Season Announcement

Lyric Stage stretches its 2023-24 season across Dallas with 2 extra shows

"Sweeney Todd" will take over the Design District next year.

Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

The formula at Lyric Stage has recently been to present one weekend of a beloved American musical, lushly scored by a live orchestra at downtown Dallas' Majestic Theatre, four times a year.

But new artistic director Andy Baldwin is shaking things up for the 2023-24 season, expanding the roster to six musicals, two of which will enjoy month-long runs in a new Design District studio space.

“Our thirtieth season is an ode to the legacy of Lyric Stage," Baldwin says. "It's living out the mission: the preservation of the musical, a uniquely American art form. We’re also bringing the Lyric experience to our new environmental studio space in the Design District. These shows will have a food and booze element and will be more enticing and inviting. Instead of the grand theater experience you’ll get at the Majestic, it’ll be more environmental and in your face. It’ll still be the Lyric product with full orchestras and costumes and Broadway-style vocal performances, just a little more intimate.”

First up is Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella, the family-friendly fairy-tale of a young woman forced into servitude who dreams of a better life. The musical features some of the songwriting duo's most beloved songs, including “In My Own Little Corner,” “Impossible,” and “Ten Minutes Ago.” It runs August 24-27, 2023, at the Majestic Theatre.

Next is The Great American Trailer Park Musical, turning the new Design District studio into Armadillo Acres, complete with burgers and hot dogs on the grill out back (weather permitting). When Pippi, the stripper on the run, comes between the Dr. Phil–loving, agoraphobic Jeannie and her tollbooth collector husband, the storms begin to brew. It runs September 8-October 8, 2023.

Little Shop of Horrors helps Lyric Stage get spooky just in time for Halloween, bringing the sci-fi horror musical with an electrifying 1960s pop/rock score by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman to the Majestic Theatre.

Seymour is a meek and dejected assistant at a floral shop who happens upon a strange plant. Little does Seymour know that this strange and unusual plant will develop a soulful R&B voice, a potty mouth, and an unquenchable thirst for human blood. It runs October 26-29, 2023.

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 out of millions of dollars. Only one thing goes awry: The show is a smash hit! The Producers won a record-setting 12 Tony Awards and ran for six years on Broadway. It runs at the Majestic Theatre February 8-11, 2024.

Currently the hot ticket on Broadway, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd will take up residence in the Design District — and yes, you will be able to buy meat pies.

Exiled barber Sweeney Todd returns to nineteenth-century London seeking vengeance against the lecherous judge who framed him and ravaged his young wife. The road to revenge leads Todd to Mrs. Lovett, a resourceful proprietress of a failing pie shop, above which he opens a new barber practice. Mrs. Lovett's luck sharply shifts when Todd's thirst for blood inspires the integration of an ingredient into her meat pies that has the people of London lining up... and the carnage has only just begun. It runs March 15-April 20, 2024.

Catherine Carpenter Cox and Andy Baldwin will reprise their roles as Adelaide and Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, the closing musical of the season.

Set in Damon Runyon's mythical New York City, Guys and Dolls is an oddball romantic comedy. Gambler Nathan Detroit tries to find the cash to set up the biggest craps game in town while the authorities breathe down his neck; meanwhile, his girlfriend and nightclub performer, Adelaide, laments that they've been engaged for fourteen years. Nathan turns to fellow gambler Sky Masterson for the dough, and Sky ends up chasing the straight-laced missionary Sarah Brown as a result. Guys and Dolls takes us from the heart of Times Square to the cafes of Havana, Cuba, and even into the sewers of New York City, but eventually everyone ends up right where they belong. It runs May 9-12, 2024, at the Majestic Theatre.

Lyric Stage, a Dallas-based 501c3 not-for-profit professional musical theatre company, was established in 1993 by founder Steven Jones with the mission of developing and preserving the musical, a uniquely American art form. In its 30-year history, Lyric Stage has produced over 125 productions, which includes 21 world-premiere musicals and two Off-Broadway shows. For more information, visit lyricstage.org.

theater

RIP Albert

Colorful and iconoclastic Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth dies at 70

Courtesy

Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth

Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth, known for his jubilant creativity which he displayed in a wide range of media, died on February 18; he was 70 years old. According to friends, he suffered a heart attack.

Scherbarth's myriad "canvases" ranged from printmaking to furniture to steel and metal working. He was a colorful presence in the Dallas art scene with a shock of thick hair that stood tall, definitive horn-rimmed glasses, and an unfiltered, no-nonsense personal style.

He was also a key figure in The Cedars district: an urban pioneer who settled in the area directly south of downtown Dallas in the early '80s when the neighborhood was a mostly-deserted collection of abandoned warehouses, before it became a major art nexus.

A post by Lee Harvey's, the Cedars District bar, said that "Some people don’t just live in a neighborhood — they leave their mark on it. Albert did exactly that. Through his art, his presence, and his time at our bar, he became part of the story here. We’ll miss him more than we can say. Rest easy Bert."

He was a real character, as well — a stocky physical presence (he played football in high school) who'd fix his stare upon you as if you were a critter to be studied.

One friend said, "I always feel that Albert is going to spring some meta shit on me every time i see him and he rarely disappoints. What a cool cat."

A native of Nebraska, Scherbarth moved to Dallas in 1979 to earn a master's in fine arts at the University of Dallas, Irving. After graduating in 1981, he began teaching in the community college district, including Brookhaven College, Northlake College, University of Texas at Dallas, and the Creative Art Center, as well as at Dallas' Arts Magnet.

Sculpture by Albert Scherbarth which appeared at the State Fair of Texas in 2018.Laura Walters/Facebook

After graduating from art school, he felt the need to do "real" work like his father, and took jobs in construction and woodwork, which helped shape the very physical nature of his art.

He was one of the early and many artists who resided in the Continental Gin Building, where he worked on his designs and commissions, fabricated other artists’ ideas, and helped galleries with installations, crating, and shipping.

Through the years he made furniture, got into fused and cast glass, poured concrete countertops, and painted, including a successful era of doing giant flower paintings. In his latter years, he acquired a welding machine and worked with builders, designers, and architects constructing screens, fences, furniture, and sculptures.

His works around town include a giant wine tree for Fleming Steakhouse in Frisco, and a sculpture named, "Cecil, age 12" up on Henderson Avenue at Capital Street which was was a finalists for the Henderson Art Prize. He also worked on the famed Bowler Hat sculpture in the Cedars.

In an interview with Voyage Dallas, he said, "I’m constantly looking for more meaning and more permanence in the work that I’m doing," and acknowledged that "I’ve been very, very fortunate to get a lot of really great commissions over the years. I’ve sold a lot of work and fallen into great studio situations – large spaces, cheap rent and wonderful landlords. Today, I think my ignorance of all the pitfalls ahead allowed me to storm through life and I have a certain stubbornness, a dogged determination to succeed."

"My grandfathers died before I came of age, my father died, my favorite uncle died so there was not much in the way of male guidance or perspective on how to be a man, so I’ve just kind of made it up on my own, stumbling through, winging it and I’m still alive, amazingly enough."

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