The Final Four may have left North Texas, but many of the venues in town have simply reloaded to bring you more big events. Among the best ones are two more big arts festivals, opera on a big stage, and a movie star-turned-musician playing in one of the most intimate places in town.
Below are your 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, April 10
2014 Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival
Deep Ellum hosted its arts festival last weekend, and now downtown Fort Worth has its turn to showcase some of the best art and music the area has to offer. Taking place Thursday through Sunday, the free festival features 213 hand-picked artists lining Main Street and three different performance stages, with headliners like The Mavericks and Bob Schneider.
Performing Arts Fort Worth presents Stomp
Stomp, which originally started in England, has been entertaining audiences with its unique musicality for almost 25 years. Utilizing trash cans, brooms, hubcaps and multiple other non-traditional percussion instruments, the performance is part concert, part theater and all fun. The show runs at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth through Sunday.
Ben Folds in concert with Dallas POPS
Ben Folds has been putting out music since 1995, which pretty much gives him carte blanche to do whatever he wants. For his latest solo tour, titled the Ben Folds Orchestra Experience, he's teaming up with orchestras across the country — in this case, the Dallas POPS — to play a piano concerto he composed, as well as a few of his hit songs. The performance takes place at Annette Strauss Square at the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
Friday, April 11
2014 Dallas Art Fair
There are a lot of events going on for Dallas Arts Week, but the Dallas Arts Fair is definitely the headliner. Taking place Friday through Sunday at Fashion Industry Gallery, the fair features more than 90 art dealers and galleries showing off art works in every medium imaginable, all of which are for sale. There is also a preview gala on Thursday night if you want to get in on the action early.
Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation presents Evening with a Legend: Michael Young
The Texas Rangers are off to slow start to the 2014 season, mostly thanks to some key injuries. But they take some time out just prior to the start of their series against Houston Astros to honor one of their all-time greats, Michael Young, who retired as a Ranger back in January. The event at Globe Life Park in Arlington also includes tickets to that night's game.
Dallas Opera presents The Barber of Seville simulcast
The Dallas Opera celebrates the end of its 2013-2014 season with what has become an annual occurrence: a free simulcast at AT&T Stadium. The performance of The Barber of Seville is broadcast on the Jumbotron at Jerry World, along with a pre-show screening of the classic Bugs Bunny cartoon The Rabbit of Seville.
Saturday, April 12
TITAS presents Motionhouse: Scattered
Some dance troupes amaze you simply through their movements, but Motionhouse goes above and beyond that. Using a special projection technology, the dancers move in, on and through images projected on the stage. The blend of imagery and theatricality is like nothing you've ever seen. They perform on Saturday and Sunday at Dallas City Performance Hall.
WaterTower Theatre presents Spunk
Liz Mikel and Tiffany Hobbs were both part of the stellar one-two punch of Raisin in the Sun and Clybourne Park that Dallas Theater Center put on in 2013, and the two are teaming up again for WaterTower Theatre's Spunk. The play is a series of vignettes of African-American life in the first half of the 20th century. It plays at Addison Conference Centre through May 4.
Sunday, April 13
2014 Dallas International Film Festival: The Outsiders
The Dallas International Film Festival comes to a close on Sunday, and although it is a day for honoring the best of the festival, it's this screening of The Outsiders at Texas Theatre that caught our eye. The soon-to-be famous cast brought S.E. Hinton's book to life, which is appropriate because the screening is part of the Big D Reads program going on all month. If you'd rather not pay to see the movie, Main Street Garden also shows it for free on Friday night.
Jeff Bridges & The Abiders in concert with Somebody's Darling
We've long known that the Granada Theater is one of the best live music venues in Dallas, and it's starting to attract bigger and bigger names. Jeff Bridges has been making music for a long time — he put out an album in 2000 — but it was his Oscar-winning role in Crazy Heart that put his musicianship to the forefront. He and his band, the fantastically-named The Abiders, play on Sunday night, with locals Somebody's Darling as opening act.
Jeff Bridges shows off his musical skills at the Granada Theater on April 13.
