Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Music and comedy will be the order of the day around Dallas this weekend. Event choices will include a visit from a living legend comedian, a return visit from a pop superstar, a local production of a hit comedy musical, a concert full of songs from a range of musicals, a celebration of a music icon gone too soon, and more.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, March 21

The Statler presents WaterFest
The three-day WaterFest will feature a variety of entertainment next to The Statler's rooftop pool, including two special headlining acts: Spinderella, of Salt-n-Pepa fame, and Miami-based DJ Joe Maz, who has produced remixes for artists including Adele, Coldplay, Kanye West, Katy Perry, and Beyoncé. Each day will also feature drink specials by Mixologist Kyle Hilla and Dallas’ largest margarita, with 245 gallons, enough to serve 5,000 margaritas a day throughout the festival.

DMA Arts & Letters Live: The World of Musicals
The World of Musicals is an emotional journey through the great world of musicals, with beautiful ballads from Evita, Les Misérables, and Phantom of the Opera, along with upbeat favorites from Dirty Dancing, We Will Rock You, and Mamma Mia. Taking place at Moody Performance Hall, it will also feature classics from the Golden Age of American Musical Theater by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gilbert and Sullivan, George Gershwin, and Stephen Sondheim.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Boléro
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra will present pianist Hélène Grimaud as she performs the deeply sonorous Piano Concerto No. 1 by Brahms, followed by a trio of Ravel’s works Valses Nobles at Sentimentales, La valse, and Boléro. The concert, conducted by Lionel Bringuier, will have four performances through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Carol Burnett: An Evening of Laughter and Reflection
Carol Burnett is widely recognized by the public and her peers for her work on stage and screen, most notably The Carol Burnett Show. In this event, taking place on both Thursday and Friday at Winspear Opera House, Burnett will take questions from the audience and show video clips from her shows in a format that harkens back to the legendary openings of The Carol Burnett Show, where her studio audience had an unfiltered opportunity to engage Carol with questions and receive spontaneous answers.

Puddles Pity Party
Puddles, the "Sad Clown with the Golden Voice" who made the quarterfinals on season 12 of America's Got Talent, comes to Dallas with his heartfelt anthems and a suitcase full of Kleenex. This Pity Party is not all sadness and longing. The show, taking place at Majestic Theatre, is peppered with a brilliant sense of the absurd, mixing lots of humor with awkward, tender moments.

Friday, March 22

Eisemann Center presents STOMP
A unique combination of percussion, movement, and visual comedy, STOMP has created its own inimitable, contemporary form of rhythmic expression. Both household and industrial objects find new life as musical instruments in the hands of an idiosyncratic band of body percussionists. The troupe, performing three times through Saturday at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson, uses everything but conventional percussion instruments, including matchboxes, wooden poles, brooms, garbage cans, Zippo lighters, and hubcaps to fill the stage with magnificent rhythms.

A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour
It's now been just over three years since David Bowie passed away, but his influence is still being felt. A Bowie Celebration: The David Bowie Alumni Tour features musicians associated with Bowie like Mike Garson, Earl Slick, and Charlie Sexton presenting an unforgettable evening of Bowie songs, including an ever-rotating mix of hits and deep cuts. The concert will take place at Majestic Theatre.

Uptown Players presents Disaster! The Catastrophic '70s Musical
Uptown Players presents the hilarious 2016 Broadway hit, Disaster!, a musical comedy that features New York’s hottest A-listers lining up for the 1979 opening of a floating casino and discotheque. What begins as a night of boogie fever quickly changes to panic as the ship succumbs to multiple disasters including earthquakes, tidal waves, and infernos. The musical will run at Kalita Humphreys Theater through April 7.

Saturday, March 23

Black Violin in concert
Black Violin is composed of classically trained violist and violinist Wil B. and Kev Marcus, who combine their classical training and hip-hop influences to create a distinctive multi-genre sound that is often described as “classical boom.” The band has released three albums in their career, including their major label debut, Stereotypes (featuring Black Thought of The Roots and MC Pharoahe Monch), in 2015. The concert will take place at Annette Strauss Square.

Sunday, March 24

Dallas Museum of Art presents "Jonas Wood" opening day
The Dallas Museum of Art will present the first major solo museum exhibition of work by American painter Jonas Wood. Bringing together approximately 35 works across 13 years of Wood’s career, the exhibition "Jonas Wood" traces the artist’s fascination with psychology, memory, and the self to shed light on a practice that is both deeply personal and universal. The exhibition will remain on display through July 14.

Pink in concert with Julia Michaels
If you're thinking that Pink was just here, that's not that far off from the truth. The pop star played two dates at American Airlines Center less than a year ago toward the beginning of her Beautiful Trauma tour in support of the 2017 album of the same name. The singer has got to be dragging by this point, with over 100 shows around the world under her belt since the tour started, but something tells us she'll have enough energy to bring the goods once again. She'll play at American Airlines Center one more time.

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets in concert
Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets comes to The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving as part of their first-ever North American tour. The tour marks Pink Floyd co-founder and drummer Nick Mason’s first performances in North America since 1994. The concert will feature Pink Floyd’s celebrated and significant early body of work played live, including songs from albums like The Piper At The Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets.

Pink will play at American Airlines Center on March 24.

Photo by Kurt Iswarienko

Pink will play at American Airlines Center on March 24.

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Movie Review

The Magic Faraway Tree is a whimsical family lark that fails to take root

Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

Andrew Garfield, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Claire Foy, Phoenix Laroche, and Billie Gadson in The Magic Faraway Tree.

With kids and families always on the hunt for entertainment, it’s typically a safe bet for a movie studio to offer up something new, even if it is a film based on an old property. The Magic Faraway Tree, based on a series of books that started in the 1930s, is a very old property, one that its filmmakers have tried to liven up with a few stars, a lot of whimsy, and a boatload of CGI.

The Thompson family, led by stay-at-home dad Tim (Andrew Garfield) and breadwinner mom Polly (Claire Foy), are forced to move to a rundown country home when Polly gets laid off. The kids - Joe (Phoenix Laroche), Fran (Billie Gadson), and Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy) - are used to the perks of city life like wifi and electricity, and each of them rebels in their own way to their new lot in life.

Fran, enticed by a fairy named Silky (Nicola Coughlan), is the first to venture out of the house, making her way to a magic tree that transports her to a world full of strange characters like Moonface (Nonso Anozie), Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns), Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning), and more. Her adventures there not only broaden the world she thought she knew, but may be the key to helping her ailing family.

Directed by Ben Gregor and written by Simon Farnaby (Paddington 2, Wonka), the film is a pleasant enough lark, but it fails to fully capture the imagination. The five-member family has a lot going on, from an initially-mute Fran to a domestic situation that raises more questions than it answers. The film tries to incorporate an anti-technology message through Tim’s hatred of a smart refrigerator (voiced by Judi Dench!) and the kids' addictions to devices, but it’s quickly shed in favor of other options.

Once Fran makes it to the Magic Faraway Tree, there’s a nice shift in the storytelling, but it’s unclear what the ultimate goal is. It’s a good idea to have Fran, the youngest of the children, convince her older, more cynical siblings about the virtues of the magic world, but the conflict in the real world doesn’t seem to rise to the level needed for the escape the tree provides.

There also seems to be a missing link in the storytelling for viewers to understand the importance of the fantastical characters. The visuals of seeing Moonface and his crescent moon-shaped hair, a man with a suit full of banging pots, and more are fun for a while, but not enough to carry the whole film. A last-minute revelation feels like it was something that should have been disclosed much earlier to help strengthen the emotions of the story.

A two-time Oscar nominee, Garfield is making his first foray into family movies (if you don’t count playing Spider-Man), and while he does a good job, he doesn’t make the best fit for the semi-goofy role. The same goes for the Emmy-winning Foy, who isn’t given much of anything to do. The movie puts the story on the shoulders of the three child actors, and while each of them acquit themselves well, none of them are so outstanding as to be noteworthy.

With nearly 90-year-old source material, The Magic Faraway Tree needed to be something truly special to stand out in the 21st century movie world. Unfortunately, it features a mostly forgettable story that features some fun visuals, a couple of cute kids, and not much else.

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The Magic Faraway Tree is now playing in theaters.

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