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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Arts in Fort Worth

DFW museum debuts landmark exhibition about Statue of Liberty

Amon Carter Museum of American Art presents "The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol"

Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904), Early View of the Statue of Liberty, n.d.,, watercolor, Musée Bartholdi, Colmar, 2005.0.16.3, © Musée Bartholdi, Colmar, Photo Chr. Kempf

"The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol" opens at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art on August 15.

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art will celebrate the United States' 250th anniversary with a major exhibition examining one of the country's most recognizable symbols: "The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol" will open Saturday, August 15 for a nearly five-month run.

The exhibition, co-organized by the Denver Art Museum, is an examination of the Statue of Liberty’s enduring relevance in American visual culture and the evolution of its image from the 1870s to the present.

According to a release, it will bring together nearly 100 artworks and objects from more than 70 artists, exploring the statue’s varied manifestations - from artistic marvel and pop culture icon to symbol of immigration, patriotism, and resistance.

Successive generations of artists who have represented the statue's iconic form over the past 150 years will be included in the exhibition, including Pacita Abad, Benny Andrews, Edward Moran, Norman Rockwell, Nari Ward, and Andy Warhol.

The exhibition is anchored by a rare cast of French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s bronze sculpture Liberty Enlightening the World (Statue of Liberty) (1894-1901), one of only five domestic-scale bronze reductions made during the artist’s lifetime.

The exhibition will be broken up into four distinct sections:

Creating a Monument, which focuses on the statue’s origins and initial public reception in the tumultuous decades between the American Civil War and World War I.
A National Monument, which showcases the way society and visual culture were inundated with Statue of Liberty imagery between World War I and the 1950s. The installation of newspapers, advertisements, lithographs, images, films, and paintings demonstrate the turning point in the statue’s transformation into a dominant American icon.
Reimagining an Icon, which explores pop art and reproductions of the statue’s imagery, demonstrating its increasing detachment from its original image and malleability as an American symbol.
The Statue of Liberty Today, which closes the exhibition with a selection of works by living artists who have continued to investigate the Statue of Liberty’s meaning in the 21st century.

“This monumental exhibition tells the story of how our nation has interpreted the Statue of Liberty not only as a national icon, but also as a reflection of American values, creativity, and identity throughout our collective history,” said Scott Wilcox, Interim Director of the Carter, in a statement. “Premiering 'The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol' in Fort Worth on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding invites our community to see this emblematic statue in new dimensions.”

"The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol" will remain on display through January 3, 2027.

It will then travel to Denver for a presentation from March 14-July 4, 2027. The exhibition will also travel to the Munson Museum of Art in Utica, New York, from August 5-December 5, 2027.

The Amon Carter Museum will celebrate the opening with a special event called "Liberty Talks" on August 15 from 11 am-3 pm, featuring gallery talks, live music, poetry, treats, and more. A second event, "Second Thursdays: Monuments & Martinis," will take place September 10 and include Statue of Liberty-inspired flash tattoos by Fort Worth artist Joseph Ayala of Panther City Tattoo.

Admission to the Carter is free.

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