Weekend Event Planner

These are the 9 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Weekend two of Austin City Limits Music Festival came and went as quickly as a Polo G set, with cooperative weather and classic festival vibes. Zilker Park held up well after a soggy weekend one, and festival revelers traversed the grounds for three full days of much-needed live music, following the lengthy absence of sounds in the Live Music Capital of the World. --- Notorious for running late, Erykah Badu added an extra 20 minutes to her 10-minute delay from weekend one, but fans were happy with the half-hour set the Dallas native performed from the Miller Lite Stage.

Photo by Daniel Cavazos

For those willing to brave the roads in yet another bitter cold spell this February, there are some fun event options around Dallas this weekend. They include performances by a great comedian, two Scandanavian bands, a legendary hometown singer, and old-school rappers. There will also be a unique opera, two Dallas Symphony Orchestra events, a musician paying tribute to his well-known father, and more.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend.

Thursday, February 24

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Brahms' Symphony No. 2
As part of a live recording for a future album release of the complete Brahms Symphonies, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will present performances of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. The DSO began this recording project in September 2021 with Brahms’s Symphony No. 1. The concert, which will have two performances on Thursday at Meyerson Symphony Center, will be under the direction of Fabio Luisi.

Friday, February 25

Tig Notaro: "Hello Again"
Stand-up comedian Tig Notaro has been working hard for many years, but she didn't truly come to prominence until 2012, when she performed a now legendary set about her having cancer. Now cancer-free, she's enjoyed a string of successes, including a book, comedy series, and roles in movies like Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead. She'll perform at Majestic Theatre.

Helium Queens: A Space Opera
Space pop trio Helium Queens are back with their original theatrical opera, Helium Queens: A Space Opera. During this three-act new opera, The Queens will take audiences on an intergalactic journey to the moon as they try to find the timeline that will save Planet Earth from imminent destruction. The audience will surround the performers for an in-the-round experience at The Kessler, complete with live music, dancers, and costumes that glow under the ultra-violet lights of the lunar landscape.

Saturday, February 26

An Enchanted Afternoon with Barbra - A Tribute to Barbra Streisand
An Enchanted Afternoon with Barbra is an intimate tribute to Barbra Streisand, with the iconic voice, the songs, and the personality all lovingly recreated by renowned tribute artist Sharon Owens. Owens, who has an uncanny resemblance to Streisand in both voice and looks, has had a decades-long career as a Streisand tribute artist. She'll perform at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson.

Ghost & Volbeat in concert with Twin Temple
Fans of Scandanavian rock will love this pairing of Ghost and Volbeat at Fair Park Coliseum. Ghost is a Swedish hard rock band who's starting to become big in the United States, with their 2018 album, Prequelle, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 charts, and their fourth album, Impera, set for release in March. They'll co-headline this concert with Danish band Volbeat, which had two top 10 albums in the 2010s, and released its eighth album, Servant of the Mind, in December 2021.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Jazz at Symphony Center: Oleta Adams
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and The Black Academy of Arts and Letters will present the second season of Jazz at Symphony Center. The second concert in the series will feature Oleta Adams, a Grammy-nominated vocalist who has over 45 years in the music industry. Adams has released nine albums, including secular, Gospel, and Christmas albums. The concert will be at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Erykah Badu in concert
Dallas native Erykah Badu has a tradition of performing for her hometown fans on her birthday, and this year will be no different. Best known for her eccentric style and cerebral music, Badu is a four-time Grammy Award-winning American soul singer and songwriter whose sound — a concoction of soul, hip-hop and jazz — cannot be contained to a single genre. She'll perform at The Factory in Deep Ellum.

Coppell Arts Center presents "Croce Plays Croce"
After more than 25 years making his own musical mark, A.J. Croce began performing some of his dad’s songs live and forming a special show out of it. In "Croce Plays Croce," A.J. performs Jim Croce songs, his own tunes, and songs that influenced the two of them. The concert will take place at Coppell Arts Center.

All-Star Legends of Hip Hop
As the overwhelmingly positive reaction to this year's Super Bowl halftime show indicates, there's still a big appetite for the elder statesmen of the hip hop genre. This concert at the Music Hall at Fair Park concert will feature performances by rappers who mostly had their biggest successes in the 1990s and 2000s, including Juvenile, Too Short, Scarface, 8ball & MJG, Trina, and Trick Daddy.

Erykah Badu will play her annual hometown birthday show at The Factory in Deep Ellum on February 26.

Photo by Daniel Cavazos

Erykah Badu will play her annual hometown birthday show at The Factory in Deep Ellum on February 26.

theater symphony event-planner concerts

Movie Review

Amy Adams turns into one slightly feral mom in surreal film Nightbitch

Photo by Anne Marie Fox/courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Amy Adams in Nightbitch.

There have been many movies about the struggles of being a mother, from ‘80s films like Mommie Dearest and Baby Boom to more recent films like Bad Moms and Tully. The takes those films offer vary wildly, but it’s that last film to which the new Nightbitch can be most easily compared, as each has a mother who manifests an alternate reality in response to their personal issues.

The unnamed mother (Amy Adams) in this film is a former artist who’s now a stay-at-home mom to a toddler. Her days are filled with things like Mommy and Me gatherings at the library or fruitlessly trying to get her son down for a nap. Her husband (Scoot McNairy) travels for work; he’s nice and somewhat helpful when he’s home, but also oblivious to her issues in the way men often can be, especially in movies.

All of the stress of being a single mom for much of the time catches up with her, and she starts believing that things like extra hair growth and sharper teeth are evidence that she is turning into a dog. When she wakes up one morning to a pile of dead animals on her doorstep, her suspicions are confirmed, and she leans into the idea, going so far as to have her son pretend he’s a dog as well by eating out of a dog bowl and sleeping in a dog bed.

Adapted from the book by Rachel Yoder by writer/director Marianne Heller, the film derives a lot of its humor and pathos from the things the mother thinks she can’t say or do. The pressure of living up to the ideals of other moms or her husband’s expectations often has her holding back her true thoughts, although the audience is occasionally privy to them through short fantasy sequences.

The dog part of the film is clearly not supposed to be taken literally, but it’s also leaned into so much that one could reasonably think it was actually happening. Whether the mother is experiencing a mental health episode or is merely using the dog persona as a defense mechanism against stress is up for debate. Regardless, it allows Heller to indulge in a number of outrageous scenarios, some of which work better than others.

What she definitely wants to get across is how underappreciated mothers are in society, and how that can lead to internal thoughts that nothing they do will ever be good enough. The mother in this film is far from perfect, but she’s also doing her best to give her son an engaging and entertaining life, often to her own detriment. If anything, her dissociation that she’s a dog is a chance for her to finally put herself first.

Adams is a six-time Oscar nominee, although she’s not gotten a lot of love for her recent roles. While this part is ridiculous in some ways, Adams also makes the character wholly believable both mentally and physically. McNairy makes you want to punch him at times, which means he’s doing his job well. Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, and Archana Rajan play fellow moms who each get a few good moments.

The prime audience for Nightbitch is mothers, especially those who feel like they haven’t gotten their proper recognition from their husbands or the world at large. The lengths the film goes to prove its point make it compelling, as does the star performance by Adams.

---

Nightbitch opens in theaters on December 6.

movies film