Theater Preview

These are the 12 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for May

May brings with it fresh weather and fresh theater. From world premieres to beloved classics, local debuts to touring hits, this month's dramatic offerings run the gamut.

Here are the 12 shows in order by start date:

Under the Skin
Circle Theatre, through May 21
Michael Hollinger's new play asks what it means to literally give a piece of yourself to someone else. In this case it's a kidney, which Raina must decide if she wants to give to her estranged father, Lou.

Memphis
Theatre Three, through May 22
This Tony-winning musical is notable for a few reasons, but the main one is that it wasn't based on a movie, book, or even band's song catalog. To be fair, though, Bon Jovi keyboardist Daid Bryan did write the score, but he did so in keeping with the style and sound of 1950s R&B and rock-and-roll. The story follows a white DJ who falls in love with a black singer, and how their passion for music attempts to unite their friends and family.

Broadway Our Way
Uptown Players, May 5-8
This raucous fundraiser is in its 14th year and promises to be more fabulous than ever. Big theater names from around DFW (including Janelle Lutz and David Lugo) sing songs from current and classic musicals that may not otherwise end up on their resumes. B.J. Cleveland is back to write and direct, with music arrangements from Adam C. Wright and choreography by Jeremy Dumont.

Intergalactic Nemesis
Off Broadway on Flora, May 12-14
AT&T Performing Arts Center is bringing a "live-action graphic novel" to the stage at Dallas City Performance Hall. Radio drama-style sci-fi is translated it into a pulp magazine-inspired mashup of Twilight Zone-esque plotlines, cosplay characters, and skilled foley artists.

The Last Five Years
Brick Road Theatre, May 12-22
DFW just can't get enough of Janelle Lutz, as she's back to star in this two-person exploration of what it's like to fall in and out of love. Perhaps you saw the movie with Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan?

Blackberry Winter and The Thrush & The Woodpecker
Kitchen Dog Theater, May 20-June 26
Both plays by popular playwright Steve Yockey are part of KDT's New Works Festival, and they are receiving their rolling world premieres thanks to the National New Play Network. Though running concurrently at Kitchen Dog's new temporary home at Undermain Theatre, each play has its own cast. Blackberry Winter explores how one woman is handling her mother's descent into Alzheimer's, while the The Thrush & The Woodpecker promises a "modern revenge tale" when a misbehaving son turns up at his mother's doorstep after being expelled from boarding school.

Bright Half Life
WaterTower Theatre, May 21-June 12
Garret Storms directs this Discover Series play in WaterTower's studio space, featuring actors Kelsey Leigh Ervi and Kenneisha Thompson. In Pulitzer Prize nominee Tanya Barfield's romantic play, we see decades of Erica and Vicky's relationship in a "kaleidoscopic" way of storytelling.

Ragtime
Dallas Summer Musicals, May 24-June 5
This all-new, scaled-down tour of the Tony Award-winning musical looks like it will focus less on gargantuan sets and more on Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens' sweeping score. And that's a great thing. Terrence McNally's adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's iconic novel about America at the turn of the century tells many stories in many different voices, and the musical ones are stunning in their complexity.

Cabaret
AT&T Performing Arts Center, May 25-June 5
Sam Mendes' 1998 reimagining of the Kander and Ebb musical, set on the eve of the Nazi takeover of Germany, was so successful it was revived intact on Broadway two years ago. Darker, grittier, and sexier, this version literally draws you into the seedy Kit Kat Klub as American writer Cliff meets British nightclub singer Sally Bowles, and the devilish Emcee looks on.

Wait Until Dark
Stage West, May 26-June 26
You might be familiar with the film version of Frederick Knott's play, in which Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who's terrorized in her home by intruders. But the premise is even more chilling live.

The Colored Museum
Soul Rep Theatre Company, May 28
This one-night-only presentation honors George C. Wolfe's groundbreaking play, which premiered 30 years ago. The satirical look at race and black culture is separated into 11 "exhibits" that provide a probing look at what it was — and sometimes still is — to be black in America.

Kenneisha Thompson and Kelsey Leigh Ervi star in Bright Half Life at WaterTower Theatre.

WaterTower Theatre presents Bright Half Life

Photo by Karen Almond

Kenneisha Thompson and Kelsey Leigh Ervi star in Bright Half Life at WaterTower Theatre.

theater

All Eyes on Them

Dallas alt hip-hop group wins prestigious Tiny Desk Contest by NPR

Cure for Paranoia/Facebook

As winners of the Tiny Desk Contest, Cure for Paranoia will record their own Tiny Desk concert and go on tour.

Few live recording studios or musical web series have the cultural sway of NPR's Tiny Desk, and a Dallas band is poised to make an impactful debut: Cure For Paranoia, an alternative hip-hop project by rapper Cameron McCloud and producers Tomahawk Jonez and Jay Analo, has won the high-stakes annual Tiny Desk Contest for 2026.

They'll record their official Tiny Desk show "soon," the announcement by NPR says.

Winning the concert also means Cure for Paranoia is going on tour. The only Texas stop will be at Emo's Austin on June 24.

Tiny Desk is known for platforming both niche and majorly successful artists — NPR posted a new Foo Fighters set on YouTube on May 13 — for stripped-down sets that are literally played behind former All Things Considered director Bob Boilen's old desk. (Fun fact for Texans: Tiny Desk was created because folk artist Laura Gibson was disappointed with the sound at her South by Southwest show in Austin in 2008, and she wanted a redo.)

Most artists who appear on Tiny Desk more than 15 years later are already well-known, at least in their specific circles. But the Tiny Desk Contest, which launched in 2015, helps a growing group of newer, unsigned artists get their foot in the door. Contestants record one video of them performing a single song behind a desk, and a jury of radio staff and musicians chooses their favorite.

In their audition video, Cure for Paranoia gathered 11 musicians around a truly tiny desk and in front of downtown Dallas' iconic gigantic eyeball sculpture. They played the song "No Brainer," a frenetic track that starts with clever boasts and becomes a criticism of racism in the United States.

McCloud, a pre-school teacher, is known independently of Cure for Paranoia for rapping to his social media following about politics and current events. Some of those lyrics made it into "No Brainer." He says he started the group because he found that music was more helpful than medication for coping with bipolar depression and paranoid schizophrenia.

Alex Marrero, host of the Austin-based KUTX show Horizontes, was one of the judges this year. He was impressed with the visuals in Cure for Paranoia's audition.

“When this popped up, I immediately felt something different," he wrote in a blurb for the announcement. "It just jumped out. The visuals were super cool and creative, BUT I could still totally envision them bringing the heat behind the Desk.”

Madison McFerrin, jazz vocalist and daughter of the famous singer Bobby McFerrin, was one of the musical judges.

"Cure For Paranoia’s energy is infectious, fresh and distinctly theirs — exactly what you want in a Contest winner!" she wrote.

McCloud's post on Instagram announcing the group's win has only been up for three hours at the time of this article's publication, and it already has more than 8,000 likes. The YouTube audition has garnered 74,000 views.

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