Weekend Event Planner

These are the 11 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Kenny Chesney and Jason Aldean perform at AT&T Stadium on May 16.

Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com

There will be plenty of big events to choose from in and around Dallas this weekend, including a reimagining of a classic musical, a couple of local theater productions, two festivals with well-known musicians, a weekend full of LGBTQ+ celebrations, the return of a country music superstar, and more.

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

Thursday, June 2

Broadway Dallas presents Oklahoma!
Over 75 years after Rodgers & Hammerstein reinvented the American musical, this version of Oklahoma! is something audiences have never seen or heard before, as it's been reimagined for the 21st century. Stripped down to reveal the darker psychological truths at its core, Daniel Fish’s production tells a story of a community circling its wagons against an outsider, and the frontier life that shaped America. The production will run at Winspear Opera House through June 12.

Eric Nadel's Birthday Benefit featuring Cas Haley and Daphne Willis
Celebrating its 10th anniversary concert, the Eric Nadel Birthday Benefit — in honor of the longtime Texas Rangers announcer — will feature performances Cas Haley, a former runner-up on America’s Got Talent, and opening act Daphne Willis. The concert at The Kessler supports the work of Grant Halliburton Foundation, a local nonprofit that provides mental health education, training, and support to North Texas teens and families.

Urban Arts Collective presents Love You Madly: Celebrating the Music of Duke Ellington
Love You Madly: Celebrating the Music of Duke Ellington transports audiences to 1920s New York City at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Told through music, dance and spoken word, the production highlights the glitz and glamour of the time with a big band orchestra as the backdrop. The entire band is comprised of Dallas musicians under the direction of Dallas’ premiere jazz band director, Dean Hilland. The production, part of AT&T Performing Arts Center's Elevator Project, will have three performances through Saturday at Annette Strauss Square.

Friday, June 3

KHYI's Texas Music Revolution
KHYI's 26th Texas Music Revolution is a two-day festival that will feature performances by a variety of country and folk acts, including Wade Bowen, Jack Ingram, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Summer Dean, Old Crow Medicine Show, Hayes Carll, and over 20 other bands and musicians. Performances will take place in the square in Historic Downtown McKinney on both Friday and Saturday.

Taste Addison
While the main attraction for Taste Addison is obviously the food, featuring dishes from a wide array of classic Addison dining destinations and notable newcomers, the festival has more to offer than just that. Visitors can stroll the marketplace featuring booths selling a variety of items, explore The Discovery Depot featuring presentations and craft activities, and enjoy music from acts like Sean Paul, Stone Temple Pilots, Living Colour, and more. Kids 12 and younger can also enjoy the Adventure Grove, a play area with games, attractions, a petting zoo, and more. The festival takes place on Friday and Saturday at Addison Circle Park.

Theatre Arlington presents The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
In the Tony Award-winning The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, an eclectic group of six mid-pubescents vie for the spelling championship of a lifetime. While candidly disclosing hilarious and touching stories from their home lives, the tweens spell their way through a series of words, hoping never to hear the soul-crushing, pout-inducing, “ding” of the bell that signals a spelling mistake. The production runs through June 19 at Theatre Arlington.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Baumer String Quartet
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra will present a Chamber Concert featuring the Baumer String Quartet and DSO Musicians. Acknowledged as one of the finest young quartets in the country, the Baumer String Quartet was founded in 2003 at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The program for the one-night-only performance at Meyerson Symphony Center will include the Dallas premiere of Samuel Carl Adams' Sundial for String Quartet & Percussion, Leon Kirchner's “Flutings for Paul,” and Mendelssohn's String Octet in E-flat major.

TITAS/Dance Unbound presents BalletX
TITAS/Dance Unbound will close their 2021/2022 season with BalletX, a company making their Dallas debut. Co-founded in 2005 by Artistic & Executive Director Christine Cox and choreographer Matthew Neenan, Ballet X has produced over 100 ballets by 60 choreographers from across the globe. They will perform twice - once Friday and once Saturday - at Moody Performance Hall.

Saturday, June 4

Trolls Live!
In Trolls Live!, the Trolls’ Hug Time is unexpectedly put at risk. Knowing the only way to save it is by doing what the Trolls do best, Poppy hosts a toe-tapping, Trolls-tastic show. The production is a hair-raising adventure featuring Poppy, Branch, and all their Trolls friends coming to life on stage. The show, which will have four performances through Sunday at Texas Trust CU Theatre at Grand Prairie, will be jam-packed with epic music, glitter, humor, and happiness.

Dallas Pride Weekend
Dallas Pride weekend kicks off on Saturday with the Dallas Pride Music Festival, a family-friendly event at Fair Park featuring a variety of musical and dance performances, shopping, a Family Pride Zone, and more. The Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade takes place on Sunday, encircling Cotton Bowl Stadium with fun floats, outrageous costumes, bands, performers, and groups all marching to show support for the LGBTQ+ community.

Kenny Chesney in concert
Country superstar Kenny Chesney has made a stop in Dallas-Fort Worth in late spring on a near-annual basis, but this is the first time since 2018 that he's made it back to the area. Taking place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the concert will feature performances by Chesney, still touring in support of his 2020 album, Here and Now, as well as opening acts Dan + Shay, Old Dominion, and Carly Pearce.

Kenny Chesney will play at AT&T Stadium in Arlington on June 4.

0012, RodeoHouston, Kenny Chesney concert, March 2013

Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com

Kenny Chesney will play at AT&T Stadium in Arlington on June 4.

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Movie Review

Animated Disney film Elio is fun but falls short of Pixar top tier

Photo courtesy of Pixar

Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

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Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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