Stage Notes is a weekly aggregate post about theater, classical music and stage news, events, reviews and other pertinent information. Season announcements came in hot and heavy this week.
Stage Notes Calendar
Opening this week:
Cirque du Soleil: Songblazers, opened Wednesday-Oct. 20 at the Music Hall at Fair Park.
Broadway at the Center: Company, Sept. 26–29 at the Winspear, pictured.
Turtle Creek Chorale: Bach to the ’90s, Sept. 26 and 27 at Moody Performance Hall.
Echo Theatre: Raising Hell with Molly Ivins, Sept. 26-29 at the Bath House Cultural Center.
Urban Arts: Urban Arts Festival, Sept. 26-29.
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra: Mozart and Strauss, Sept. 27-29.
Onstage in Bedford: Always, Patsy Cline, Sept. 27-Oct. 6.
Runway Theatre: Agatha Christie’s Go Back for Murder, Sept. 27-Oct. 13.
Stolen Shakespeare Guild: The Great Gatsby, Sept. 27-Oct. 13 at Arts Fort Worth.
Hopeful Theatre Project: Not-so-Hopeful Cabaret, 8 p.m. Sept. 28 at Mainstage 222.
Orchestra of New Spain: The Italian Influence, 7 p.m. Sept. 28 at Zion Lutheran Church.
Plano Symphony Orchestra: Opening Night, 8 p.m. Sept. 28 at Robinson Fine Arts Center.
Sammons Jazz: New in Town, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2.
Onstage now:
Art Centre Theatre: Death Note Part 1: The Musical, through Sunday.
Garland Civic Theatre: On Golden Pond, through Sunday.
Hip Pocket Theatre: Big Love, through Sunday.
Theatre Arlington: Visiting Mr. Green, through Sunday.
Undermain Theatre: Athena, through Sunday, pictured.
Casa Manana: Live at the Apollo, through Oct. 5.
The Classics Theatre Project: Dylan, through Oct. 5 at The Core Theatre.
MainStage ILC: The Children’s Hour, Friday-Oct. 5.
Rockwall Community Playhouse: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Friday-Oct. 6.
Theatre Coppell: The Diary of Anne Frank, Friday-Oct. 6.
Theatre Denton: Grease, Friday-Oct. 6.
Shakespeare Dallas: Julius Caesar, opened Wednesday-Oct. 13 at Samuell-Grand Amphitheater.
Theatre Three: Venus in Fur, today-Oct. 20 in Theatre Too.
Bishop Arts Theatre Center to open its new season with the world premiere of Joe Anderson Jr.’s gay play
Bishop Arts Theatre Center will present its 31st season this year in Oak Cliff. (Photo by Ben Siebel)
BATC announced that its season opener will speak to LGBTQ audiences next month. The Oak Cliff-based company will premiere Patches: A Black Gay Man’s Journey to the Moon by Joe Anderson Jr. The show opens Oct. 18 and runs through Oct. 27.
Patches blends poetry, music, performance and storytelling into a 75-minute experience. The show relates a day-long date between two Black men, exploring deep and heartfelt conversations about race, identity, sexual orientation, love and intimacy. Set against the city’s vibrant backdrop, Patches captures fleeting moments of connection and rhythm that unfolds when “no plans, just vibes” becomes a reality.
In a press release about the show, BATC mentioned this about Anderson:
Joe Anderson Jr. is a native Dallasite based in Austin for 15 years serving Black queer residents. As the Director of Community Engagement at Texas Health Action (THA), his primary work is focused on reducing HIV disparities, cultivating relationships with community members, and developing strategies to reduce stigma surrounding HIV and sexual health.
Outside of his role at THA, Anderson is a cultural curator, artist, and community organizer in Central Texas. With poetry as his primary artistic medium, he creates productions and events that center on the experiences of Black queer people, while challenging old and antiquated ideals the larger community may have about Black queer culture. By fusing together poetry, music, performance, and storytelling, he creates productions that instill a sense of pride while building and creating community.
Patches is sponsored in part by Texas Health Action, WhatsintheMirror, Cardinal Collective, allgo and Avita Pharmacy.
The show is the first of four productions BATC has for its 31st season. This fall will also include two Jazz Series concerts as well. The full schedule includes:
Oct. 12: Jazz Series concert featuring Peter White and Vincent Ingala.
Nov. 23: Jazz Series concert featuring Brian Simpson and Marion Meadows.
Dec. 5-22: Black Nativity. Inspired by Langston Hughes’s 1960 Broadway production, this holiday production returns with hand-clapping, toe-tapping and finger-snapping theatrical wonderment for our 20th anniversary. This holiday favorite is the heartwarming retelling of the Nativity story including Gospel music, dramatic dance, and biblical narrative.
Feb. 20-March 2: The Stamped Project: Fourth annual Banned Books Festival. The Stamped Project is a collection of short plays inspired by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book Stamped from the Beginning. The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. The production will include audience talkbacks led by several of Dallas’s most prominent community leaders, including Jerry Hawkins, Executive Director of Dallas Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation.
May 1-11: A Dallas Hedda. BATC’s playwright-in-residence Franky D. Gonzalez’s reimagining of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler explored the psyche of a woman whose labyrinthine soul and longing for freedom from a world that sought always to control her. Franky’s concept will pick up the conversation that Ibsen began with his immortal work and continue to explore freedom through the lens of the conversations that we in the United States (and indeed throughout the world) have been having around the intersections of race, religion, feminism and social class.
Tickets can be found here.
Captain Milbourn stars as the title character in DTC’s ‘Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors.’ (Photo by Jordan Fraker)
Dallas Theater Center wants your blood — in a good way
DTC has some perfect timing both for Halloween and its season opener. On Oct. 11, the company will launch its new season with Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. Before that, DTC is feeling a bit bloodthirsty.
On Oct. 1, DTC is hosting a blood drive only for the right reasons and not specifically for ol’ Drac.
From DTC:
By donating blood, you’re not just saving lives, you’re becoming a true-life hero – no capes required. Here’s why donating is so important:
Every 2 seconds, someone in need requires a blood transfusion.
Your donation could save up to 3 lives!
What better way to kick off the spooky season than by doing some good?
DTC will offer some sweet incentives for blood drive participants. Each person who donates will receive a Dallas Cowboys Tailgate Trio Pack, a discount for tickets to DTC’s upcoming Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors and entry into a raffle to win four tickets plus free parking for the Dec. 9 Cowboys game.
In partnership with Carter BloodCare, the drive will take place on Oct. 1 from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Wyly Theatre Lobby. To register your time to donate (which can make things quicker), click here.
Teatro Dallas among National Endowment for the Arts grant recipients
On Tuesday, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced 112 organizations recommended to receive funding through ArtsHERE, a $12 million grant program piloted by South Arts alongside the other five U.S. Regional Arts Organizations (RAOs). Among these organizations, Teatro Dallas was named as one of the Texas recipients of this prestigious award.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is thrilled to provide resources to a group of exceptional organizations through ArtsHERE, a program to help deepen meaningful and lasting arts engagement in underserved communities,” Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts said in the announcement. “Everyone should be able to live an artful life, and ArtsHERE is an important step in ensuring we are strengthening our nation’s arts ecosystem to make this a reality.”
Teatro will receive a non-matching grant of $74,000 to fund specific projects that will boost arts participation among its communities and sustain meaningful engagement with underserved groups.
ArtsHERE grant recipients will also participate in quarterly peer learning workshops, monthly cohort sessions and one-on-one meetings with technical assistance coaches and field experts. These meetings are designed for knowledge sharing, learning and capacity-building to help reinforce the initiative’s opportunities for cross-sector engagement.
“We are very excited to work with these organizations on their projects,” Susie Surkamer, president and CEO of South Arts said in the release.“The arts are essential to the fabric of our nation, and at the heart of this necessity are the organizations and individuals who champion them. ThroughArtsHERE, we are excited to continue expanding and enriching the arts landscape both nationally and within these unique local communities.”
More than 4,000 organizations applied for ArtsHERE funding. Applications were reviewed by multiple review panels based on published review criteria in alignment with ArtsHERE’s commitment to equity, and engagement with historically underserved communities. The selected organizations will receive funding at some point between October 2024 through June 2026.
Teatro Dallas is one of 112 applicants selected to receive funding; one of six Texas arts nonprofits and the sole direct theater company of those six.
–Rich Lopez