Theater Critic Picks

These are the 10 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for July

Things have calmed down a bit from last month, so if you're heading out of town on vacation, you needn't feel quite so guilty about missing all the theatrics Dallas and Fort Worth have to offer. But if you're still here, put these shows on your calendar and experience something new and exciting.

Here are the 10 shows to see in order by start date:

Sex Ed
Cry Havoc Theater Company, July 3-14
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, conversations about sexual impropriety are front and center in our collective consciousness. Yet we seem to have collective amnesia when it comes to our own teenage years and the lack of honest, accurate information we received about our bodies. Cry Havoc Theater Company's devised work discusses the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees ... and how "the talk" has become so politically divisive in our culture.

Festival of Independent Theatres
July 12-August 3
Founded in 1998 in an effort to aid local theater companies without a permanent performance space, this festival presents eight one-act shows, paired in two-show blocks and performed in rotating repertory. There will also be two brand new cabaret performances by two divas of the Dallas music scene, Jodi Crawford Wright and Kathryn Taylor Rose.

Gutenberg! The Musical!
Amphibian Stage Productions, July 12-August 18
Anthony King and Scott Brown's two-man musical spoof follows a pair of aspiring playwrights who perform a backers' audition for their new project: a big, splashy musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. With an unending supply of enthusiasm, Bud and Doug sing all the songs and play all the parts in their historical epic, with the hope that one of the producers in attendance will give them a Broadway contract — fulfilling their ill-advised dreams.

Hello, Dolly!
Dallas Summer Musicals, July 17-28
The bold and enchanting Dolly Gallagher Levi is a widow, matchmaker, and professional meddler. When she decides the next match she needs to make is for herself, she weaves a web of romantic complications for her newest client, the cantankerous "half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder, his two clerks, a pretty hat maker, and her assistant. Fort Worth native and Tony winner Betty Buckley comes home to star in this national tour.

Crossing the Line
Kitchen Dog Theater and Cry Havoc Theater Company, July 18-August 4
Based on interviews conducted in Dallas, via Skype, and at the border, this original documentary-style performance focuses on the immigration debate and the situation at the border.

Godspell
WaterTower Theatre, July 18-28
Stephen Schwartz’s beloved musical is inspired by parables taken from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The fun, modern take on classic stories is mixed with a vibrant score of pop, folk, and gospel music.

A Bronx Tale
Broadway at the Bass, July 23-28
Broadway's hit crowd-pleaser based on the one-man-show by Chazz Palminteri takes you to the stoops of the Bronx in the 1960s, where a young man is caught between the father he loves and the mob boss he'd love to be.

Lungs
Stage West, July 25-August 18
The world is getting hotter, there's unrest overseas — actually, the seas themselves aren't very calm either — and in an IKEA, a man suggests to his partner that they should have a child. What if it grows up to solve the world's problems? What if it becomes a mass murderer? What about its carbon footprint? They leave with nothing they went in for in Duncan Macmillan's play, but come out with a full set of self-assembly dilemmas that they spend a life cycle trying to construct.

John Leguizamo: Latin History For Morons
AT&T Performing Arts Center, July 26
Inspired by the near total absence of Latinos from John Leguizamo's son's American history books, this one-man show take audiences on an outrageously funny, frenzied search to find a Latin hero for a school history project. From a mad recap of the Aztec empire to stories of unknown Latin patriots of the Revolutionary War and beyond, Leguizamo breaks down the 3,000 years between the Mayans and Pitbull into 110 irreverent and uncensored minutes above and beyond his unique style.

Sistas the Musical
Jubilee Theatre, July 26-August 25
After a matriarch's death, the women in the family clean Grandma's attic and find love and old memories packed away, underscored by hit tunes that trace the history of black women from the trials of the 1930s through the Girl Groups of the '60s to the empowerment of the '90s.

Gutenberg! The Musical! plays at Amphibian Stage Productions.

Amphibian Stage Productions presents Gutenberg! The Musical!

Photo by Evan Michael Woods

Gutenberg! The Musical! plays at Amphibian Stage Productions.

music theater openings

Elon News

Dallas bookstore and publisher gets federal arts funding axed

Deep Vellum

Stack of books at Deep Vellum

A Dallas arts organization got its budget chopped by the federal government: Deep Vellum, the bookstore and publisher at 3000 Commerce St., lost a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant due to federal government budget cuts.

According to owner Will Evans, the award, which is granted annually, has been terminated as of May 31. The bookstore had received $20,000 for the past six years.

Deep Ellum started as a publisher in 2013 and opened their bookstore in Deep Ellum in 2015. Since then, they have become a center for literature lovers. Evans is a translator whose mission has been to translate the world’s best novels into English for American audiences.

Evans was notified on May 2 via an email that was reportedly sent to grant recipients nationwide. The note read:

"The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities."

The new priorities included projects that elevate the Nation's HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.

The Grants and Public Affairs departments at NEA did not respond to a request for comment. On Monday May 5, the Literary Staff was laid off, and the agency is facing possible elimination entirely, as part of the 2026 Discretionary Budget Request presented to Congress on May 2.

This year's grant to Deep Vellum was earmarked to fund the translation, publishing, and marketing costs of four books:

Carapace Dancer by Natalia Toledo, translated from Zapotec, published trilingually with Spanish and English translations alongside the original, translated by Clare Sullivan
Juvenilia by Hera Lindsay Bird of New Zealand, making her US debut, illustrated by Dallas artist Gino Dal Cin
Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz, translated from the German by Max Lawton, a 1001-page masterpiece and English-language debut
The Ruins by Ye Hui, translated from Chinese by Dong Li, the English-language debut from one of China's most distinguished and independent poets

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency established by Congress in 1965 as a funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide anxd a catalyst of public and private support for the arts with the goal of advancing opportunities for arts participation and practice, according to their website.

In their last stats document updated in November 2024, their FY’24 budget was outlined as $207M (representing 0.03 percent of the total federal budget), with 80 percent of their budget supporting grants and awards to organizations and individuals across the country. They typically offer over 2,000 grants each year.

"It’s been a strange few days for us, and for countless other nonprofit publishers, magazines, and arts organizations," Evans said.

Despite the cut, Deep Vellum plans to continue to promote literacy through unique books translated to the English language.

“This is not going to imperil our future but it’s something we need to consider as we move forward. These books are extraordinary, and they add so much for readers and culture. We just need to find additional revenue to fund them," Evans said.

Evans was first to reveal the funding cut but a number of organizations across Dallas and Texas have seen similar cuts including Ballet North Texas, Flamenco Fever, Dallas Theater Center, and Bishop Arts Theatre Center, as well as a number of groups in Austin.

closings books