Theater Critic Picks

These are the 14 must-see shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for March

J Dontray Davis as Blind Lemon Jefferson in Lonesome Blues.

Photo by Alan Govenar

From artistic greats to scrappy little orphans to even the President of the United States, the characters filling this month's theater preview run the gamut.

This is all in addition to two concerts by Broadway greats, a one-act play festival that feels especially timely, and a bloodthirsty barber running amuck in the Design District.

In order of start date, here are 14 local shows to watch this month:

This Time
Undermain Theatre, through March 17
Jane holds a knife. It's bloody. Hester lies on a table. She's bloodied. Peregrine blows out a candle. Go back in time. Jane, Hester, and Peregrine work as maids in a 1900s manor, unable to say what they want to say, stealing moments away from work to hold time with each other. Their love bubbles under their words. We hear their thoughts they aren't yet brave enough to tell each other. They can't stop thinking of death. We hurtle toward it. This will be a workshop production.

The Sum of Us One-Act Festival
Bishop Arts Theatre Center, through March 17
This third-annual banned books festival features a collection of short plays by six local playwrights, all inspired by Heather McGhee's brilliant analysis that explores the far-reaching costs of racism and the path to healing as a community. There will be nightly talkbacks that foster meaningful conversations and a stronger sense of unity.

Once
Casa Mañana, March 2-10
On the streets of Dublin, an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant are drawn together by their shared love of music. Over the course of one fateful week, an unexpected friendship and collaboration quickly evolves into a powerful but complicated love story, underscored by emotionally charged music.

Lonesome Blues
Club Dada, March 2-April 7
If you missed J Dontray Davis' remarkable performance in this one-man play-with-music about Blind Lemon Jefferson last year at Circle Theatre, here's your chance to catch it again. Born in rural East Texas and discovered on a street corner in Deep Ellum in 1925, Jefferson made more than 80 records over the next four years, becoming the biggest country blues singer of his generation. Davis plays more than 10 different roles in this production, which is being staged in Jefferson's old stomping grounds.

Fire and Air
Uptown Players, March 7-17
Set in 19th-century Russia, this play by Terrence McNally delves into the tempestuous relationship between two legendary figures in the world of ballet: impresario Sergei Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev, the founder of the renowned Ballets Russes, and Nijinsky, a groundbreaking male dancer, form a complex bond that intertwines artistic brilliance, personal desire, and the conflicts that arise from the pursuit of artistic excellence. Note: This production will be in the 6th Floor Studio Theater of Wyly Theatre.

POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive
Stage West, March 7-24
It all starts with a little four-letter word that the President blurts out – and what starts as a PR nightmare turns into a complete global crisis. The seven brilliant and beleaguered women upon whom he most relies risk life, liberty, and the pursuit of sanity to keep things under control. It’s a total rollercoaster ride as Capitol Hill turns upside down in this riotous comedy.

Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age
AT&T Performing Arts Center, March 8
Stage, film, and television star Cumming covers all the bases: sex, death and bacchanalia, with a set list as eclectic as the man himself. Songs from Cabaret authors Kander and Ebb blend with contemporary favorites and even a self-penned paean against plastic surgery. He also discusses the effects of gravity, the time the mum from The Brady Bunch punched him, and what his dog taught him about the quality of life.

Jackie
Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts, March 9-10
In the Southwest premiere of actor/playwright Tom Dugan’s new play, actor Kait Haire portrays former First Lady Jackie Kennedy in a powerful and revealing narrative that begins on June 5, 1968, when she receives word of her brother-in-law Robert Kennedy’s assassination.

Every Brilliant Thing
Dallas Theater Center, March 9-24
Every Brilliant Thing is a surprising and immersive theatrical experience speaks openly about depression, mental illness and suicide. With poignant humor and joy, the production takes the audience on a journey through grief, healing, falling in love, and rediscovering all that life has to give.

Annie
Broadway at the Center, March 14-16
Little Orphan Annie has reminded generations of theatergoers that sunshine is always right around the corner, and now the best-loved musical of all time is set to return in a new production — just as you remember it and just when we need it most. This celebration of family, optimism, and the American spirit remains the ultimate cure for all the hard knocks life throws your way.

Sweeney Todd
Lyric Stage, March 15-April 20
Sweeney Todd, an unjustly exiled barber, returns to 19th-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.

Water By The Spoonful
Circle Theatre, March 21-April 13
We meet in Philadelphia, where Elliot has returned from Iraq and is struggling to find his place in the world. We meet in an online chat room — a digital sanctuary where recovering addicts fight to keep each other alive, hour by hour, day by day. We meet in the moment and outside of the moment as boundaries of family and community are stretched across continents and cyberspace. Birth families splinter and online families collide in this beautiful play by Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes that reminds us of the power of connection and the value of forgiveness.

Patti LuPone: A Life In Notes
Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts, March 23
Three-time Tony Award-winner Patti LuPone describes her new concert as a “personal musical memoir,” and what a memoir she has. LuPone takes to the stage with her longtime musical director Joseph Thalken to celebrate, through song, her legendary career.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning
Second Thought Theatre, March 27-April 13
On a chilly night in the middle of America, Will Arbery's haunting play offers grace and disarming clarity, speaking to the heart of a country at war with itself. It's nearing midnight in Wyoming, where four young conservatives have gathered at a backyard after-party. They've returned home to toast their mentor Gina, newly inducted as president of a tiny Catholic college. But as their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, it becomes less a celebration than a vicious fight to be understood.

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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