‘Rent’ the 25th Anniversary Farewell Tour comes to Dallas Summer Musicals this February. (Courtesy photo)
Winter weather affects area show dates
Dallas Theater Center announced Our Town | Nuestro Pueblo performances through Friday, Feb. 4 are canceled following weather conditions impacting the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Performances are expected to continue Saturday. Ticket holders will be contacted by the Dallas Theater Center Box Office staff to exchange tickets or receive a credit or refund.
Bass Hall will continue its final performances of Hamilton. No cancellations have yet to be announced, however, on Instagram, @basshall mentioned that all ticket holders will be contacted in the event of any change in schedules and their socials will also announce any updates. Exchanges are available here for other performances. Complete information can be found here.
Weather permitting, Onstage in Bedford will open Love Letters on Saturday, however the company rescheduled Thursday night’s preview to Feb. 10 at 8 p.m. The online “guaranteed seats” are available now, limited to the first 20 patrons, for $10. Tickets at the box office will be $5 at the box office on the night of the show on a first come, first served basis beginning at 7 p.m.
Digital lottery announced for Rent farewell tour performances
Dallas Summer Musicals (DSM) announced a digital lottery for the upcoming performances of Rent the 25th Anniversary Farewell Tour at Music Hall at Fair Park for its limited engagement from Feb. 18-20. The lottery gives an opportunity to purchase two tickets at $32 each. The digital lottery opens at 11 a.m. Feb. 10 and entries for each performance will be accepted until 10:30 a.m. Feb. 17. Enter the lottery here.
Notifications will be sent to fans who are selected to purchase lottery tickets on Feb. 17. Tickets must be purchased online with a credit card by 3 p.m. that day. Entrants must be 18 or older. Seat locations awarded by the lottery are subject to availability.
The lottery is a tradition that began in 1996 in New York when the show moved to Broadway after a sold-out run in a small downtown theater. The producers of the show are committed to continuing the tradition of offering these orchestra seats in each city the show will play. Single tickets are on sale now at DallasSummerMusicals.org.
From DSM: For a quarter of a century, Jonathan Larson’s Rent has inspired us to choose love over fear and to live without regret. This Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning phenomenon follows a year in the lives of a diverse group of artists and friends struggling to follow their dreams without selling out.
Tours have crisscrossed the country almost continuously since 1996, with the latest tour alone playing five countries, 237 cities, and 1,005 performances.Rent received its world premiere off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop on Feb. 13, 1996 to ecstatic reviews and transferred to Broadway on April 29, 1996. Rent won the 1996 Tony Award for Best Musical as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The musical has been translated into every major language and has been performed in 27 countries across six continents.
Dallas Theater Center announces summer Public Works Dallas production
DTC collabs with SMU and ATTPAC for its upcoming 2022 Public Works Dallas production, The Odyssey. The musical adaptation will be directed by Kevin Moriarty and presented this July at the Wyly Theatre. Tickets will be free to the public and available through DTC’s box office and at community partner sites at a later date.
“For the first time since the summer of 2019, Dallas Theater Center will welcome 200 members of our community to come together to create a large-scale musical theater production of the classic Ancient Greek story of The Odyssey,” Moriarty said in a press release. “As the director of the production, I am so excited to collaborate with people of all ages and experience levels to tell this epic story. The production will be filled with singing, dancing, action and adventure as our community comes together to tell the story of the hero, Odysseus, and his journey home.”
FROM DTC: The musical adaptation of The Odyssey will feature a large cast, with only eight being professional actors and the majority of the cast from Public Works Dallas’ community partner organizations: Bachman Lake Together, City of Dallas’ Beckley Saner Recreation Center and Janie C Turner Recreation Center, Jubilee Park and Community Center and The Cohen Clinic at Metrocare. The Odyssey will also feature special cameo performances to be announced at a later date. The production will include opportunities for children, senior citizens, first-time actors and singers to join in.
“Everyone will have a part to play. It will be the largest, most energetic and joyful production of the season,” Moriarty added. “The Odyssey will be a living embodiment of our belief that we are strongest when we come together as a community and that everyone’s voice matters.”
Public Works Dallas is a community engagement and participatory theater project designed to blur the lines between professional artists and Dallas community members.
For updates, visit DallasTheaterCenter.com.
World premiere marks the return of Amphibian Stage
Amphibian Stage will celebrate the launch of their 2022 mainstage production season with the world premiere of The Pleasure Trials by Sarah Saltwick. The show will open Feb. 11 and run through Feb. 27.
From Amphibian: This hilarious and deeply human play follows two women conducting clinical trials on a new female libido enhancement drug. When Rachel and Callie launch the trial, willing participants come out of the woodwork looking for an internal revolution. Quickly after the first dose, the effectiveness of the medicine is undeniable, but the overwhelming pressure for its success may corrupt the experiment and everyone involved. The Pleasure Trials is an insightful and entertaining examination of women, sexual desire, and the burden of meeting expectations.
Tickets are on sale here.
Amphibian Stage also offered a glance at its upcoming season:
No Child…, April 1 – 17
River Butcher, Stand-up comic residency – April 13 – 15
Marie Antoinette, June 3 – 26
Spark Fest, July 15 – 31
The Hollow, Oct. 14 – Nov. 6
Theatre Coppell to premiere PEROT! American Patriot
The world premiere of Dallas Morning News columnist Dave Lieber’s newest play about the Texas businessman turned polarizing presidential candidate will open Feb. 11 at Theatre Coppell in the Coppell Arts Center. The play features actor Carl Merritt in the titular role.
From TC: In the new play, the Perot actor tells his remarkable story of how he started from scratch to build a family fortune estimated at $7.4 billion. But the emphasis is not on money, but on the family’s values and how love, business smarts and philanthropy were passed down from one generation to the next.
The show runs through Feb. 27. Tickets available here.
Teatro Dallas gets jazzy for its 20th International Performance Festival
TACA’s Terry Loftis to moderate DMA Arts & Letters Live
TACA executive director Terry Loftis will moderate a discussion with award-winning music educator and author Brendan Slocum who wrote The Violin Conspiracy for Dallas Museum of Art’s Arts and Letters Live event this year. The book is a Good Morning America GMA Book Club Pick and centers on a Black classical musician’s quest to recover his lost violin on the eve of the most prestigious music competition in the world. The in-person event will be held Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Horchow Auditorium. Tickets available here.
Opening this week
Arts Center Theatre: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: The Musical, Friday-Feb. 20, Plano.
Arts Center Theatre: The Vagina Monologues, Friday-Feb. 19, Plano.
Dallas Opera: Jack and the Beanstalk, Sunday at 2 p.m., Winspear Opera House.
Richardson Theatre Center: Drop Dead, Friday-Feb. 20.
On stage now
Broadway at the Bass: Hamilton through Sunday.
The Core Theater: It Happened One Night, through Feb. 20.
Dallas Theater Center: Our Town | Nuestro Pueblo at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, through Feb. 20.
Jubilee Theatre: Lil and Satchmo, through Feb. 27.
MainStage: Anna in the Tropics at the Irving Arts Center in the Dupree Theater, through Saturday.
Stage West Theatre: Church and State, throughFeb. 20.
– Rich Lopez
