Season Announcement

It's strictly premieres for this Dallas theater company's 27th season

The Royale play at Lincoln Center Theater

Lincoln Center Theater's production of The Royale.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

For its 27th season, Kitchen Dog Theater is going all-new. The company's 2017-18 season includes two regional premieres and one world premiere from some local theatermakers, along with the return of the New Works Festival and its wall-to-wall staged readings.

Two more festivals are also back: the fourth-annual One-Minute Play Festival, which runs August 19-21, 2017, and presents 80 original one-minute plays by 35 local playwrights; and PUP (Playwrights Under Progress), the award-winning high school playwriting program that's co-produced with Juniors Players and the Dallas Independent School District. PUP runs during the New Works Festival.

Another extra is the critically acclaimed one-man show Trump Lear, written by and starring Lake Highlands native David Carl. That's a season add-on, with subscribers getting a special discount for the play's December 7-10, 2017, run.

The mainstage season starts with the regional premiere of Martyna Majok's Ironbound, running October 26-November 12, 2017. This darkly funny play follows an independent Polish immigrant for whom love is a luxury — and a liability — as she searches for the American Dream. Over the course of 20 years, three relationships, and three presidents, she negotiates for her future with men who can offer her love or security, but never both.

Up next is The Royale by Marco Ramirez. Another regional premiere, this play is inspired by the often-overlooked story of Jack Johnson, a boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the most famous and the most notorious black man on Earth. It runs March 1-18, 2018.

KDT artistic company members Cameron Cobb, Michael Federico, and Max Hartman have put together a cautionary tale of a society’s last doomed day, told through "skits, scoots, skedaddles, and songs." Pompeii!! is an evening of vaudeville-style entertainment that works as a metaphor for the cycles of moral and social decline of both Ancient Rome and the Roaring '20s — all the while giving the hairy eyeball to modern-day society. The world premiere, which is the mainstage production for this season's New Works Festival, runs April 19-May 6, 2018.

Season subscriptions are $100 for the three mainstage shows and the New Works Festival, and first-time subscribers can purchase a second subscription at half price. Subscriptions include priority seating for all performances, unlimited free ticket exchanges, one free mainstage season guest pass ticket per subscription (a $30 value), a $5 discount on additional full-price tickets to performances including the One Minute Play Festival and Trump Lear, one free guest pass per subscription from Stage West in Fort Worth (a $35 value), and subscriber-only offers from participating restaurant partners.

Single tickets go on sale in September, with prices that range from $20-$30 for all regular season productions. All opening night tickets are $40 and include a post-show reception with the artists. All performances and programs are held at Trinity River Arts Center. For more info, call the Kitchen Dog Theater box office at 214-953-1055 or visit its website.

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.

music music video npr radio live music concerts