Weekend Event Planner

These are the 10 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

This weekend around Dallas is arts heavy, with five separate theater productions — mostly from local companies — along with an art scavenger hunt, the closing of two art exhibitions, and the start of a month-long chamber music festival. On the larger scale is the return of a pro basketball league and a rising country music star.

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.

Thursday, July 7

Eisemann Center for Performing Arts presents The Secret Comedy of Women
The Secret Comedy of Women celebrates the joys of the journey from girlhood to womanhood. An immersive theatrical experience that rejoices in the challenges of being a woman — from boys to bras and pantyhose to menopause — this two-woman show explores the universal female experience through a rollicking spectacle of sweetly sharp comedy, songs, dances, stories, and spontaneous moments of discovery that all women share. The production will run through July 31 at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson.

Theatre Three presents Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (UPDATE: Performances will now start on July 9.)
It's been quite the odyssey for Theatre Three trying to get their latest production to the public. Originally scheduled to start on June 9, it has been delayed due to demands by the city over recent renovations to the theater. They're hopeful they'll finally get to show Edward Albee’s escalating, perversely erotic dance of booze, anger, and resentment in which an older couple draws a younger couple into their bitter and frustrated marital love-hate ambivalence. The show, which is now pay-what-you-can for all tickets, will have eight performances through July 17.

Friday, July 8

Big3 3-on-3 Basketball League
It got lost in the shuffle of the Fourth of July weekend, but the Big3 Basketball League has returned to the area, setting up camp at Comerica Center in Frisco for the next month. Created in part by rapper/actor Ice Cube, the Big3 is a league that features fast-paced and interactive games, bringing fans an up-close and personal look at NBA Hall of Fame players; former Dallas Mavericks; Nancy Lieberman coaching her own son, T.J. Cline, and more. There will be games on both Friday and Sunday, and then more games every weekend through August 7.

Parker McCollum in concert
Country singer and Texas native Parker McCollum has been a fixture on the local festival scene since releasing his debut album in 2015, but in 2021 he skipped over all the smaller venues in the area and went straight to Dos Equis Pavilion, where he'll return on Friday. His 2021 album, Gold Chain Cowboy, made the top 10 on the Billboard Country charts, and with a couple of top 10 hits, the future seems bright for the Texas native.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents Plaza Suite
Plaza Suite is an evening of three one-acts set in the Plaza Hotel. In Visitor from Mamaroneck, a middle-aged married couple tries to rekindle their dying spark. In Visitor from Hollywood, a film producer invites his childhood sweetheart to a hotel for sex. In Visitor from Forest Hills, a bride has locked herself in the bathroom on her wedding day, with her parents desperate to get her out. The production will run through July 24 at Richardson Theatre Centre.

Dallas Theater Center presents The Odyssey
Inspired by the historical pageantry movement of the early 1900s — known for blending mass spectacle with community engagement — this final work in deBessonet and Almond’s grand trilogy reimagines the Greek epic with Public Works’ signature blend of professional actors, community members, and special guests. The man-eating Cyclops, a sorceress that turns sailors to beasts, and the deadly sweet song of the Sirens explode onto the stage with spectacular numbers in this joyful, larger-than-life musical about finding your way home — no matter where fate may lead you. There will be four performances through Sunday at Wyly Theatre; for anyone who can't get into the free shows, the production will be recorded and streamed for free at a later date.

Saturday, July 9

AURORA presents Art Quest
Art Quest is a month-long public art discovery program designed to connect diverse communities with regional artists in unexpected ways. It will feature a game element in which a different piece of art commissioned by AURORA will be placed at a new secret outdoor location on a weekly basis, with the clues for finding the hidden artwork revealed each Saturday. Anyone interested in participating in Art Quest should follow @dallasAURORA and #AuroraArtQuest on Instagram, subscribe to AURORA’s newsletter, and check the AURORA Instagram feed every Saturday morning for clues to find the artwork at the given location. There will be different events every Saturday through August 6.

Cara Mía Theatre presents Teatro en Fuga Festival
Cara Mía Theatre's Teatro en Fuga Festival comes to an end with Tomás Ayala-Torres’s new translation of Yanga by Mexican playwright Jaime Chabaud. This new play is inspired by the real-life story of Gaspar Yanga, who led a slave revolt and eventually negotiated an independent territory with the Spanish crown less than 100 years after the arrival of Hernán Cortés in Mexico. Yanga is presented in partnership with the Latino Arts Project and the African-American Museum’s visual arts exhibition, "Yanga: Journeys to Freedom." The performance will be at Latino Cultural Center.

Sunday, July 10

Dallas Museum of Art exhibition closings
The Dallas Museum of Art will close two exhibitions on Sunday. "Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia" features works from the Museum’s collection that chart the significant innovations in painting, sculpture, and performance that shaped artistic production in the Americas and East Asia in the mid-20th century. Bosco Sodi: "La fuerza del Destino" features approximately 30 large-scale spherical and rectangular sculptures by Sodi installed in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden. Created from clay sourced at his studio in Oaxaca, the sculptures are dried in the sun and fired in a traditional brick kiln, resulting in surfaces that bear the beautiful scars of their process, each uniquely influenced by their encounter with the elements.

Fine Arts Chamber Players presents Basically Beethoven Festival
Since 1981, the Basically Beethoven Festival has featured free chamber music concerts during the month of July, a traditionally slow time for arts events in Dallas. The festival features professional musicians from local ensembles performing a diverse range of music. Each program begins with a Rising Star Recital spotlighting local, gifted young musicians, followed by the Feature Performance showcasing professional musicians from across Dallas-Fort Worth. Weekly performances will take place at Moody Performance Hall through July 31.

The Big3 pro basketball league will have games at Comerica Center in Frisco on July 8 and 10, and then every weekend through August 7.

Photo by Benjamin Slavich

The Big3 pro basketball league will have games at Comerica Center in Frisco on July 8 and 10, and then every weekend through August 7.

music theater concerts sports event-planner

Movie Review

Jodie Foster brings depth and wit to French thriller A Private Life

Photo by Georges Lechaptois

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Jodie Foster has been a member of the Hollywood community for almost 60 years, first as a child actor on TV, and then branching out into movies. She earned an Oscar nomination at the tender age of 14 for her role in Taxi Driver, and she’s gone on to be nominated five times, winning twice. Now, at age 63, she’s showing she’s still capable of surprises by fluently speaking another language in the French film, A Private Life.

Foster plays Lilian Steiner, a psychiatrist who sees patients out of her Parisian apartment. When she learns of the death of one of her patients, Paula (Virginie Efira), she’s sad but otherwise unaffected until a few suspicious things start happening. This includes the robbery of her apartment, in which a recording of Paula’s last session with Lilian goes missing.

With the help of her ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), Lilian becomes an amateur private detective, tracking the movements of Paula’s husband, Simon (Mathieu Amalric), whom she increasingly suspects of murder. At the same time, Lilian must navigate a tense relationship with her son, Julien (Vincent Lacoste), along with an unexpected rekindling of romance with Gabriel.

Written and directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, and co-written by Anne Berest, it is a psychological thriller that at times feels like an Inspector Clouseau movie. With little to go on but her own perhaps misguided suspicions, Lilian digs herself deeper into a situation of her own making. And she further clouds her mind by indulging in a tryst with Gabriel, who’s all too eager to help Lilian pursue her criminal theories. While the film is not a comedy, there are elements of humor that pop in to keep the story light.

Zlotowski plays with the competing tones of the story well, keeping viewers on Lilian’s side even as she indulges in things that might not be the healthiest for her. Lilian’s various eccentricities - an adherence to recording on old-fashioned mini discs instead of fully digital, keeping an emotional distance from her son and grandson - make her a fascinating character whose vacillating motivations keep viewers guessing as to what she’ll do next.

In a lot of ways, the film is a study of how Lilian needs to try to find ways to heal herself. The possibility of Paula being murdered wakes Lilian up to the idea that she has not been as attentive a doctor as she should be. The sessions with different patients that Zlotowski shows give the impression that there’s a general level of dissatisfaction with her, with one patient outright breaking up with her.

Foster is no less compelling speaking mostly in French than she is in English language movies. Her fluency is never in doubt, and she fits in seamlessly with the actual French actors in the film. Auteuil is a fun counterpart for Foster, showing an unexpected chemistry with her that keeps their scenes crackling with energy. Amalric, a Wes Anderson favorite, has a relatively small role but still stands out when he gets a chance.

A Private Life is not the type of thriller that American audiences might be used to, but its slow, methodical storytelling and subtle humor make it an interesting watch from beginning to end. The film is not up for any awards, but Foster’s performance shows she remains a top-tier actor.

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A Private Life is now playing in select theaters.

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