The Dallas Black Dance Theatre currently has no dancers with its recent termination of the entire company. (Photo from Dallas Arts District)
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:
Festival of Independent Theatres: Selfie Conscious, 7 p.m. today at Theatre Too.
Jubilee Theater: Sister Act, today-Aug. 18.
Festival of Independent Theatres: New and Improving, 7 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Saturday at Theatre Too.
Uptown Players: The Boys in the Band, Friday-Aug. 25, pictured.
Allen Contemporary Theatre: Breakneck Comedy of Errors, Friday-Sept.1.
Festival of Independent Theatres: Hi, How Are You?, 1 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Saturday at Theatre Too.
Festival of Independent Theatres: An Evening with Penis, 4 p.m. Friday at Theatre Too.
Festival of Independent Theatres: Spank Bank Time Machine, 5 p.m. Friday at Theatre Three.
Festival of Independent Theatres: The ’70s/’80s Disco Bash, 9 p.m. Friday at Theatre Three.
Festival of Independent Theatres: Lord of the Flies, 2 p.m. Saturday at Theatre Three.
Onstage now:
Fair Assembly: King Lear, through Saturday at the Latino Cultural Center.
Rover Dramawerks: Wrong Turn at Lungfish, through Saturday at the Cox Playhouse.
Amphibian Stage: The Handless King, through Sunday.
Art Centre Theatre: Bat Boy the Musical, through Sunday.
Broadway Dallas: Funny Girl, opened through Sunday.
CenterStage Theatre Works: Alice by Heart, through Sunday.
Onstage in Bedford: Ann, through Sunday.
Runway Theatre: Silent Sky, through Sunday.
Circle Theatre: Imposter! Hypocrite! Tartuffe!, through Aug. 24, pictured.
The Classics Theatre Project: True West, through Aug. 24 at the Stone Cottage.
Lakeside Community Theatre: Rent, through Aug. 24.
Pocket Sandwich Theatre: Herbbits, Wizards and Borks, through Aug. 24.
Firehouse Theatre: Jimmy Buffett’s Escape to Margaritaville, through Aug. 25.
Hip Pocket Theatre: Raft Project, through Aug. 25.
Theatre Arlington: Big Fish, through Aug. 25.
Ochre House Theatre: Daddy’s Rabbits: A Cotton Tale, through Aug. 31.
The nutshell version of the goings-on at Dallas Black Dance Theatre
The news outlets both local and national have been covering the recent troubles at Dallas Black which has resonated throughout the arts community. And the story is messy. So what is actaully going on? Based on other reports, here is how the story has unfolded.
April: DBDT dancers notified the organization that it would plan to unionize. DBDT did not recognize the unionship.
May: The dancers of DBDT all voted to become a union with American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA).
June/August: AGMA filed charges against DBDT on behalf of the dancers citing changes in employee benefits, employee policies and unfair discharges.
August: Last week, the organization posted for auditions and then subsequently fired all its dancers.
August: On Monday, the organization released a statement saying the firing was due to a video released by the dancers posted on June 21 post-rehearsal and after their letters of intent for the 2024-25 season were already received by the dancers. The organization stated that the video was in violation of DBDT policies hence all dancers’ termination and not due to their vote to unionize.
August: On Tuesday, AGMA posted a Do Not Work Order for DBDT meaning “that AGMA members, as well as members of the 4As, are prohibited from performing any services for Dallas Black Dance Theatre until the order is lifted and the company agrees to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with our union. Violating this order may subject members to discipline, including fines or expulsion. This includes auditioning for DBDT.”
Clearly there will be more as the story develops. This summary is based off reports from KERA, Dance Magazine and WFAA.
Stolen Shakespeare Guild goes public with fundraising campaign
Upon Arts Fort Worth’s announcement of closing the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Stage Notes reached out to Stolen Shakespeare Guild about its future productions. The company has held all its productions in the Sanders Theater inside the FWCAC. Although the announcement was unexpected for SSG, the company already had a plan going.
We asked SSG Artistic Directors Jason and Lauren Morgan about where the company will now live with their home space gone. We received this emailed statement:
Stolen Shakespeare Guild has been quietly fundraising this year to move into our own space when we learned the Fort Worth Community Arts Center would be redeveloped, and with this announcement from Arts Fort Worth our campaign is now being made public. Our expectation was that we would have until October 2025 in the Sander’s Theater, and that we would finish our 2024-2025 season there and launch our 2025-2026 season in our new home. We found out that this would not be the case on Thursday with Arts Fort Worth’s public announcement.
We feel that having our own performance venue is an important next step for us as a company. It will give us the opportunity to expand our programming and provide a much-needed home for our budding education program. We will stay in Fort Worth and have a couple of locations that we are exploring. Stolen Shakespeare Guild is proud to be the home for classic theater in Tarrant County. Our programming made up of classic plays, literary adaptations and musicals that are considered classics in their genre is unique to the region. Our February Stolen Shakespeare Festival has become a destination for Shakespeare fans and students alike.
As of today we are $171,000 into what we hoped would be a $500,000 fundraising initiative. With the loss of 10 months in our projected timeline, we may need to consider different locations within the city, but we are 100 percent committed to the move and plan to be ready to continue with our season in February.
Every major city that touts itself as a leader in the arts has a Shakespeare or classical theater company. Stolen Shakespeare Guild fills this crucial role in Fort Worth and is quickly becoming an important voice in the region. We hope that with these new developments the community will help us close out this campaign ahead of schedule and move us into our permanent home.
SSG’s season continues with The Great Gatsby scheduled to run Sept. 27-Oct. 13 at the Sanders Theater. No announcement has yet been made on any changes to that production.
Donations can be made at stolenshakesapeareguild.org.
ICYMI
Lots of theater news and reviews happened in the last week. Here are some links to catch up:
Jubilee Theater profile: Actors find a little bit of Pride in their work on Sister Act by Jubilee Theater
Uptown Players fundraiser: Uptown Players and Michael Urie announce Fund Our Future grant challenge by James Williams
Review: The daddy issues are real in Theatre Arlington’s Big Fish
Review: CenterStage’s Alice by Heart mixed fantasy and tragedy in this Wonderland adventure
Review: Circle’s Imposter! Hypocrite! Tartuffe! world premiere delivers an enthralling experience
Director talks: Director reflects on significance of The Boys in the Band before the show opens at Uptown Players
–Rich Lopez