Go Loopy

Out of the Loop 2016 demonstrates why it’s vital to Dallas theater scene

Spoken word poet Ebony Stewart brought her one-woman show Hunger to Loop.

Photo courtesy of Christopher Diaz Photography

In its 15th year, Out of the Loop Fringe Festival is still proving it's a vital part of the Dallas arts scene — mainly because it still attracts theater and dance from risk-taking companies not only in Dallas and Fort Worth, but from all over the country.

Through March 6 at WaterTower Theatre in Addison, OOTL includes performances from 23 arts organizations. In its first weekend, I caught three shows, plus two live music performances and the art display in the lobby. These three shows performed during the first week only, though the live musicians each have one remaining concert.

Far and away, Ebony Stewart is this year's poster girl for Loop. The spoken-word champ from Austin has a two-hour presentation titled Hunger, which refers to her aching need for a father figure and acceptance. It's funny, poignant, and groovy, and Stewart is mesmerizing. Whether she's rapping, dancing, gently making fun of the (mostly white) audience, or listening to recorded messages from her parents, it's impossible to take your eyes off her.

Glass Half Full Theatre, also from Austin, brings a bit of silliness with its pastiche of female scientists and adventurers in Missionary Position: Pleasure Journeys for the Intrepid Lady Explorer. Though Judd Farris is delightfully off-kilter as hostess of the "symposium," dispensing paper fans and calling a ridiculous roll as the audience settles in, the actual 45-minute show feels more like on overly long Saturday Night Live skit.

But the company takes "the show must go on" quite literally, as stage manager Katy Taylor stepped in for injured director and actor Caroline Reck. It's a physical performance that depends heavily on improv, and Taylor seems to be having a blast.

Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy is one of the 23 high schools that was selected for the rolling world premiere of Prospect High: Brooklyn, and the students are invested in the play's subject for good reason. Teens confront bullying, school violence, relationships, gender and sexual identity questions, domestic violence, and poverty, using text, Twitter, hip hop, and other devices to show how kids deal with these issues. Special recognition goes to Bailey James, who's Bria is a barely contained volcano who refuses to play by the world's rules.

Ian Ferguson and Ian Mead Moore offered mini guitar concerts in the lobby, including covers, original compositions, vocals, and audience banter. Ferguson performs once more on March 6 at 4 pm, and Moore performs March 5 at 7 pm.

Artist Angie Bolling's sparkly, award-winning, often larger-than-life creations decorate the lobbies, and some are for sale.

reviews theater

Mural News

Netflix House will debut in Dallas with murals from acclaimed artist

Netflix House

Jeremy Biggers at Netflix House

A long-awaited immersive venue is opening in Dallas, and it will debut with local art on its walls: Netflix House, a year-round exhibit revolving around Netflix shows and movies, will open at Galleria Dallas on December 11, with two murals from award-winning Dallas multi-medium artist Jeremy Biggers.

Netflix House is an immersive dive complete with merchandise store, film house, arcade, and restaurant-bar. When it opens, Dallas will be the second location in the U.S., following Philadelphia, where it debuted in November 2025, also with murals from a local artist.

A graduate of Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts, Biggers is a renowned artist whose murals can be found spashed on walls across Dallas. Many, such as the Selena portrait on the wall outside Top Ten Records at 306 S. Bishop Ave., have become local landmarks.

He's a logical choice, having worked with a number of corporations including Nike, Adidas, the Dallas Mavericks, and IBM, for whom he created the "THINK" mural in their Dallas corporate office. His works have also been exhibited nationally, including a 2024 solo exhibition "be safe out there bro" at Band of Vices, a gallery in Los Angeles.

"Being chosen to be the artist to paint this mural, it would have been a disservice to myself, as well as the art scene in the city, not to try to infuse myself into it," he says.

$\u200bJeremy Biggers at Netflix House$ Jeremy Biggers at Netflix HouseNetflix House

Biggers did two murals featuring his interpretation of Netflix figures including the Squid Game Young-hee doll, characters from KPop Demon Hunters and megahit series Stranger Things, plus Pandy and DJ Catnip, the best friends in the interactive series Gabby’s Dollhouse.

Both murals are intensely colored works that incorporate Biggers' signature motif: a grid of polka dots spread across the image.

One is on the exterior of Netflix House, at the parking entrance, a colorful collage of characters, measuring 38 feet x 50 feet — the tallest mural Biggers has tackled. He painted it with aerosol; it took him two months to complete.
The other is on the interior, on the mall side entrance of Netflix House, measuring 57 feet x 12 feet — a study in moody blacks and blues, with accents of neon-red that give it a 3D effect.

“I'm trying to tell the story of Netflix, and the story of where Netflix has been historically, where Netflix is headed in the future, and then also infusing my own narrative and my own language visually into that story,” he says.

“They could have opened this anywhere, so for Dallas to be one of the very first locations — that’s a testament to us as a market, as consumers of arts and consumers in general," he says.

Jeremy Biggers at Netflix HouseNetflix House

galleries openings