Since the Fourth of July happens to land on a Wednesday this year, the celebrations are sort of scattered. I’ve rounded up your best bets for patriotic partying, a list you might want to peruse sooner rather than later.
Friday
Deep underground, a puppet is stirring. Several puppets, with foul mouths and a penchant for song. Leave the children at home. Theatre Three, in the Theatre Too basement space, gives Avenue Q its first professional regional production. It opens tonight, tickets are $20, and you can still purchase some online. Make Union Bear your pre-theater dinner spot and split a honey pig pizza and a frozen Moscow mule. Seriously, share the mule, or else you might have to walk to the Quadrangle instead of drive.
Speaking of driving, there’s a weird little theater in Fort Worth worth checking out. It’s called Pantagleize, and they’re putting on a version of Woyzeck, an incomplete German drama from the late 1800s that everyone from Werner Herzog to Tom Waits has taken a crack at finishing. Pantageleize’s has a circus theme, so we follow the woes of Franz Woyzeck, the low man on the sideshow totem pole. He does menial tasks to earn extra money to pass along to Marie, the mother of his illegitimate child, and he’s been eating nothing but peas in preparation for his own sideshow act. Can you really blame the guy for going insane? I reviewed the show here for FrontRow, but for mood music, listen to Waits’ “All the World is Green.”
Saturday
I hate to recommend something that would force you to spend more than five minutes outdoors, but perhaps if I throw in that it’s for charity and also that Dirk Nowitzki will be there, it’s forgivable. Dirk and other athletes who don’t usually play baseball, such Jason Terry, FC Dallas’ Brek Shea, and ex-Cowboy Drew Pearson, will swing a bat on behalf of the Heroes Organization, which helps kids participate in team sports, and Nowitzski’s own foundation. The Celebrity Heroes Baseball Game is out at the Dr Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, and while you could arrive early, the main event doesn’t start until 6 pm. Just cool your jets in Ikea or something.
Also on Saturday, the Nasher hosts a completely air conditioned artist talk with Houston-based Joseph Havel, who creates lovely modernist works by casting everyday materials in bronze. Personally, I’d suggest carbonite for future ventures, since I’d really love my own Han Solo wall art. Anyway, Havel will give a lecture as part of the sculpture center’s ongoing conversation series. The afternoon event is included with museum admission, but if you RSVP, there’s free wine to reward your forward-thinking.
Sunday
It’s no small secret that I have a soft spot for Jeff Goldblum, so I was very excited to hear that Jurassic Park IV was no longer just a pipe dream on a Wikipedia page. Meanwhile, this live action, low-budget homage to Spielberg’s dinosaur fantasy, happening at the Texas Theatre, is perhaps the closest I’ll get to locking eyes with a beast that wants to dismember me that isn’t one of my cats. Expect cardboard boxes, duct tape, Saran Wrap, possibly the kitchen sink. The Austin-based Old Murder House Theatre has put on a live action versions of Robocop and Back to the Future and re-enacted Aliens on ice. Sounds like my kind of parody.
Make a night of it with dinner at Cafe Maya, a place that has been enthusiastically recommended to me for the tacos and superior queso fundido.
For more to do with your weekend, go here.
