It's another big weekend around Dallas, and festival season is in full effect with ones featuring movies, classical music, environmentalism, and the fun of a local city. You can also cheer for the newest Cowboys, taste some great food with CultureMap, listen to a wrestling superstar, see new opera and theater productions, or revel in great music from a legendary soul singer and an iconic rapper.
Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.
Thursday, April 25
Dallas Cowboys presents NFL Draft Day Parties
Other than the start of the season and playoff games, Draft Day is the day all Dallas Cowboys fans look forward to the most. The Cowboys will host three days of official NFL Draft Parties at The Star in Frisco, providing fans the opportunity to celebrate see current Cowboys players, members of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and enjoy live music, games, activities, and more. Since the Cowboys won't have a pick until Day 2, fans will likely need that extra entertainment.
CultureMap Dallas Tastemaker Awards
You can celebrate two of the things we love most, food and drinks, at the annual CultureMap Tastemaker Awards. Honoring the top restaurant and bar talent in Dallas, CultureMap will unveil the winners at this swanky tasting event with an awards ceremony at Fashion Industry Gallery. Participating restaurants include Al Biernat's, Cane Rosso, Jalisco Norte, Panther City BBQ, and many more.
2019 USA Film Festival
The 49th Annual USA Film Festival will feature 26 different programs over the course of five days, including narrative feature films, documentaries, and short films. Among the highlights of the festival, taking place through Sunday at Angelika Film Center Dallas, will be an opening night screening of American Woman, starring Sienna Miller; and salutes to Constance Towers, Ed Asner, and Timothy Busfield.
AT&T Performing Arts Center presents #HearHere: John Cena
As part of its #HearHere series, AT&T Performing Arts Center will present WWE superstar John Cena. Cena combines his athleticism, charisma, strong work ethic, and genuine personality to make him one of pop culture’s biggest stars. He also devotes much of his time working on behalf of numerous charitable causes, like Make-A-Wish and Susan G. Komen. This event will take place at Winspear Opera House.
Theatre Three presents Raptured: A Sex Farce at the End of the World
The congregants of the Third Baptist Church of Uncertain, Texas are only certain about two things; the rapture is definitely happening sometime in the next two hours, and two hours is not enough time to squeeze every single drop of life from this wicked, wonderful world. Raptured, playing at Theatre Three through May 19, is a fresh farce, part Boeing, Boeing, part The Last Picture Show, full of love triangles, mistaken identities, lots of doors, and more funny stuff.
SOLUNA Festival final days
The SOLUNA Festival, which has been running since early April, will come to a close with three final events. Stravinsky The Firebird, running through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center, will feature pianist Orli Shaham playing with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Faces of Dallas, taking place Friday through Sunday at Arts Mission Oak Cliff, mixes poetry with the visual artwork of Stephen Zhang. And Passport to the Park, taking place at Klyde Warren Park on Saturday, is an interactive and family-friendly day of culturally diverse performances and activities.
Monty Python's Spamalot
The Tony Award-winning Best Musical Monty Python’s Spamalot comes back to Dallas to continue its search for the Holy Grail. The outrageous musical comedy, lovingly ripped off from the film classic, tells the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table as they embark on their quest for the Holy Grail, a quest complete with flying cows, killer rabbits, taunting Frenchmen, and show-stopping musical numbers. The one-night-only performance will play at Majestic Theatre.
Friday, April 26
EarthX 2019
Taking place just a few days after Earth Day, the ninth annual EarthX event will include three days of exhibitions, music, entertainment, learning experiences, discussions, forums, and conferences, making it the world’s largest gathering to positively discuss achievable solutions for environmental change. Taking place at Fair Park through Sunday, the festival will also include the final days of the EarthxFilm Festival.
Grand Prairie Parks, Arts and Recreation Department presents Main Street Fest
The 8th Annual Main Street Fest will celebrate the fun, festive, family atmosphere that is Grand Prairie. The free festival will include live music, novelty entertainment, carnival rides, arts and crafts vendors, business expo vendors, three entertainment stages, plenty of food and beer gardens, a kids zone, and more. The festival will take place in downtown Grand Prairie through Sunday.
Dallas Opera presents Falstaff
The final production in Dallas Opera's 2018-2019 season, Falstaff brings Shakespeare’s fat knight to hilarious life in an adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Sir John Falstaff fancies himself a ladies’ man and decides to seduce two wealthy women of the town, Alice Ford and Meg Page. Enlisting the help of the gossipy Dame Quickly, the ladies take it upon themselves to teach Falstaff a lesson he’ll not soon forget. The opera will play four times through May 4 at Winspear Opera House.
Al Green in concert
Al Green returns to the stage to perform some of his most iconic hits and fan favorites at one of his first concerts in more than seven years. Green will perform timeless classics, such as “Let’s Stay Together,” "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)," “I Can’t Get Next To You,” "Tired Of Being Alone,” and “I’m Still In Love With You” at this concert at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving.
Dallas Theater Center presents Real Women Have Curves
As Dallas Theater Center's Twelfth Night finishes its run at Wyly Theatre, they'll open Real Women Have Curves at Kalita Humphreys Theater. Ana, a recent high school graduate, is stuck working in her sister’s garment factory in East L.A. The hours are long and the pay is low, but Ana grows to appreciate the strength, passion, and dedication of the women she works beside. The women struggle, but they still find joy, humor, and beauty in their relationships with one another and within themselves. The production will run through May 19.
Sunday, April 28
Snoop Dogg: 25th Anniversary of Doggystyle
For anyone who grew up in the 1990s, it's difficult to think of Snoop Dogg as an elder statesman of the rap community, but here we are. The iconic rapper will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his debut album, Doggystyle, with this special concert at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, featuring performances by Warren G, G Funk, and Tha Dogg Pound.
American Woman, starring Sienna Miller, will be the opening night film at the USA Film Festival, taking place through April 28 at Angelika Film Center Dallas.
