Theater Critic Picks

These are the 13 must-see shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for April

Aidan Wharton and cast from the North American tour of Girl from the North Country

Broadway Dallas presents "Girl from the North Country."

Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

Once again, two Broadway greats are gracing us with their concert presence this month. But there are also some classic plays, touring musicals, and exciting regional premieres based on historical figures.

In order of start date, here are 13 local shows to watch this month:

The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin
Jubilee Theatre, through May 5
What's a black girl from sunny Southern California to do? White people are blowing up black girls in Birmingham churches. Black people are shouting "Black is beautiful" while straightening their hair and coveting light skin. Viveca Stanton's answer? Slap on a bubbly smile and be as white as you can be.

Chicago
Broadway at the Center, April 4-6
There’s never been a better time to experience Chicago, Broadway’s razzle-dazzle smash and now the No. 1 longest-running American musical in Broadway history. It's a universal tale of fame, fortune and all that jazz with one show-stopping song after another and some of the most astonishing dancing you’ve ever seen.

The Seagull
Theatre Three, April 4-28
In an isolated home in the countryside, an ensemble of family, artists, and unsatisfied people gather to experience Konstantin’s new play on an outdoor stage. Known famously as one of Chekhov’s greatest plays, The Seagull reveals the truth in devastation of living somewhere between the person you are and the life you dreamed for yourself.

Mis-Lead
Verdigris Ensemble, April 5-7
Mis-Lead is an inspiring multimedia work amplifying the resilient voices of the West Dallas community. Through choral music, poetry, real-life footage, and industrial percussion, the experience showcases a neighborhood’s triumph over environmental injustice.

Dial M for Murder
Dallas Theater Center, April 5-28
In this new version of the celebrated murder mystery that inspired Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Tony is convinced that his wife Margot has been cheating on him. Now it seems that the affair is over, but in his jealousy Tony spins a web of suspicion and deception that will tighten around them and ensnare them both in danger, recrimination, and murder. Will the killer get away, or will justice be served?

Marie & Rosetta
Amphibian Stage, April 5-28
Gospel and rock will collide as Dallas-Fort Worth favorite Denise Lee embodies the incomparable “Godmother of Rock ‘N’ Roll,” legendary Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The play chronicles Tharpe’s first rehearsal with protégée Marie Knight in 1947, setting the stage for a historic tour that would establish them as one of the most significant music duos of the 20th century.

Diosa
Cara Mia Theatre, April 6-21
Created in collaboration with Manifesto Poetico: International Laboratory of Theatre Research and Productions, Diosa is a new play inspired by Coatlicue, the mother of all Aztec Gods. Featuring live music and physical theater, Diosa explores a world in what would happen if you angered Mother Nature.

Kristin Chenoweth in Concert
Winspear Opera House, April 7
Broadway, movie, and TV star Kristin Chenoweth comes to Dallas for a retrospective of her long and storied career. The singer has released eight albums in her career, most recently 2021's Happiness is... Christmas!.

Girl From the North Country
Broadway Dallas, April 9-21
In Duluth, Minnesota, in 1934, a group of wayward travelers whose lives intersect meet in a guesthouse filled with music, life, and hope. Girl From The North Country reimagines 20 legendary songs of Bob Dylan as they’ve never been heard before, including “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” “Slow Train Coming,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”

An Evening with Bernadette Peters
AT&T Performing Arts Center, April 11
Best known for her work onstage and one of Broadway’s most critically acclaimed performers, Peters has starred as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the hit musical Hello, Dolly!. She also starred in City Center’s Encores! production A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair featuring the music of Stephen Sondheim and orchestrations by Wynton Marsalis. Prior to that, she starred in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and Follies.

Dixie's Tupperware Party
Performing Arts Fort Worth, April 11-14
Dixie Longate is the fast-talking, gum-chewing, ginger-haired Alabama gal who is bringing your grandma’s Tupperware party into the 21st century. Filled with outrageously funny tales, heartfelt accounts, audience participation, and a little bit of empowerment and homespun wisdom, Dixie’s Tupperware Party leaves your heart a little bigger and your food a little fresher.

Murrow
AT&T Performing Arts Center Elevator Project, April 11-21
The words belong to American icon Edward R. Murrow. The events belong to history. The circumstances they can help to change are ours. The regional premiere of Brenn Rapp's Murrow is a powerful, multimedia, one-man show that explores Murrow’s life and work, becoming both a lens to examine where people are now as a nation of media consumers, and a mirror providing reflections of much needed lessons from modern history.

Satchmo at the Waldorf
WaterTower Theatre, April 17-28
Satchmo at the Waldorf is a one-man, three-character play in which the same actor portrays Louis Armstrong, the greatest of all jazz trumpeters; Joe Glaser, his white manager; and Miles Davis, who admired Armstrong’s playing but disliked his onstage manner. It takes place in 1971 in a dressing room backstage at the Empire Room of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Armstrong performed in public for the last time. just four months before his death.

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All Eyes on Them

Dallas alt hip-hop group wins prestigious Tiny Desk Contest by NPR

Cure for Paranoia/Facebook

As winners of the Tiny Desk Contest, Cure for Paranoia will record their own Tiny Desk concert and go on tour.

Few live recording studios or musical web series have the cultural sway of NPR's Tiny Desk, and a Dallas band is poised to make an impactful debut: Cure For Paranoia, an alternative hip-hop project by rapper Cameron McCloud and producers Tomahawk Jonez and Jay Analo, has won the high-stakes annual Tiny Desk Contest for 2026.

They'll record their official Tiny Desk show "soon," the announcement by NPR says.

Winning the concert also means Cure for Paranoia is going on tour. The only Texas stop will be at Emo's Austin on June 24.

Tiny Desk is known for platforming both niche and majorly successful artists — NPR posted a new Foo Fighters set on YouTube on May 13 — for stripped-down sets that are literally played behind former All Things Considered director Bob Boilen's old desk. (Fun fact for Texans: Tiny Desk was created because folk artist Laura Gibson was disappointed with the sound at her South by Southwest show in Austin in 2008, and she wanted a redo.)

Most artists who appear on Tiny Desk more than 15 years later are already well-known, at least in their specific circles. But the Tiny Desk Contest, which launched in 2015, helps a growing group of newer, unsigned artists get their foot in the door. Contestants record one video of them performing a single song behind a desk, and a jury of radio staff and musicians chooses their favorite.

In their audition video, Cure for Paranoia gathered 11 musicians around a truly tiny desk and in front of downtown Dallas' iconic gigantic eyeball sculpture. They played the song "No Brainer," a frenetic track that starts with clever boasts and becomes a criticism of racism in the United States.

McCloud, a pre-school teacher, is known independently of Cure for Paranoia for rapping to his social media following about politics and current events. Some of those lyrics made it into "No Brainer." He says he started the group because he found that music was more helpful than medication for coping with bipolar depression and paranoid schizophrenia.

Alex Marrero, host of the Austin-based KUTX show Horizontes, was one of the judges this year. He was impressed with the visuals in Cure for Paranoia's audition.

“When this popped up, I immediately felt something different," he wrote in a blurb for the announcement. "It just jumped out. The visuals were super cool and creative, BUT I could still totally envision them bringing the heat behind the Desk.”

Madison McFerrin, jazz vocalist and daughter of the famous singer Bobby McFerrin, was one of the musical judges.

"Cure For Paranoia’s energy is infectious, fresh and distinctly theirs — exactly what you want in a Contest winner!" she wrote.

McCloud's post on Instagram announcing the group's win has only been up for three hours at the time of this article's publication, and it already has more than 8,000 likes. The YouTube audition has garnered 74,000 views.

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