Theater Critics' Picks

DFW Theater Critics Forum bestows honors for 2012-13 season

Every year, the Dallas-Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum dishes out awards for best new play, best actor, best direction and myriad other theater categories. The group does not crown a winner in each category, nor does it declare a show of the year. Rather, the group gathers for a conversation about work that deserves special recognition.

On Saturday, September 7, the forum gathered to reflect on the 2012-13 season. This year, there were some clear favorites. On the Eve, the brand-new post-modern musical extravaganza, with songs and lyrics by the local band Home by Hovercraft, earned accolades for its writing, cast, music and director. (Theatre Three will remount this show in January 2014).

Kitchen Dog Theater had a standout season, with nearly every show receiving nominations for a design element or performance. There was also a unanimous desire to recognize the late Jerry Russell for his lifetime contributions to local theater and praise Fun House Theatre and Film for emerging as a stomping ground for young actors. In fact, Kennedy Waterman, an 11-year-old actress from Fun House, gave one of the best performances of the year for her role in Daffodil Girls.

During the lunch meeting, critics dug through playbills to double check spellings and debated the merit of an actor's performance in one show versus another to nominate shows or performers in each category. They pared down several hundred shows into lists of up to 10. Here are this year's picks:

New Play or Musical

On the Eve by Michael Federico and Shawn and Seth Magill
Dreams of Slaughtered Sheep by Matthew Posey
Daffodil Girls, inspired by David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross by Jeff Swearingen
Fly by Night by Kim Rosenstock, Bill Connolly and Michael Mitnick

Direction

Jeffrey Schmidt, On the Eve (Nouveau 47 Theatre) and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Theatre Three) and Enron (Theatre Three)
Regan Adair, In a Forest, Dark and Deep (Second Thought Theatre)
Tim Johnson, The Chairs (Kitchen Dog Theater)
Cheryl Denson, The Most Happy Fella (Lyric Stage)
T.J. Walsh, The Taming of the Shrew (Trinity Shakespeare Festival)
Jim Covault, The Taming of the Shrew (Stage West)
Susan Sargeant, Children of a Lesser God (Contemporary Theatre of Dallas) and Lydie Marland in the Afterlife (Wingspan Theater Co)
Jeff Swearingen, Daffodil Girls, inspired by David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross (Fun House Theatre and Film)
Matthew Posey, Dreams of Slaughtered Sheep (Ochre House Theater)
Joel Ferrell, Gruesome Playground Injuries (Second Thought Theatre)
Jonathan Fielding, The True Story of the Tragic Life and Triumphant Death of Julia Pastrana, the Ugliest Woman in the World (Amphibian Stage Productions)

Actor

Bruce DuBose, An Iliad (Undermain Theatre)
Raphael Parry, The Chairs (Kitchen Dog Theater)
Gregory Lush, On the Eve (Nouveau 47 Theatre) and Penelope (Undermain Theatre)
David Coffee, Fly by Night (Dallas Theater Center)
Jac Alder, Freud’s Last Session (Theatre Three)
Chris Hury, The Taming of the Shrew (Stage West)
Montgomery Sutton, Gruesome Playground Injuries (Second Thought Theatre)
Max Hartman, RX (Kitchen Dog Theater)
Ashley Wood, Children of a Lesser God(Contemporary Theatre of Dallas)
Alex Organ, The Most Happy Fella (Lyric Stage)

Actress

Tina Parker, RX (Kitchen Dog Theater)
Jenny Ledel, Becky Shaw (Kitchen Dog Theater) and On the Eve (Nouveau 47 Theatre)
Martha Harms, On the Eve (Nouveau 47 Theatre), RX (Kitchen Dog Theater), The Lucky Chance; or, The Alderman’s Bargain (Echo Theatre)
Marianne Galloway, Children of a Lesser God (Contemporary Theatre of Dallas)
Amber Nicole Guest, The Most Happy Fella (Lyric Stage)
Barbara Wood, Knock Me a Kiss (Jubillee Theatre)
Allison Pistorius, The Taming of the Shrew (Stage West)
Kennedy Waterman, Daffodil Girls (FunHouse Theatre and Film)

Ensemble

On the Eve (Nouveau 47 Theatre)
The Taming of the Shrew (Trinity Shakespeare Festival)
Jailbait (Dallas Actor’s Lab)

Creative Contribution

Score, Home by Hovercraft, On the Eve (Nouveau 47 Theatre)
Music and sound design, Bruce DuBose and Paul Semrad, An Iliad (Undermain Theatre)
Sound design, John Flores, Gruesome Playground Injuries (Second Thought Theatre)
Set design, Timothy R. Mackabee, The Odd Couple (Dallas Theater Center)
Set design, Bob Lavallee, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Theatre Arlington) and Gruesome Playground Injuries (Second Thought Theatre)
Design team, The Taming of the Shrew and Julius Caesar (Trinity Shakespeare Festival)
Design team, Dreams of Slaughtered Sheep (Ochre House Theater)
Costume design, Ryan Matthieu Smith, The Lucky Chance; or, the Alderman’s Bargain (Echo Theatre)

Touring Production

Anything Goes (Lexus Broadway Series)
The Book of Mormon (Lexus Broadways Series)
Traces (Lexus Broadway Series)
Underneath the Lentil (Patrick O’Brien at the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival)

Special citations

The late Jerry Russell, founder of Stage West, for his lifetime contributions to the North Texas theater community as an actor, director, producer and advocate
Jeff Swearingen and Bren Rapp with Fun House Theater and Film, for their innovative youth theater and dedication to the future of the craft

Participating critics

CultureMap Dallas: Lauren Smart
Dallas Morning News: Lawson Taitte
D Magazine: Lindsey Wilson, Liz Johnstone, M. Lance Lusk
Dallas Observer: Elaine Liner
TheaterJones.com: Mark Lowry, Kris Noteboom
Dallas Voice: Arnold Wayne Jones
Turtle Creek News: Martha Heimberg
CriticalRant.com: Alexandra Bonifield
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Punch Shaw

On the Eve emerged as a favorite of the 2012-13 season.

The musical "On the Eve" played sold-out shows last year in Dallas.

Photo by Jeffrey Schmidt

On the Eve emerged as a favorite of the 2012-13 season.

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Lawsuit news

Artist sues FIFA for $25 million over painted-over Dallas whale mural

Facebook/Wyland

Artist Wyland's Whaling Wall mural being painted over for a FIFA World Cup-related mural in Dallas.

The artist who painted a giant mural on a building in downtown Dallas of life-sized swimming whales has filed a $25 million lawsuit against soccer's international governing body and others, saying they illegally painted over his work to promote the city's upcoming World Cup matches.

The artist Wyland says he hand-painted the sprawling mural that covered roughly 17,000 square feet (1,580 square meters) across two of the building's walls.

The mural stood for nearly three decades before workers began painting over it last month, causing an uproar among residents who admired the mural's grand scale and message of ocean conservation.

The area’s World Cup organizing committee said in a statement that, in place of Wyland's mural, new artwork is planned "that captures this current historical moment and reflects the energy, unity, and global spirit surrounding the World Cup 2026.” It said a portion of Wyland's mural would be preserved.

Wyland filed suit Monday, June 1 in U.S District Court in Dallas saying that World Cup organizers, along with the building's owner and management company, painted over his mural without his consent or even notifying him. He says their actions violated a 1990 federal law passed to protect visual artists from destruction of publicly displayed works.

Wyland is seeking at least $25 million in damages. His lawsuit says world soccer's governing body, FIFA, and other defendants “hastily and irrevocably destroyed a civic landmark” to promote the World Cup.

“Though FIFA claims they were working to develop art for the host city, in truth, they defaced an historic fixture of the host city,” the artist's lawsuit says.

A FIFA spokesperson said Tuesday the federation “has no involvement in this whatsoever” and referred a reporter to the tournament's local organizing committee.

A spokesperson for the North Texas FWC Organizing Committee declined to comment. The committee isn't named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for Slate Asset Management, which manages the building where the mural was painted over, said in a statement that local World Cup organizers asked Slate in March to donate the mural space for “a new public art installation.”

“Slate is not being compensated in any way for the use of the wall space and was told by the local groups that Mr. Wyland had been notified,” the management company's spokesperson said in an email.

Dallas is hosting more World Cup matches than any of the other sites in the event co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with nine matches set to be played at AT&T Stadium in suburban Arlington, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

Wyland's Dallas mural, titled “Whaling Wall 82,” was finished in 1999 and is among more than 100 similar murals known as Whaling Walls the artist painted around the world to promote the conservation of ocean life.

An online petition protesting the mural's destruction and calling for protecting of public artwork in Dallas has received more than 2,600 signatures.

Wyland's lawsuit alleges violations of the Visual Artists Rights Act, a 1990 federal law that protects artwork of “recognized stature” even if someone else owns the physical artwork.

A judge cited that law in 2018 when he ordered a property owner to pay a group of New York graffiti artists $6.7 million for whitewashing dozens of their spray-painted murals on buildings that once housed a factory in Queens. The ruling was upheld on appeal.

fifa world cup fifa world cup 2026 lawsuit wyland whaling mural murals downtown dallas