Weekend Event Planner

These are the 13 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

The Russian Ballet brings Swan Lake to the Majestic Theatre this Thursday.

Photo courtesy of Russian Ballet Theatre

It's another packed weekend for events, but instead of national acts hogging the attention, this weekend is mostly about the local groups. No fewer than six local theater groups will debut new productions, with the Dallas Opera and Dallas Symphony Orchestra completing the local vibe. You can also take in a family-friendly ice show, get bookish at a literary festival, see a classic ballet, hear from a Top Chef, and enjoy a unique take on the Fab Four.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events. Looking for St. Patrick's Day events? Find that list here.

Thursday, March 17

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Shostakovich & R. Strauss"
Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Shostakovich & R. Strauss," featuring conductor Marc Albrecht and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. Selections will include the Dallas premiere of Unsuk Chin's Frontispiece, Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1, and R. Strauss' Symphonia Domestica. There will be three performances through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Disney on Ice: Let's Celebrate
At Disney on Ice: Let's Celebrate, 50 favorite Disney friends come to life through world-class ice skating. Audiences will see Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the Toy Story 4 gang help Forky realize what it means to be a toy; sing-along with Elsa at the coolest adventure in town; sing “Hakuna Matata” with Timon and Pumbaa; and more. The production is at American Airlines Center through March 20.

Kitchen Dog Theater presents Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, a new comedy by Taylor Mac, is set just after the blood-soaked conclusion of William Shakespeare’s first tragedy, Titus Andronicus. During the fall of the Roman Empire, the years of bloody battle are over. The civil war has ended. The country has been stolen by madmen, and there are casualties everywhere. And two very lowly servants are charged with cleaning up the bodies. It’s the year 400 AD — but it feels like the end of the world. The production will run through April 3 at Trinity River Arts Center; a filmed version will be available to stream during the last week of the run.

Rover Dramawerks presents Sweet Revenge
Sunny, a perpetual hippie, and her sister Joni own a charming bakery in Spring Lake, New Jersey. Joni’s boyfriend Brian convinces them to take an extensive loan using the family home as collateral to renovate the bakery and enter a contest with the Treats and Tweets online reality show in order to increase sales. The host of the show, Maurice Bailee, and his assistant Charlie, show up for live streaming a week early in the midst of the renovations, and expected (and unexpected) chaos ensues. The production will run through March 26 at The Cox Playhouse in Plano.

The Core Theatre presents "The Greatest Generation Trilogy"
All three plays from playwright Bill Rhoten's "The Greatest Generation Trilogy" will be presented in repertory by The Core Theatre in Richardson. My First Date follows a 19-year-old Anna Erhard, who's waiting for a date with a sailor she has been writing to for almost a year. Forever is the story of a family who faces the shocking and life-changing news of the U.S. entering WWII, with Anna about to go meet her sweetheart at Pearl Harbor. And Life's Little Miracles meets up with Erhard family in Mathis, Texas as they prepare for Christmas in 1942. The three plays will alternate showings through April 9.

Ochre House Theater presents In The Garden: The Academic
The Academic is an absurdist satire that lampoons the prestige of academic life. Bouncing along with buoyant and bizarre wordplay, the play pits a college professor and his wife against the very ruse which keeps their life afloat. The production will run through March 26 at The Ochre House Theater.

Friday, March 18

SMU presents Dallas Literary Festival
SMU’s Dallas Literary Festival will feature discussions with more than 100 acclaimed national and local authors, as well as literary events across the city. Headlining the festival is 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story and 2021 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Nonfiction. The festival takes place at various locations, including SMU and Fair Park, through March 22.

Russian Ballet Theatre presents Swan Lake
Swan Lake, featuring a score by Tchaikovsky, tells the tragic love story of Prince Siegfried and Swan Princess, Odette, who is cursed to be a swan by day but a young woman at night. The Russian Ballet Theatre’s new production will captivate audiences with time-honored Russian traditions while adding new choreography, hand painted sets, radiant hand sewn costumes, artistic hair designs and special effects makeup. The one-night-only performance takes place at Majestic Theatre.

Echo Theatre presents In a Word
Today is Fiona’s birthday and the two-year anniversary of her son’s disappearance, and still, nothing makes sense to her. Not the incompetent detective, her “understanding” boss, or the neighborhood kidnapper who keeps casually introducing himself at the grocery store. Her husband, Guy, is desperately trying to move on, but Fiona delves back into her memories of that fateful day, struggling to find the right words to bring her son home. In a Word is a comedy about motherhood and how the words we use to describe tragedy can take on a life of their own. The production runs through April 10 at Bath House Cultural Center.

The Classics Theatre Project presents Look Back in Anger
John Osborne's realist cornerstone profiles the sorrows, despondency, and anger of the working class. The unexpected hit the stage in the previously undepicted 20-to-30-year-olds of England, who did not participate in World War II and who found its aftermath lacking in promise. Encapsulating an entire generation who viewed revered and established institutions with disdain, it even coined their popular description as "angry young men," landing it on many lists of the best plays of the 20th century. The production runs through April 9 at Margo Jones Theatre at Magnolia Lounge.

Saturday, March 19

Dallas Opera presents The Barber of Seville
In this effervescent romantic comedy, Figaro — the ultimate “Mr. Fix It” — is called upon to save two young people in love. Count Almaviva wants to marry his beloved Rosina, but her crusty old guardian wants to wed the girl himself. Comedic mayhem ensues before the happily-ever-after conclusion. The opera, sung in Italian with English supertitles, will have four performances through March 27 at Winspear Opera House.

Sunday, March 20

Coppell Arts Center presents Front & Center: Carla Hall
Carla Hall will appear in Coppell as part of the Front & Center series, which focuses on significant national and global discourse. Hall is a former co-host of ABC’s The Chew and a former contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef and Top Chef: All Stars, where she shared her philosophy to always cook with love. Hall believes food connects us all, and she strives to communicate this through her work, her cooking, and in her daily interactions with others.  The event takes place at Coppell Arts Center.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today: A Tribute to The Beatles' Rubber Soul & Revolver
It Was Fifty Years Ago Today: A Tribute to The Beatles features Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross, Badfinger featuring Joey Molland, Denny Laine (founding member of The Moody Blues and Wings), and Jason Scheff (Chicago’s lead singer from 1985-2016). These legendary artists will be performing their hits, plus selected songs from The Beatles’ albums Rubber Soul and Revolver. The concert takes place at Majestic Theatre.

Disney on Ice: Let's Celebrate will be at American Airlines Center through March 20.

Photo courtesy of Feld Entertainment

Disney on Ice: Let's Celebrate will be at American Airlines Center through March 20.

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Movie Review

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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