Theater Critic Picks

These are the 12 must-see shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for January

Lyric Stage presents "The Producers."

Photo courtesy of Lyric Stage

The holiday shows are over, but that doesn't mean theaters aren't still gifting us with great shows.

Refresh your theatergoing palate with new works, Broadway concerts, big musicals, and beloved classics — after all, is it even January in Dallas without the return of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change at Theatre Three?

In order of start date, here are 12 local shows to watch this month:

Death Express!
Pegasus Theatre, through January 21
It’s “all aboard!” for murder in Harry Hunsacker's latest Living Black & White adventure from Kurt Kleinmann. The action occurs on the Trans-Continental Express from Los Angeles to New York. Inept but endearing detective Harry Hunsacker and his paid-by-the-hour friend and assistant, Nigel Grouse (along with Lt. Foster of the real police) find themselves trapped on a train headed for murder.

Ann Hampton Callaway Sings the '70s and Inspired Originals
Irving Arts Center, January 5
The Tony-nominated Broadway star leads a night of rousing and beautiful classics, including songs from Carole King, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and John Lennon.

Elm Thicket
Soul Rep Theatre Company, January 11-20
Soul Rep Theatre Company co-founder and noted Dallas playwright Anyika McMillan-Herod presents her newest play as part of the ATTPAC Elevator Project. A serio-comedy set in 2020 in Dallas’ Elm Thicket community, where McMillan-Herod grew up, centers around two middle aged neighbors’ attempt to explore love and friendship while facing a complicated history, world pandemic, social unrest, and neighborhood gentrification.

The Producers
Lyric Stage, January 11-20
A down-on-his-luck Broadway producer and his mild-mannered accountant come up with a scheme to produce the most notorious flop in history, thereby bilking their backers (all “little old ladies”) out of millions of dollars. Only one thing goes awry: The show is a smash hit.

Dog Man: The Musical
TheaterWorksUSA, January 11-28
This heartwarming and hysterical production is based on the worldwide bestselling book series by Dav Pilkey. It follows the chronicles of a canine superhero who loves to fight crime and chew on the furniture. But while trying his best to be a good boy, can he save the city from Flippy the cyborg fish and his army of Beasty Buildings? Can he catch Petey, the world’s most evil cat, who has cloned himself to exact revenge on the doggy do-gooder? And will George and Harold finish their show before lunchtime?

Jagged Little Pill
AT&T Performing Arts Center, January 12-15
This new musical is based on Alanis Morissette’s world-changing music, and is an electrifying production about a perfectly imperfect American family.

Marjorie Prime
Stage West, January 18-February 11
In the near future, Marjorie and her daughter are worried that her memory may be fading. That is, until the appearance of Walter, a mysterious and charming young visitor who arrives to help Marjorie uncover the intricacies of her own past. But a secret truth is about to blur the lines between human and machine in this 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist.

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
Theatre Three, January 18-February 25
Presented as a series of vignettes, this touching musical comedy is about all of love’s greatest challenges: dating, sex, marriage, and family. The production will take place in the Theatre Too space.

The 39 Steps
MainStage Irving-Las Colinas, January 19-February 3
London, 1935. The rather dull Richard Hannay encounters a woman who claims to be a spy. But when she’s suddenly murdered, Richard finds himself the focus of a nationwide manhunt led by a mysterious organization called “The 39 Steps.” Over 150 zany characters are played by a ridiculously talented cast of four) in this Hitchcockian whodunit.

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
Broadway Dallas, January 23-February 4
An uplifting comeback story like no other, this is the inspiring journey of a woman who broke barriers and became the Queen of Rock n’ Roll, featuring her much-love songs.

Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue
Wyly Theatre, January 30-February 4
An all-male cast brings Miami’s sassiest seniors to the stage for one more hurrah. Sophia is out on bail after being busted by the DEA for running a drug ring for retirees. Blanche and Rose have founded CreakN, a thriving sex app for seniors. And Dorothy is trying to hold it all together with help from a new (much) younger sex-crazed lover.

Disney's Aladdin
Broadway at the Bass, January 31-February 4
Discover a whole new world at Disney's Aladdin, the hit Broadway musical. From the producer of The Lion King comes the timeless story of Aladdin, a thrilling new production filled with unforgettable beauty, magic, comedy, and breathtaking spectacle.

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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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