Weekend Event Planner

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

It's a big weekend around Dallas, with the State Fair coming to an end, a couple of big name concerts, a quartet of new local theater productions, a new Instagram-friendly exhibit, monster trucks, and a major new art exhibition, among other options.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend.

Thursday, October 14

State Fair of Texas
You only have four more days to enjoy the wide-ranging fun of the State Fair of Texas, as it comes to a close on Sunday. Concerts on the final weekend will include Elvis tribute act Kraig Parker (Friday), country singer Charley Crockett (Saturday), and pop/rock band The Last Bandoleros (Sunday). Or you can try to get your fill of fried food, Midway rides, carnival games, and more before they go into hiding for a year. Looking for discounts? Here's every possible one.

Dead & Company in concert
When it comes to a venerated group like the Grateful Dead, nothing is ever truly the end. Dead & Company features original Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and Bob Weir alongside John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti. Continuing in the tradition of the iconic band, the group draws from the Dead’s vast catalog of songs to keep their tradition alive. They'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion.

WaterTower Theatre presents The Taming
A patriotism-obsessed Miss Georgia has kidnapped a Republican Senator’s campaign manager & a liberal activist who is fighting to save the endangered panda-shrew, and is holding them hostage in her hotel room the night before the big Miss America Pageant. In this hilarious, raucous, all-female “power-play” inspired by Shakespeare’s Shrew, contestant Katherine has political aspirations to match her beauty pageant ambitions. The production will run through October 24 at WaterTower Theatre in Addison.

The Classics Theatre Project presents The Hairy Ape: A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life In Eight Scenes
The Classics Theatre Project will present an intensely intimate and provocative production of Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape: A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life In Eight Scenes. The ensemble cast tackles O'Neill's take on expressionism in this work that directly challenges the underlying rags-to-riches mythology of America and powerfully examines the effects of alienation in the modern world. The production will run through November 6 at The Core Theatre in Richardson.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Beethoven’s Emperor"
Nicknamed the “Emperor,” Beethoven’s last piano concerto is bursting with heroic themes and virtuosic cadenzas, as well as one of the composer’s most tender slow movements. This concert, which features pianist Garrick Ohlsson and conductor Carlos Kalmar, also includes Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony. There will be four performances through Sunday at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Bishop Arts Theatre Center presents Before You Get Married
Before You Get Married is an immersive theatre experience that explores the relationship between two siblings on the night before the sister's wedding. With the passing night and flowing wine, both siblings struggle to understand what they mean to each other as secrets are revealed. The production will run at Bishop Arts Theatre Center through October 30.

Friday, October 15

NTPA Repertory Theatre presents Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical
Based on the story by Robert Luis Stevenson and featuring a pop rock score from Grammy- and Tony-nominated Frank Wildhorn and Oscar- and Grammy-winning Leslie Bricusse, Jekyll & Hyde is about the epic struggle between good and evil. It's an evocative tale of two men — one, a passionate and romantic doctor; the other, a terrifying madman — and the two women who are in love with him and unaware of his dark secret. The production will run through October 24 at Willow Bend Center for the Arts in Plano.

Saturday, October 16

Sweet Tooth Hotel presents "Rewind"
Sweet Tooth Hotel will present their newest exhibit, "Rewind", a title that is a play on the installations visitors will be able to explore. At the center of the exhibit will sit a full-blown vintage video store full of VHS tapes and a few hidden spaces for guests to discover. In addition, they’ll be rebooting some cult favorite installations from their previous exhibits. The exhibition will be open through at least January 30 at Watters Creek at Montgomery Farm in Allen.

Monster Jam
Monster Jam, featuring an epic 12-truck line-up of fan favorites, includes the ultimate mix of high-flying stunts and four-wheel excitement with unbelievable action to unexpected thrills. Taking place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, it will include the return of The Monster Jam Pit Party, where fans can see the massive trucks up close, participate in Q&As with the drivers, take pictures, and enjoy other family-friendly fun.

The Dallas Opera presents The People's Choice Concert
The Dallas Opera will kick off their season with The People’s Choice Concert, featuring favorite and familiar opera arias from a selection of operas spanning the centuries, including Bellini’s Norma, Mozart’s The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, Puccini’s Tosca and Madame Butterfly, Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s Otello, and more. The concert will take place at Annette Strauss Square.

KXT 91.7 presents The Polyphonic Spree: Jukebox Jamboree
The Polyphonic Spree: Jukebox Jamboree will be an eclectic evening featuring two sets by The Polyphonic Spree, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary as a band. One set will be the band's favorite songs to cover and the other set will feature original songs. Both concerts, taking place on Saturday and Sunday at The Kessler, will be recorded for a live EP.

Sunday, October 17

Dallas Museum of Art presents "Van Gogh and the Olive Groves"
The Dallas Museum of Art will host the first exhibition dedicated to Vincent van Gogh’s important olive grove series. "Van Gogh and the Olive Groves" reunites for the first time the series of paintings devoted to the titular motif that the artist produced between June and December 1889. It additionally highlights new discoveries about the artist’s techniques, materials, and palette that emerged from a collaborative conservation and scientific research project that included all 15 paintings in the series. The exhibition will remain on display through February 6, 2022.

Kane Brown in concert
Kane Brown is part of the new brand of country music, unafraid to add pop and R&B sounds to his songs. Not so coincidentally, that has made him very popular, resulting in both of his first two albums going to No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts (2018's Experiment also hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200) and three No. 1 hits so far. He'll play at American Airlines Center.

Dead & Company will play at Dos Equis Pavilion on October 14.

Photo by Danny Clinch

Dead & Company will play at Dos Equis Pavilion on October 14.

event-planner opera concerts museums theater

Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

---

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

movies film