Theater Critic Picks

These are the 11 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for September

It's still festival time in both Dallas and Fort Worth, along with a few familiar titles from a certain ALW (that's Andrew Lloyd Webber to most). Some recent Broadway hits are also making their way to local stages in regional productions, as are one or two brand-new works showcasing native talent.

Here are the 11 shows to see in order by start date:

Cats
The Firehouse Theatre, September 5-22
Set among a larger-than-life junkyard playground, Cats is alive with purr-fect felines, including Rum Tum Tugger, Mr. Mistoffelees, Macavity, Jennyanydots, Old Deuteronomy, Skimbleshanks, and Grizabella. The all-singing, all-dancing Tony-winning musical spectacular has music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and additional material written by Trevor Nunn and Richard Stilgoe, and is based on Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot.

Fort Worth Fringe Festival
Fort Worth Community Arts Center, September 6-8
Fourteen different shows over three days on two stages. Bump from Buckle Up Theatre is the headliner, supported by performances from Proper Hijinx, The Maverick Theatre Company, Drag Strip Courage, and others.

Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story
Casa Mañana, September 7-15
Don your black-rimmed glasses and celebrate Buddy Holly's meteoric rise to fame and the top of the record charts with the "World's Most Successful Rock Musical." Set during the golden days of rock 'n' roll, Buddy Holly will have audiences dancing in the aisles to rousing hits such as "Peggy Sue," "That'll be the Day," and "Rave On." The last half of the show re-enacts his last night 60 years ago: the concert at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, complete with performances from Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.

Pete: A New Dance Musical
Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, September 12-15
Conceived and choreographed by internationally award-winning choreographer and founder of DCCDUSA Joshua L. Peugh, this original 90-minute dance musical is inspired by J. M. Barrie's iconic novel Peter Pan. Responding to the narrative of the classic story, Pete: A New Dance Musical takes an adventurous, playful, and creative approach to not only explore the intersecting themes of childhood, freedom, and mortality, but to reflect on issues of race, gender, sexuality, and privilege.

First Date
Stage West and Theatre TCU, September 12-October 13
When tightly-wound Aaron (Seth Womack) is set up with laid-back Casey (Amber Marie Flores) on a blind date, a casual drink turns into an uproarious high-stakes dinner. As the date unfolds, this mismatched pair's inner critics take on a life of their own, as other patrons transform into supportive best friends, manipulative exes, and protective parents.

First Impressions Mainstage Showcase
Imprint Theatreworks, September 13-29
Three local plays from the 2018 and 2019 First Impressions Festivals were chosen to be mounted as full productions, led by three new directors from the Director Development Program.

Red Chariot
Undermain Theatre, September 18-October 13
What if tarot cards could actually affect your future? And you could use that tarot deck to control other's destinies as well? And what if the Internet created that tarot deck? This world premiere science fiction thriller is set amid the downfall of civilization after the Internet has created a mysterious tarot deck that, when read, can actually affect the past, present, and future. Gordon Dahlquist takes us on a journey though time as we explore the chaotic effects of new technological advancements and the role humans have, or haven't, played in stopping that chaos.

In the Heights
Dallas Theater Center, September 21-October 20
Conceived and with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, In the Heights is the universal story of a vibrant community in New York's Washington Heights neighborhood. A place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music, it's a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams, and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you and which ones you leave behind.

Evita
Lyric Stage, September 20-22
This seven-time Tony Award-winning musical tells the passionate and unforgettable story of Eva Duarte de Perón, and her meteoric climb from the slums of Argentina to one of the most powerful women in the world as the first lady of Argentina. The international hit musical is by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

The Phantom of the Opera
Broadway at the Bass, September 24-October 5
Cameron Mackintosh's spectacular new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical makes its triumphant return to Fort Worth, boasting new scenic and lighting designs, new staging, new choreography, and the legendary chandelier.

What We Were
Circle Theatre, September 26-October 19
This world premiere from acclaimed local playwright Blake Hackler is done in collaboration with Dallas' Second Thought Theatre. It tells the story of Carlin, Nell, and Tessa, three sisters who suffered a childhood of abuse. Now adults, each lives in some degree of denial, but the lies are starting to become more unbearable than the truth.

Dallas Theater Center presents Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights.

Xavier Cano and cast of Dallas Theater Center's In the Heights

Photo by Karen Almond

Dallas Theater Center presents Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights.

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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.”

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