Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

If culture has been missing from your life, this will be a very good weekend to remedy that. Among the offerings around Dallas are a national tour of a Tony Award-winning play, two separate but equally impressive dance ensembles, a conversation with a renowned author, and student tributes to a civil rights icon.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, January 12

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Beethoven Symphony No. 8
It's always interesting when the Dallas Symphony Orchestra takes on Beethoven, so this concert series — taking place through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center — should be a memorable one. Led by conductor Karina Canellakis and featuring David Cooper on horn, selections include Beethoven's Symphony No. 8, Strauss' Horn Concerto No. 1, and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.

Second Thought Theatre presents Grounded
Questions of empathy and moral responsibility in the face of impossibly difficult choices live at the heart of Grounded, a moving portrait of a young woman confronted with the harsh realities of modern warfare. The production, playing through February 4 at Bryant Hall, explores the clash between a career in the typically masculine world of war and the more traditional role of wife and mother.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Winner of five 2015 Tony Awards, including Best Play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time features 15-year-old Christopher, an autistic boy who is exceptionally intelligent but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. When he falls under suspicion for killing his neighbor’s dog, he sets out to identify the true culprit, which leads to an earth-shattering discovery and a journey that will change his life forever. The production plays through January 22 at Winspear Opera House.

Friday, January 13

25th Annual Gardere MLK Jr. Oratory Competition
The annual MLK Jr. Oratory Competition challenges students to deliver original three-to-five-minute speeches in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This year, students answer the question, "If Dr. King were alive today, what would he say about Muhammad Ali’s contribution to society?" The event takes place at Majestic Theatre.

TITAS presents Shadowland by Pilobolus
A mix of shadow theater, dance, circus, and concert, Shadowland incorporates moving screens to create a performance experience that is full of magic and wonderment. Pilobolus’ Shadowland was the first show of its kind to combine shadow theater with dance and has since inspired many similar productions around the world. It plays at Dallas City Performance Hall on Friday and Saturday.

Avant, Dru Hill, and Jagged Edge in concert
R&B lovers will be in heaven at the Music Hall at Fair Park on Friday night, as Avant, Dru Hill, and Jagged Edge team up for this special concert. Avant is appearing in support of his 2015 album, The VIII, while Dru Hill and Jagged Edge are performing a variety of their biggest hits.

Saturday, January 14

Arts & Letters Live: Zadie Smith
In her first-ever event in Dallas, Zadie Smith is in conversation with KERA’s Krys Boyd to discuss her new novel, Swing Time. The book is a story about friendship, music, and stubborn roots, and how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them. The event takes place at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Red Bull Flying Bach
Urban culture fuses with high society as the Red Bull Flying Bach tour comes to Dallas. The award-winning and globally recognized dance crew the Flying Steps perform to a genre-bending mix of classical, hip hop, and electronic music. There are four performances through Monday at Majestic Theatre.

Red Bull Flying Bach is at Majestic Theatre January 14-16.

Photo by Carlo Cruz/Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull Flying Bach is at Majestic Theatre January 14-16.

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Wicked News

Wizard of Oz ruby slippers bought by mystery bidder for $28 million

Heritage Auctions

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A pair of iconic ruby slippers that were worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and stolen from a museum nearly two decades ago sold for a winning bid of $28 million at auction on December 7.

Dallas-based Heritage Auctions had estimated that they would fetch $3 million or more, but the fast-paced bidding far outpaced that amount within seconds and tripled it within minutes. A few bidders making offers by phone volleyed back and forth for 15 minutes as the price climbed to the final, eye-popping sum.

Including the auction house fee, the unknown buyer will ultimately pay $32.5 million.

Online bidding, which opened last month, had stood at $1.55 million before live bidding began late Saturday afternoon.

The sparkly red heels were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005 when Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case. Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018.

Martin, now 77, who lives near Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota, wasn’t publicly exposed as the thief until he was indicted in May 2023. He pleaded guilty in October 2023. He was in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen when he was sentenced last January to time served because of his poor health.

The shoes were returned in February to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw, who had loaned them to the museum. They were one of several pairs that Garland wore during the filming, but only four pairs are known to have survived. In the movie, to return from Oz to Kansas, Dorothy had to click her heels three times and repeat, “There’s no place like home.”

As Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers of Oz, put it, the sequined shoes from the beloved 1939 musical have seen “more twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road.”

Over 800 people had been tracking the slippers, and the company’s webpage for the auction had hit nearly 43,000 page views by Thursday, said Robert Wilonsky, a vice president with the auction house.

Among those bidding to bring the slippers home was the Judy Garland Museum, which posted on Facebook shortly after that it did not place the winning bid. The museum had campaigned for donations to supplement money raised by the city of Grand Rapids at its annual Judy Garland festival and the $100,000 set aside this year by Minnesota lawmakers to help the museum purchase the slippers.

After the slippers sold, the auctioneer told bidders and spectators in the room and watching online that the previous record for a piece of entertainment memorabilia was $5.52 million, for the white dress Marilyn Monroe famously wore atop a windy subway grate.

The auction also included other memorabilia from The Wizard of Oz, such as a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who played the original Wicked Witch of the West. That item went for $2.4 million, or a total final cost to the buyer of $2.93 million.

The Wizard of Oz story has gained new attention in recent weeks with the release of the movieWicked, an adaptation of the megahit Broadway musical, a prequel of sorts that reimagines the character of the Wicked Witch of the West.

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