Season Announcement

Uptown Players Dallas reveals glitter-drenched new season for 2025-26

A New York production of "Urinetown: The Musical" starring Jordan Fisher was produced in early 2025.

Photo by Joan Marcus

The newly-released 2025-26 season of Uptown Players Dallas comes with a knowing wink behind the titles, with a goal to provide comfort, commentary, and chuckles.

It's the 24th season for the company, one of the leading regional theaters in the DFW area, with a blend of satire, spectacle, and heartfelt storytelling in five bold productions celebrating queer joy and resilience.

Highlights include a holiday misadventure, fairy tale revue, the political satire Urinetown, and Paula Vogel’s Mother Play. The season runs December 2025 to August 2026 at Dallas venues.

It begins with festive flair during the holidays, as Carol Ann Knipple — first seen in 2021's When Pigs Fly — returns for Star of Wonder: A Carol Ann Christmas.

Micah Green stars in this world premiere, with book and original lyrics by Mark Waldrop and additional material by B. J. Cleveland. After her beloved Melody Barn theater in Minnesota burns to the ground, Carol Ann refuses to give up her dream and relocates her Christmas spectacular to a Dallas stage she doesn’t fully understand. What follows is a merry misadventure of casting chaos, theatrical surprises, and side-splitting parodies, all led by Carol Ann’s blissfully misguided vision and unstoppable spirit. It runs December 5-14, 2025, at the Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Pure Glitter, a dazzling new comedy by Chicken & Biscuits playwright Douglas Lyons, is a love letter to the shimmering chaos of chosen family and queer friendship.

The story unfolds during a surprise 10th anniversary bash thrown by Stan for his husband Tony. But when a handful of uninvited guests arrive, the night explodes into a whirlwind of secrets, sass, and unexpected truths. This Texas premiere runs March 20-29, 2026, at the Kalita Humphreys Theater.

The beloved fundraiser Broadway Our Way returns with a mischievously magical new theme: Fractured Fairy Tales.

Written and directed by B.J. Cleveland, this all-new musical revue turns “happily ever after” on its rhinestone-covered head, blending Broadway’s biggest hits with a wild world of rogue royals, sassy witches, enchanted misfits, and storybook rebels. Whether you're team villain, fairy godmother, or a prince who prefers heels, this sparkling spectacle promises a magical night of laughter and inclusive storytelling. It runs April 30-May 3, 2026, at the Kalita Humphreys Theater.

In a city where private restrooms are banned and a corporation controls the most basic human need, a rebellious uprising takes shape in Urinetown: The Musical.

This fiercely funny, Tony Award-winning satire skewers capitalism, bureaucracy, and environmental collapse, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. A timely production by Uptown Players will turn a sharp eye on justice, activism, and the enduring power of community to challenge the status quo. For marginalized communities, the musical’s central fight — for dignity, voice, and bodily autonomy — feels deeply personal. It runs July 10-19, 2026, at the Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Closing out the season is Paula Vogel's Mother Play, which ran on Broadway just last year with Jessica Lange, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Jim Parsons.

This raw and resonant semi-autobiographical work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright spans from 1962 to the present, following Phyllis, a fiercely independent single mother, and her two children as they navigate evictions, emotional upheavals, and the fragile balance between love and self-preservation. It runs August 21-20, 2026, at Theatre Three.

Season tickets are on sale now, with discounts on both premium and regular seating. Season tickets can be purchased online at www.uptownplayers.org or by phone at 214-219-2718. Single tickets will go on sale September 2, 2025.

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Museum News

2 Dallas museums partner on landmark Roy Lichtenstein acquisition

Courtesy

Roy Lichtenstein

The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) and the Nasher Sculpture Center will present works from the joint acquisition of more than 50 artworks generously gifted by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation in 2024, showing prints, drawings, and sculptures by the groundbreaking American artist at the two neighboring institutions in the Dallas Arts District.

According to a release, the installations will be on view from January 31 to August 16, 2026 at the Nasher and from January 1 to July 5, 2026 at the DMA.

The joint gift made by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation to the DMA and the Nasher in Celebration of the Centennial of Roy Lichtenstein is comprised of a selection of prints, drawings, maquettes, and sculptures by Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997), a leading figure in twentieth-century American art and a pioneer of the Pop Art movement.

The works were specifically selected by the curatorial staff of both institutions and relate to objects already in their respective collections including sculptures, works on paper, and maquettes, along with tools and study objects.

Organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center’s Senior Curator Dr. Catherine Craft, The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the DMA Ade Omotosho, and The Allen and Kelli Questrom Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the DMA Dr. Emily Friedman, the presentation is divided according to each institution’s strengths and will be shown in combination with objects by Lichtenstein already in their respective permanent collections.

At the Nasher, works relating to three sculptures from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection—Head with Blue Shadow, Peace through Chemistry, and Double Glass—will be accompanied by a selection from the Foundation's gift of more than two dozen drawings and maquettes associated with Lichtenstein’s Brushstroke sculptures.

At the Dallas Museum of Art, the presentation features a set of Brushstroke sculptures carved from wood alongside various prints and studies that reveal the artist’s eclectic imagery.

Events
In addition to the exhibition, the DMA and the Nasher will co-host a Study Day focused on the artist on March 28, 2026, sponsored by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. This scholarly event will bring together a variety of curators, academics, and conservators to discuss Lichtenstein’s studio practice and the fabrication and conservation of his sculptures.

Concluding the Study Day will be a public conversation held at the DMA between Nasher Director Carlos Basualdo and artist Alex Da Corte, regarding Da Corte’s work on the forthcoming Lichtenstein retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

“In bestowing this generous gift, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation established Dallas as a center for the study and display of Lichtenstein’s work,” Basualdo says in a statement. “This collaborative presentation of the gift and the corresponding programming is an important step in the direction of pursuing that goal, deepening the understanding of an artist who remains immensely influential to contemporary art and its relationship with mass media and today’s culture.”

Roy Lichtenstein is made possible by support from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and the Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District (DTPID).

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