Theater Critic Picks

These are the 13 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for April

Theatre Three presents Stede Bonnet: A F*cking Pirate Musical

Meet the worst pirate in the world: Stede Bonnet: A F*cking Pirate Musical gets its world premiere at Theatre Three.

Photo by Jeffrey Schmidt

Lots of new works this month — five, in fact! — so do yourself a favor and see something no one else has ever seen before.

Looking for a little familiarity? Try out Jesus Christ Superstar, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, Torch Song, and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

In order of start date, here are 13 local shows to watch this month:

Rage
AT&T Elevator Project, through April 9
This one-act play by Janelle Gray explores the stories of Black women throughout the history of the United States. Ten women take their place onstage at the Wyly's Studio Theatre to share their stories of strength, resilience, perseverance and struggle across the history of the nation.

No Child...
Amphibian Stage, through April 17
Kymbali Craig plays all 16 characters in this tour-de-force exploration of the New York City public school system.

Freedom Gardening
Cara Mía Theatre, April 2
This public performance event and installation was created in an empty lot in Pleasant Grove by cohort participants, including Alexandra Hernandez, Anita Sanchez, Ajua Powell, Classi Nance, Cocoatlicue, J Davis- Jones, Judah Agbonkhina, Kirschen Wolford, Lyrique Jaye, Nora Soto, Priscilla Rice, Priscilla Solis Ybarra, Tamitha Barbosa Curiel, and Victoria Ferrell Ortiz.

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Dallas Children's Theater, April 2-May 15
Young adventurers Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy step through the not-so-ordinary wardrobe and into the mythical land of C.S. Lewis' Narnia. Facing fantastic creatures and fierce battles in the heart and on the land, the four siblings must find the courage to battle the treacherous White Witch in order to end the deadly eternal winter in the beautiful forest.

Jesus Christ Superstar
Broadway Dallas, April 5-17
The North American tour celebrates 50 epic years since the original rock opera concept album release. Jesus Christ Superstar is set against the backdrop of an extraordinary series of events during the final weeks in the life of Jesus Christ, as seen through the eyes of Judas.

Stede Bonnet: A F*cking Pirate Musical
Theatre Three, April 7-May 1
The world premiere of this swashbuckling musical is a hilarious, touching tale based on the true story of the Gentleman Pirate. Stede, depressed and exhausted of his luxurious life, chooses to leave everything behind and become the best pirate in the world. One problem … he doesn't know what he's doing.

Ten Arguments
Leos Ensemble Theatre, April 8-9
This world premiere is by Oak Cliff-based playwright A. Emmanuel Leadon, conceived by Nick Leos, and loosely framed by technology activist Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts. Ten sketches set over the last decade are all about the ways social media is undermining our lives. It's MadTV crossed with The Colored Museum wrapped up in uncle's conspiracy Twitter rants.

Torch Song
Uptown Players, April 8-17
This new and shortened revival of Harvey Fierstein's original 1983 Torch Song Trilogy follows Arnold Beckoff, a Jewish drag queen who makes it his life's journey to find happiness in 1970s New York in the midst of homophobia and intolerance, even by his own family and partners.

Dry Powder
Second Thought Theatre, April 14-30
The same week KMM Capital Management private equity firm forced massive layoffs at a national grocery chain, the founder and president threw himself an extravagant engagement party, setting off a publicity nightmare. Fortunately, one of the partners has a dream of a deal that will rescue his boss from the PR disaster. But are they willing to maximize returns, no matter the consequences? The game is on in this gripping, razor-sharp play about the price of success and the real cost of getting the deal done.

Bars and Measures
Bishop Arts Theatre Center, April 14-May 1
Commissioned by B Street Theatre, Bars and Measures is the fascinating tale of two brothers, one a classical pianist, the other a jazz bass player. One is Christian, and the other a Muslim. One living in freedom. The other in jail. Separated by bars, the brothers try to reconcile their differences through the language they know best: music.

What to Send Up When It Goes Down
Stage West, April 14-May 8
This play-pageant-ritual-homegoing-celebration blurs the lines between actors and audience. In a series of vignettes, it builds to a moment in which performance and reality collide, a unifying theatrical response to the physical and spiritual loss of Black lives.

Pressure Makes Diamonds
Circle Theatre, April 21-30
This original production will shine a bright light on a diamond's similarities to life. Denise Lee, with the help of her band, will touch audiences' souls with a collection of songs from many classic artists. This new production is both a collaboration with and directed by Monique Midgette.

Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
AT&T Performing Arts Center, April 26-May 1
She was a girl from Boston with a voice from heaven, who shot through the stars from gospel choir to dance floor diva. But what the world didn't know was how Donna Summer risked it all to break through every barrier, becoming the icon of an era and the inspiration for every music diva who followed. From Janet Jackson to Beyoncé, they all began with Donna.

theater

A good listen

Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi release landmark Wagner 'Ring Cycle' set

Fabio Luisi conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Photo courtesy of Dallas Symphony Orchestra

undefined

Fabio Luisi wanted his Ring Cycle to be heard and not seen.

Wagner’s four-opera epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, approaching the 150th anniversary of its premiere in 1876, has been reinterpreted and deconstructed by directors finding various meanings in the conflicts among gods, humans, giants and dwarfs.

While most new recordings are on video, Luisi led his Dallas Symphony Orchestra in concert performances that were released on 13 compact discs by Delos on May 22 and are available on streaming services.

“Wagner conceived this as a total immersion in visual and acoustic, but I could focus really only on the music, and this was the point actually — not to be distracted by staging and not to have to cope with maybe strange ideas of staging,” Luisi said. “I think the music tells everything.”

Luisi became DSO music director in 2020 and broached the idea while dining two years later with (the now late) Morton H. Meyerson, a longtime board member.

“Fabio came back from lunch sort of giddy but sort of sheepishly saying: `Do you think that this would ever be possible?” recalled Kim Noltemy, the Dallas CEO at the time. “So, I said, well, let’s give it a try. So, we called around to see if there were people who wanted to support it and did a budget.”

After securing a waiver from the orchestra allowing for the needed rehearsals and performance length, recordings were made during four concerts from May 1-5 and six more from Oct. 5-20. Each opera was performed two or three times.

Americans in cast fill big roles
American singers featured prominently, with Mark Delavan as Wotan, Lise Lindstrom as Brünnhilde and Sara Jakubiak as Sieglinde, part of a cast that included Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Daniel Johansson (Siegfried), Deniz Uzun (Fricka), Tómas Tómasson (Alberich), Michael Laurenz (Mime) and Stephen Milling (Hagen).

Delavan sang Wotan at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2013 after Luisi took over from an ailing James Levine in Robert Lepage’s much-maligned production staged on a 45-ton set of 24 rotating planks.

“We’re accessible and they know that we’re hungry and we have a chip on our shoulders,” Delavan said. “What conductors like about American singers is their technique is sound. Even a European conductor would say: Well, I’m going to give up some of the communication skills, only one degree of separation with the language, but I’m going to get a solid technique, and I’m going to get pretty good acting chops.”

Lindstrom has been in Atlanta to sing in its production of “Götterdämmerung,” the concluding night of the tetralogy, leading to what is being billed as the first complete Ring Cycles in the America South in 2029.

“The wonderful thing about it is the intimacy between the orchestra and us, because we’re not separated by a chunk of stage or a chunk a scenery or a chunk of concept,” she said of the Dallas performances. “And for people like me, who have had the opportunity to perform the role before, I have all those iterations to rely on for my portrayal that I can sort of filter myself through.”

A younger Luisi listened to famous renditions
Luisi, 67, first heard a Ring recording in Georg Solti’s famous studio set with the Vienna Philharmonic from 1958-65. He also admires Karl Böhm’s live recording from the 1967 Bayreuth Festival and Marek Janowski’s 1980-83 studio version with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He first conducted Ring when he was music director of Dresden’s Semperoper from 2007-10. Luisi’s Dallas performances include more legato and softer sound than his rendition a decade earlier at the Met. He tries to keep an arc from the first notes of “Das Rheingold” to the final strains of “Götterdämmerung.”

“I have a deeper understanding about the meaning of this piece,” he said. “I consider the ring to be a big Bruckner symphony. So we have the introduction, then we have the first movement, this is “Walküre,” which happens to be a slow movement, and then we have the scherzo, which is “Siegfried,” of course, and then the long, long, last movement. There is a unity.”

dso luisi ring wagner recording concerts music symphony

Theater Critic Picks

These are the 13 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for April

Dallas' Knox Street lands all-day restaurant with coveted Katy Trail patio

Beloved Dallas public relations maven Kelly Hunter dies at 58

Dallas soars to top 10 on new list of America's best cities

A good listen

Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi release landmark Wagner 'Ring Cycle' set