Season Announcement

Uptown Dallas' Theatre Three unveils starry, sexy 2024-25 season

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 Off Broadway.

"Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" ran Off Broadway.

Photo by Chad Batka

Uptown Dallas' Theatre Three has debuted the lineup for its 62nd season, with a theme called "Play With Us" — encompassing four musicals and four plays across its two stages.

In a statement, artistic director Jeffrey Schmidt says that the goal for this season was to offer "a blend of fun musicals and juicy acting pieces with an eclectic flair that T3 is known for."

Associate artistic director Christie Vela says, "We’re also eager to return with all the ancillary programming you’ve come to expect from T3, like T3 Talks, T3 Writes, Uptown Drama, classes, and co-pros."

"Last year T3 employed over 140 artists, and that is perhaps the greatest joy of announcing a new season," Schmidt says.

The 2024-25 season begins with Venus in Fur, written by David Ives and inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 1870s novel of a similar name.

This story unfolds during an audition where playwright-director Thomas Novachek (Carson Wright) meets the enigmatic actress Vanda Jordan (Catherine D. DuBord). As Vanda auditions for the lead role in Thomas' new play, the lines between reality and fiction blur, leading to a provocative exploration of power dynamics, gender roles, and the nature of dominance and submission. It runs September 19-October 20, 2024, in the downstairs performance space Theatre Too.

Perfectly timed for Halloween, Carrie: The Musicalis next. Based on the novel by Stephen King and adapted from the film of the same name, this cult classic musical is a thrilling exploration of vengeance, empowerment, and the supernatural.

With a powerful score from Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford and dramatic storytelling from Lawrence D. Cohen, this mounting is T3's first-ever co-production with SMU Meadows School of the Arts. It runs October 3- November 3, 2024.

Keeping with the creepy vibes, Sleuth is a thriller written by Anthony Shaffer.

A cunning mystery writer named Andrew Wyke invites his wife's lover to his secluded English manor, setting off a deadly game of manipulation and deceit. As the tension rises, surprising twists keep the audience guessing the dramatic end. It runs in Theatre Too November 14- December 15, 2024.

The year's big finale is Dave Malloy's vibrant, immersive musical spectacle set in 19th-century Russia, where romance and intrigue unfold amidst glittering ballrooms and tumultuous relationships.

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812is based on a 70-page segment of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace and has a unique blend of electro-pop and Russian folk-inspired music. It runs November 29-December 29, 2024.

What a way to kick off the New Year: Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical is a lively stage adaptation by Erica Schmidt of the infamous 1978 adult film.

It follows Debbie Benton, a small-town girl with big dreams of becoming a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Determined to raise funds for her trip to Dallas, Debbie and her friends embark on a series of misadventures, blending comedy, music, and cheeky humor along the way. Conceived by Susan L. Schwartz and with music by Andrew Sherman, it runs in Theatre Too January 23-February 23, 2025.

Intimate Apparel, by the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynn Nottage, transports audiences into early 20th-century New York City to explore a journey of ambition and personal growth.

Esther, an African-American seamstress, navigates a complex web of relationships and romantic correspondence with a distant admirer. It runs March 27-April 20, 2025.

Theatre Too's final show of the season is The Mystery of Irma Vep.

Set in a spooky English manor, this fast-paced and campy parody by Charles Ludlam features two actors who portray an array of eccentric characters, including a mysterious housekeeper, a suspicious lord, and various supernatural beings. As the story unfolds, audiences are treated to a whirlwind of gothic melodrama, vampire lore, and supernatural shenanigans. It runs April 24-May 18, 2025.

Closing out the mainstage season is Xanadu, a high-energy, roller-skating extravaganza that brings the 1980 cult film to life. Set in Venice Beach, California, the musical follows Sonny Malone, a struggling artist who encounters Kira, a beautiful Greek muse.

With Kira's guidance and a touch of divine inspiration, they embark on a mission to revive a rundown roller disco and reignite Sonny's artistic passion. Douglas Carter Beane is behind the hilarious book, and music and lyrics are by John Farrar and Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) founding member Jeff Lynne. It runs June 5-July 6, 2025.

In addition to the mainstage productions, Theatre Three continues to offer additional programs throughout the season.

Monday Night Playwright will continue to offer unique and affordable opportunities for local writers to showcase their works. Fight Night provides the community and artists alike with movement and other physical skills through monthly stage combat classes.

The Norma Young Advanced Acting Lab, a collaboration with Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, is entering its fifth year. Students have access to masterclasses hosted by industry professionals and exclusive insight on the professional production process at Theatre Three, then the course concludes with a professionally produced showcase.

New tickets and subscriptions are available now here or by calling the Theatre Three box office at 214-871-3300. Theatre Three is located at 2688 Laclede St. in the Quadrangle.

musicals xanadu debbie does dallas natasha pierre great comet of 1812 carrie the musical theater

Season Announcement

'Come find your people' in Echo Theatre Dallas' 2025 season

Photo by Joan Marcus

A scene from the Off-Broadway production of Catch As Catch Can.

The theme for Echo Theatre's 2025 season is family, with the tagline "Come find your people." Echo, if you need a reminder, is the Dallas-based company that solely produces plays written by women-plus.

"We recognize the limiting nature of the binary use of the word 'woman,'" the company explains on its website. "We use the term 'women-plus' to include an expansive and diverse array of people, including those born female, those who identify as women, and those who are gender non-conforming."

“This season, my thoughts have turned to family in all its forms,” says artistic director Kateri Cale. “Every person experiences generations of family expectations, judgements, competitions, celebrations, and disappointments, over and over again. If we're lucky, we experience the fierce love of family too.”

First up is the regional premiere of Catch as Catch Can by Mia Chung.

Double-cast across gender, generation, and race and set in a blue-collar New England town, the drama follows two families — the Irish-American Phelans and the Italian-American Lavecchias — as the prodigal son returns home for a holiday gathering. Two off-stage characters, who are Korean and Korean-American, impact the families as they face the weight of generational expectations.

“With Catch as Catch Can, I wanted the audience’s experience of what they’re watching to mirror that felt by the characters; the character doubling articulates and enhances the propulsion of the play," says Chung in a release about the play's Off-Broadway debut in 2022. "I believe in performance, I believe in the actor’s capacity to inhabit a character to the extent that an audience may stop seeing that the actor is a man, or is Asian, or is 30 years younger than the role they’re playing. The cognitive dissonance is by design.”

It runs February 3-March 8, 2025, at the Bath House Cultural Center.

Next is OPEN by Crystal Skillman, a queer love story told by an amateur magician, presented during Pride Month.

A woman called the Magician presents myriad tricks for our entertainment, yet her performance seems to be attempting the impossible: to save the life of her partner, Jenny. But is our faith in her illusions enough to rewrite the past? The clock is ticking, the show must go on, and, as impossible as it may seem, this Magician’s act may be our last hope against a world filled with intolerance and hate.

It runs June 6-21, 2025, at the Bath House Cultural Center.

Last is El Rey del Pollo, a world-premiere "nuevo comedy" by Anna Skidis Vargas that the playwright describes as "a Shakespearean telenovela that’s loosely based on King Lear, but it’s a lot shorter and a lot sillier."

Reymundo Lear is about to retire from his fried chicken empire, and he is leaving everything to his three daughters. But things aren’t as easy as they seem. Cordelia gets disinherited, and Gisela and Raquel hike the prices. El Rey del Pollo features a hungry old man, essential oils, a giant chicken suit, and all the family drama you can eat.

It runs September 11-27, 2025, at the Bath House Cultural Center.

The Echo Reads free play readings will continue next year, and are scheduled for the months of March, April, May and September, October, November.

Season tickets are on sale now at echotheatre.org. Single tickets will be available at a later date.

A fun fact about Echo Theatre productions: Up to 10 free tickets are set aside for every performance and given out on a first-come, first-served basis. Patrons must email the box office directly at reservations@echotheatre.org to participate.

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