Weekend Event Planner

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

Machine Gun Kelly will play at at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving on October 24.

Photo by Daniel Cavazos

If you love local theater, this first full weekend in June will be your jam, as it features no fewer than five different theater companies staging new productions. The weekend will also feature a dance production, a festival-style EDM event, a notorious rapper/rocker, everyone's favorite Netflix cheerleaders, a small-scale concert, and a well-known comedian.

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 9

Lyric Stage presents Cabaret
Set in Berlin as the 1920s draw to a close, Cabaret focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub, while exploring the dark and tumultuous life in Germany as the Third Reich ascends to power. The fully-staged concert production, which features a 13-piece, all-female orchestra led by Vonda K. Bowling, will play five times through Sunday at Majestic Theatre.

Pegasus Theatre presents Death is a Bad Habit!
Pegasus Theatre continues their 2022 season with the RadioVizion presentation of Death is a Bad Habit! by Kurt Kleinmann. Bishop Perkins suspects that something is amiss at Our Lady of Perpetual Weepiness and has asked Harry Hunsacker, a world-famous detective and aspiring actor, to check into things at the convent. Harry, Nigel Grouse, and Lt. Foster find themselves in more trouble than they could possibly imagine. The production will run through June 25 at Bath House Cultural Center.

Uptown Players presents Broadway Our Way
The Uptown Players divas return for another entertaining weekend of Broadway music with plenty of twists, laughs, and surprises. The evening features many favorite actors from past Uptown Players seasons performing selections from Broadway shows, both past and present, all done with an Uptown Players spin. There will be four performances through Sunday at Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Kitchen Dog Theater presents New Works Festival
The annual New Works Festival from Kitchen Dog Theater was supposed to feature the world premiere of High Five this weekend, but due to a positive COVID test for a member of their production team, the production will now run June 16-26. Still taking place will be PUP Fest, an afternoon of six world premiere staged readings written by local high school students mentored and developed through playwriting workshops. There will be two performances on Saturday at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

Friday, June 10

Art Centre Theatre presents Bride of Frankenstein Goes Malibu
Dr. Frankenstein has come to California to recreate his famous monster and monster bride. Why California? Because he plans to use the brains of ... surfers. To this end, he is always looking for good material. One stormy night, Lum, a master at riding the waves, stumbles into the gloomy house, and the fun begins. The production will run through June 19 at Art Centre Theatre in Plano.

Bruce Wood Dance presents Spring
Bruce Wood Dance presents Spring, featuring a world premiere from guest choreographer Stephanie Martinez; the mainstage production of Joy Bollinger’s Slip Zone Suite commissioned by Dallas Museum of Art and inspired by its exhibition, "Slip Zone;" and the Dallas premiere of Bruce Wood’s riveting interpretation of Rite of Spring, the classic work by Igor Stravinsky. There will be three performances through Sunday at Moody Performance Hall.

Saturday, June 11

Camp Nowhere featuring Porter Robinson, Lane 8, Nora En Pure, Fletcher, and more
Camp Nowhere is a festival-style event that will feature performances by some of the top electronic music producers working today. Headlining the event will be Porter Robinson, who has released three albums — one of all-new material and two live ones — in the last year alone. Also performing will be Lane 8, Nora En Pure, Fletcher, and LP Giobbi. The concert will be at Dos Equis Pavilion.

Machine Gun Kelly in concert
Rapper, rocker, and Houston native Machine Gun Kelly is equally well known for his personal life as he is for his music. When he's not engaging in excessive PDA with or drinking the blood of his fiancée Megan Fox, he's putting out some very popular music, as both of his last two albums, including the new Mainstream Sellout, went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200. He'll play at American Airlines Center.

Cheer Live
Fans of the Netflix docuseries Cheer will have lots to cheer about when the Cheer Live tour comes The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving. The event will feature coach Navarro College Monica Aldama alongside cheer stars such as Gabi Butler, Morgan Simianer, and many others. The athletes will present an exhibition of never-before-seen stunts and stage performances, an athletic event staged with the production value of a live concert.

Sunday, June 12

Turtle Creek Chorale presents Freedom Fighters: A TCC Small Ensemble Showcase
Turtle Creek Chorale will present its small ensembles for an intimate evening of music dedicated to the idea of “freedom” and the costs surrounding the lofty goals of it. Framed by the words and ideals of Nelson Mandela, the concert at Northhaven United Methodist Church will showcase the TCC Chamber Chorus, Coloratura, and TerraVox.

Anjelah Johnson-Reyes: Who Do I Think I Am? Tour
Anjelah Johnson-Reyes became an internet sensation with her viral video, Nail Salon, which led to many stand up, television, and film opportunities. That same year she joined the cast of MADtv as a series regular, which spawned another internet sensation, Bon Qui Qui, a disgruntled fast food employee with no filter. Johnson has also appeared in multiple commercials, including as the spokesperson for Taco Cabana. She'll perform at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory.

Machine Gun Kelly will play at American Airlines Center on June 11.

Photo by Daniel Cavazos

Machine Gun Kelly will play at American Airlines Center on June 11.

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Movie Review

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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