russian Grand Ballet will have one performance of Swan Lake at the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson 10/20. Don’t write me an email about how ballet isn’t theatre. See it at least once.
This list wouldn’t be complete without a Shakespeare play. But this isn’t just any Shakespeare play. It’s his insanely violent and dark Titus Andronicus, and there are a couple places to see it this Hallows month: at a Shakespeare in the Park event in Addison 10/5 and 10/15; and in Dallas proper through 10/15. We told you about that one; here’s a look behind the scenes.
A one-man show about the life of author and theologian C.S. Lewis, The Most Reluctant Convert at the Eisemann Center in Richardson, promises to delight and educate in equal measure much the way its subject did. Performances have already begun and will continue through 10/7.
If you’re a tried and true veteran of performance art or you’re feeling ambitious, you should go to the Winspear at the end of the month and see Samson & Dalila or La Traviata.
Maybe you’re not ready quite yet to experience the theatre in its full immersive glory; it can be very intimidating. Maybe you’re not ready to get out of the house during the month of Halloween; understandable, there are monsters out there. That’s fine; we’ve got just the gateway drug for you. Hunker down until November when it’s safe and make your way to the Angelika for a National Theatre Live broadcast of Steven Sondheim’s Follies on 11/16 or Young Marx on 12/7. No, it’s not the same as attending an actual theatrical performance, but you are still supporting live theatre as a medium, likely taking the first step out of your comfort zone of instant-gratification media. I’ll congratulate you.
