DART to the Arts

DART your way to Dallas-Fort Worth’s best cultural attractions

The Dallas-Fort Worth cultural scene rivals most other big cities across the country, thanks to a world-class arts district downtown and plentiful options in the surrounding suburbs. The only trick is figuring out where to go — and how to get there.

That’s why we’ve put together a list of local attractions that are “DARTable,” or conveniently accessible from one of the many DART stations in town. With these DARTable Gems, you can get out and experience the best of DFW without ever starting your car.

To kick off the series, we’re highlighting some of the best DARTable visual and performing arts destinations in DFW.

Courtyard Theater
History meets state-of-the-art stage productions at Plano’s Courtyard Theater, a nearly 80-year-old Works Progress Administration gymnasium that’s been converted into a modern theater. The lobby houses a gallery where local artists can showcase their works, with a new collection on display every six to eight weeks.

Next door is the Cox Building Playhouse, which hosts smaller shows and events. Schedules for both venues can be found here.

How to get there: Take the Red or Orange Line to Downtown Plano Station. The Courtyard Theater and Cox Building Playhouse are just one block west, with a pleasant stroll through Haggard Park.

Crow Collection of Asian Art
Nestled at the foot of a skyscraper in the Dallas Arts District, the Crow Collection of Asian Art brings the culture of the East to the American West. Highlights include a sculpture garden, a renowned collection of intricately carved jade pieces, and the second-largest flawless crystal ball in the world.

The museum is free, as are the morning meditation sessions and regular yoga classes. Keep an eye out for special events like the Crow Collection After Dark, when the museum stays open until midnight, along with the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art.

How to get there: Take the Red, Orange, Green, or Blue Line to St. Paul Station. The Crow Collection is just a few blocks away, and the free McKinney Avenue Trolley allows you to skip the walk if you want.

African American Museum of Dallas
Located at Fair Park, the African American Museum of Dallas is dedicated to preserving and displaying African American art, culture, and history. The museum houses a research library, art studio, African art gallery, and one of the largest collections of African American folk art in the nation.

Next door is the Margo Jones Theatre, which gives independent performing arts organizations a space to showcase new works. Though the theater is closed during the Texas State Fair season, you can find out when new plays are scheduled on its website.

How to get there: Take the Green Line to Fair Park Station. The museum is to the right once you enter the park, just past the Music Hall.

Granville Arts Center
The Granville Arts Center in downtown Garland includes three performance spaces: the historic Plaza Theatre, the spacious Brownlee Auditorium, and the more intimate Small Theatre. Together, they host a wide variety of events, including children’s theater, classic films, cultural celebrations, and concerts by the Garland Symphony Orchestra.

How to get there: Take the Blue Line to the Downtown Garland Station. The Granville Arts Center is immediately south of the station.

Pocket Sandwich Theatre
For a different kind of culture, Dallas’ Pocket Sandwich Theatre features madcap melodramas, musicals, and comedies served over dinner (with a menu that includes “pocket sandwiches,” of course). Billed as “the most fun you can have in a Dallas theater,” the Pocket Sandwich encourages throwing popcorn at villains, and it has both kid-friendly shows and adult-oriented late-night fare.

How to get there: Take the Red, Orange, or Blue Line to Mockingbird Station. The Pocket Sandwich Theatre is just across the street, on the south side of Mockingbird Lane.

Fort Worth Arts (via TRE)
DART can also connect you with the FW side of DFW via the Trinity Railway Express, or TRE. By taking the TRE to downtown Fort Worth, you’ll have easy access to cultural treasures like the Bass Performance Hall, Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

How to get there: From Dallas’ Union Station or Victory Station, take the TRE to Fort Worth’s Intermodal Transit Center. Regular buses and trolleys from the station give you easy access to the nearby performance hall and museums.

You can learn about more fun traffic-free outings in the rest of our DARTable DFW series, or explore for yourself at the DARTable Gems site.

African American Museum in Fair Park.

Photo courtesy of Calvin Glenn

African American Museum in Fair Park.

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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.”

dso luisi ring wagner recording concerts music symphony