Theater Critic Picks

These are the 8 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for November

Ochre House presents The Woman Who Knew Too Much

Ochre House is showing The Woman Who Knew Too Much, filmed in 2018.

Photo by Trent Stephenson

Dallas-Fort Worth theaters are adjusting to and even embracing the new challenges brought on by COVID-19. Audio plays, live-streamed concerts, archived productions, solo shows, and even socially distant outdoor performances are cropping up all over, giving you, the audience, plenty of entertainment choices.

Here are eight local shows to watch this month:

Cruise in a Box: Living Room Cruise Lines
Stage West, streaming through November 14
Set sail for an unforgettable, high seas staycation on the world's first ever Cruise in a Box. Your ticket doesn't just buy you passage on this not-so-nautical adventure — you'll also be mailed a special "ship"ment filled with everything you'd expect from a luxury cruise liner: plush towels you'll learn to transform into animals for your cabin, ocean-scented candles, a little umbrella to shade your favorite tropical drink, and so much more. You'll also join your Live Virtual Cruise Director for a night of world-class shipboard entertainment and variety performances as you sail across the globe, all from your own couch. Each show is $50 for the box and the Zoom event, and $35 for the event only, and tickets can be purchased here.

Endlings
Cry Havoc Theater Company, streaming on-demand through November 15
The opener to the youth theater company's seventh season was recently extended. It's an audio play recorded in true three-dimensional sound with a binaural microphone. The play weaves together first-person interviews with experts, activists, and individuals living on the front lines of climate change, along with conversations between the teens of Cry Havoc and the director on the topics of COVID-19, grief, art, and climate change.

Shakespeare and the Suffragists
Shakespeare Dallas, streaming through November 30
This new virtual performance project honors the centennial passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted many women the right to vote. It was conceived and directed by Shakespeare Dallas’ associate artistic director Jenni Stewart and co-written by Stewart along with filmmaker Julia Dyer. The unique performance examines Shakespeare’s more feminist texts and how they have been interpreted over time. Through the lens of four historical female figures, Stewart and Dyer shed new light on how Shakespeare’s works might have shaped the Suffragist movement and the ways in which his characters and monologues would have resonated in the 1920s.

The Woman Who Knew Too Much
Ochre House, currently streaming
Written and directed by Kevin Grammer, and filmed on March 3, 2018, this stylish noir musical is set in a seedy bar known as The Jade. A woman with no memory of who she is or where she comes from is the protagonist in a show that blurs the lines of reality and fantasy. Watch for free on the theater's YouTube channel.

#MATTER
Dallas Children's Theater, streaming November 6-15
To help spark important conversations about race, DCT is producing a series of plays by award-winning playwright, poet, and change-maker Idris Goodwin. These three short shows, dubbed the "Social Justice Play Series," started in September with The Water Gun Song. In this month's show, two former high school friends debate matters of life and race. There will also be an opportunity for a talkback led by Community Conversations founder on Denise Lee on November 13. Tickets are free and can be obtained here.

A Grave Is Given Supper
Teatro Dallas, November 7-8, 11-14
In its first live, in-person production since the beginning of the pandemic, Teatro Dallas partnered with Deep Vellum Publishing to turn Dallas poet Mike Soto's debut collection into an outdoor theatrical experience on the patio of the Latino Cultural Center. The immersive Narco-Acid Western is told in a series of interlinked poems, as audiences follow the converging paths of two protagonists through El Sumidero, a fictional U.S./Mexico border town ravaged by an ongoing drug war. The original script is directed and adapted by Claudia Acosta and stars New York-based actor Elena Hurst.

Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End
MainStage Irving-Las Colinas, streaming on-demand November 7-21
Ellen Locy portrays one of America's funniest moms in this one-person play by Allison Engel and Margaret Engel. The humorist championed the everyday lives of housewives with a daring truth few of her generation were willing to tell. Access codes start at $19 and are available to purchase here.

Live From the West Side: Women of Broadway
Dallas Summer Musicals, live-streaming November 14
Tony Award-winner and TV star Laura Benanti is this month's diva, performing a virtual concert transmitted live in HD from The Shubert Virtual Studios on Manhattan’s West Side, with professional sound mixing. The concert will feature a mix of Broadway show tunes, pop songs and personal stories from Benanti's life, as well as give at-home audience members the chance to email in questions to be answered during the livestream. Single tickets are $30 and can be purchased here.

dance theater

Theater News

Dallas' Kitchen Dog Theater unveils powerful 2026-2027 season lineup

Photo by Cameron Cobb

Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas will put on three mainstage productions for their 2026-2027 season.

Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas has revealed the lineup for the 2026-2027 season, featuring a slate of plays that boasts power players like kings, prime ministers, space force commanders, and would-be presidents.

According to a release, the theater company's 36th season — their "most powerful yet" — will consist of three mainstage productions at its new permanent home in the Design District, as well as the annual New Works Festival, featuring a readings series and the 26th annual D-PAC PUP (Playwrights Under Progress) Fest.

The season will start with The Absentee by Julia Doolittle, running September 10-October 4, 2026. The play was the winner of the 2019-2020 Woodward/Newman Drama Award.

Far out in the Milky Way, “Beacons” serve as lighthouses for warping spaceships around the galaxy. When a U.S. Space Force ship explodes in the galaxy, the Operator finds herself alone in deep space, with only her ship’s AI for companionship. That is, until a persistent canvasser calls, desperate to convince her to vote absentee in the 2088 election.

As the Operator waits for the clean up to be over, she finds she has to come to terms with her isolation, grief, and her political voice.

The season's second production comes four months later, with Equivocation by Bill Cain, running February 4-28, 2027. In 1605 England, a terrorist plots to assassinate King James I and blow Parliament to kingdom come. Shagspeare (after a contemporary spelling of the Bard's name) is commissioned by the prime minister, to write the “true historie” of the plot. And it must have witches — the king wants witches.

But as Shag and the acting company of the Globe investigate the plot, they discover that the king's version of the story might, in fact, be a coverup. Shag and his actors are confronted with the ultimate moral and artistic dilemma. Speak truth to power and perhaps lose their heads? Or take the money and lie? Is there a third option? Equivocation?

A high-stakes political thriller with contemporary resonances, Equivocation gallops from the great Globe to the Tower of London to the halls of Parliament to the heart of Judith, Shag's younger daughter, who finds herself unexpectedly at the very heart of the political, dramatic and — ultimately — human mystery.

The final mainstage production of the season comes at the 2027 New Works Festival with Black Republican by KDT Artistic Company Member Jamal Gibran Sterling, running June 3-27, 2027.

Originally featured as a Staged Reading in the 2026 New Works Festival, the ambitious first play by Sterling centers on a Black Republican candidate on the national stage who finds his campaign threatened by an activist who challenges everything he claims to stand for. Their battle exposes uncomfortable truths about race, politics, and the stories we tell ourselves.

In addition to Black Republican, the 2027 New Works Festival will showcase four staged readings of some of the newest and most exciting Texas-based playwrights. Each reading will feature accomplished Dallas-Fort Worth actors and directors to highlight the breadth of talent in the area.

The final part of the festival is D-PAC PUP (Playwrights Under Progress) Fest, featuring six staged readings of jury-selected plays written by Dallas-Fort Worth high school students and featuring student actors directed by area professionals. PUP Fest is the culmination of Dallas Playwriting Arts Collective (D-PAC), a partnership with Dallas ISD and Junior Players.

Kitchen Dog Theater offers two season subscription packages for their inaugural season in their new facility. The Kitchen Dog package includes a ticket to all three mainstage productions for any performance date for $90+ $8 fees for adults and $75 +$8 fees for students and seniors (ages 65+). The Saver Dog package includes a ticket to all three mainstage productions for Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays only. It is $60 + $8 fees for adults and $45 + $8 fees for students and seniors.

Both packages grant full access to the Staged Reading Series and PUP Fest. Subscribers also receive premium reserved seating for in-person performances, as well as subscriber-only discounts on additional single tickets, 2026 special events, and KDT merchandise.

Subscription packages are on sale now, and single tickets for each show will go on sale on Monday, August 24, at kitchendogtheater.org.

design district kitchen dog theater new works festival performing-arts plays theater