Theater Critic Picks

These are the 7 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for September

Pageant returns — to your screens.

Photo by Mike Morgan

Now that we're several months into the pandemic, DFW companies are finding their groove with new ways to present theater. Not only does that include filmed and live-streamed works, but also drive-in theater. That last one was so popular after its June premiere that it's now coming to Fort Worth, giving more audiences the chance to experience this new art form.

Here are seven local shows to watch this month:

Everything Will Be Fine
Prism Movement Theatre and Stage West, drive-in at Texas Wesleyan University's Administration Building parking lot, September 3-27
Packed into 45 minutes and designed to be enjoyed from your car, Everything Will Be Fine by Zoe Kerr is about a woman learning how to deal with a new world and her well-meaning (if slightly clueless) friends after experiencing an unthinkable loss. Once guests arrive, they will be directed to their assigned parking spots and instructed to tune in to a specific radio station to hear the show's electronic/rock music underscoring. Tickets are $40 per car and can be purchased here.

Coppertone Jones' Amazing Traveling Sideshow Corker
Ochre House Theatre, streaming beginning September 4
Ochre House's original freaky green puppet, Coppertone Jones, is back with his very own variety talk show written and directed by artistic director Matthew Posey. Coppertone sits down with some of his favorite friends for a nice chat, a few songs here and there, and some crazy hijinx. This virtual theater project uses a Zoom platform and employs a diverse cast of Ochre regulars. Watch it on the Ochre House YouTube channel for free.

Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone – Live from Florence
Dallas Summer Musicals, live-streaming September 13
Meet one of America's greatest composers through some of his best-known songs, from "The Man I Love" to "Someone to Watch Over Me," through the hits of An American In Paris and Porgy and Bess, to a complete performance of Rhapsody In Blue. As the only actor-musician to create the role of George Gershwin on the stage, and with over 3,000 performances from California to Broadway to London's West End, Hershey Felder will bring George Gershwin to life on the stage of one of Europe's oldest and most famous theaters, Teatro della Pergola. Tickets are $55 per household and can be purchased here.

We Are Proud to Present a Presentation...
Undermain Theatre, September 16-October 4
The Deep Ellum company is reaching into its archives for the 2014 production of Jackie Sibblies Drury's play, which follows a troupe of young actors gearing up to portray the extermination of the Herero tribe of Namibia. They're passionate, energetic, and have piles of research — but what do they really know about being black Africans under German colonization? Tickets are $15 and can be purchased here.

The Impact of The Gadget on Civilization
Imprint Theatreworks, streaming September 17-26
Directed by Ashley H. White and written by Mark Oristano, this hybrid stage and film project questions morality and humanity through an immersive look inside Einstein's experiences surrounding the creation of the atom bomb. Tickets are $12 and can be purchased here.

ONE Addison
WaterTower Theatre, streaming September 17-30
In celebration of North Texas Giving Day, WTT filmed a Vimeo concert that's a love letter to the town of Addison, its donors, and ticket buyers. With music direction by Vonda K. Bowling, the concert features songs from The Bridges of Madison County performed by Christine Cornish Smith and Christopher J. Deaton, who were slated to star in the production before it was canceled by the pandemic. The concert also features performances by singers Feleceia Benton, Devin Berg, Ashley Puckett Gonzales, Brian Gonzales, Jamall Houston, and Denise Lee; musicians Sara Bollinger, Kat Glaze, Eric Jones, Jay Majernik, and Aaron Sutton; an original spoken word piece written and performed by Verb Kulture; and an original dance performance by Kellie Carroll and Ania Lyons. Tickets are $38 and can be purchased here.

Pageant
Uptown Players, streaming September 25-October 4
Filmed in 2014, this hilarious musical takes on the cutthroat world of beauty pageants ... with a twist. B.J. Cleveland is your emcee, and the lovely contestants include Peter DiCesare, Sergio Antonio Garcia, Micah Green, Drew Kelly, Walter Lee, and Ashton McKay Shawver. The show's interactive elements are just as enjoyable onscreen as they were live six years ago (the winner changed every night, for example). Tickets are $20 for an individual ticket and $30 for multi-viewer, and can be purchased here.

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

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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

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A good listen

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