Weekend Event Planner

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

If you're a fan of artist Vincent van Gogh, this is your weekend as there will be not one but two separate events featuring his artwork in Dallas. There will also be the return of Broadway to the area, a trio of big concerts, two local theater productions, a great comedian, a celebration of a local hero, and the closing of a notable art exhibition.

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

Thursday, August 5

Galleria Dallas and Dallas Museum of Art present "Van Gogh and the Olive Groves" preview
Galleria Dallas will partner with the Dallas Museum of Art to offer a “sneak peek” of "Van Gogh and the Olive Groves," which opens at the DMA on October 17. The preview offers families a glimpse into the artistic and educational exploration through select reproductions of Van Gogh’s works from the olive groves series; the originals will be presented in the museum’s exhibition. The display will provide links to online resources allowing people to further explore the exhibition. The preview will be located on Level I on the gallery wall across from Apple through August 31.

Dallas Summer Musicals presents Wicked
Broadway makes its return to Dallas with Wicked, which looks at what happened in the Land of Oz … but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another young woman, born with emerald-green skin — smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships … until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.” The musical will play at the Music Hall at Fair Park through September 5.

Blackberry Smoke in concert with The Allman Betts Band, The Wild Feathers, and Jaimoe
Blackberry Smoke will come to Irving as part of their "Spirit Of The South Tour: A Celebration of Southern Rock and Roll." They'll be joined by special guests The Allman Betts Band, The Wild Feathers and founding member of The Allman Brothers Band, Jaimoe. The show at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory will conclude with a unique collaborative finale, which will feature Blackberry Smoke, The Allman Betts Band, The Wild Feathers, Jaimoe, and additional surprise guests showcasing the inspirations of Rock, Blues, Gospel, and Soul music.

Improv Addison presents Maz Jobrani
Comedian Maz Jobrani is a founding member of The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, which first aired on Comedy Central. He has had three Showtime specials: Brown and Friendly, I Come In Peace, and I’m Not a Terrorist but I’ve Played One on TV. He is also a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. He'll perform five times through Saturday at Improv Addison.

Junior Players presents 12th Night: A Rock Musical
In collaboration with Shakespeare Dallas, Junior Players presents 12th Night: A Rock Musical. Illyria is the new Coachella when The Bard becomes the new sensation as his text is mixed into original infectious rock/pop style melodies in a new production out of California of this classic gender-bending comedy. The madness for love unfolds after a shipwrecked Viola falls onto the Illyrian Shores. The production will play at Samuell-Grand Amphitheatre through Sunday.

Pegasus Theatre presents Death on Delivery!
In Death on Delivery!, the setting is City Hospital where Lt. Foster’s wife has just given birth to their first child, Harriet. But danger lurks around every corner. The intrepid trio must solve a mysterious string of murders before a madman claims one of their own. The production by Pegasus Theatre uses RadioVizion, which focuses on evoking the experience and glamour of being in a live radio studio of the 1930s and 1940s. It will run through August 21 at Bath House Cultural Center.

Friday, August 6

Cypress Hill in concert
Hip hop group Cypress Hill has been around for 30 years, releasing nine albums, but they're still best known for their 1993 No. 1 hit "Insane in the Brain" off their triple platinum album Black Sunday. They recently released a new single, "Champion Sound," their first new music since their 2018 album, Elephants On Acid. They'll play at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit in concert (UPDATE: This concert has been canceled. Isbell is still scheduled to perform in Fort Worth on August 13.)
Country singer Jason Isbell is an old-school musician in that he's taken the long road to success. He's been paying his dues for the past 20 years, slowly but surely building a fan base. That hard work has paid off, as his last three albums have each landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts, as well as the top 10 of the Billboard 200. He and his band, The 400 Unit, will play at The Factory in Deep Ellum.

Saturday, August 7

Immersive Van Gogh
Immersive Van Gogh is a digital art experience that invites audiences to enter the works of van Gogh, evoking his highly emotional and chaotic inner consciousness through art, light, music, movement, and imagination. The exhibition merges state-of-the-art technology, theatrical storytelling, and world-class animation, transporting guests inside the artist's most famous paintings. It will take place at Lighthouse Dallas through October 31.

The City of Grapevine presents Wally Funk Community Celebration Parade
The City of Grapevine will honor resident and hometown hero, Wally Funk, for her history-making experience aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard suborbital space tourism rocket. The event will feature a parade along Historic Main Street, immediately followed by a presentation by aviation leaders, peers, Grapevine Mayor William D. Tate, and Grapevine City Council. The parade will then head south on Main Street from Wall Street toward Dallas Road, and will culminate on Peace Plaza at Grapevine Main Station, with remarks by dignitaries and Funk.

Sunday, August 8

Dallas Museum of Art presents "Concentrations 63: Julian Charrière - Towards No Earthly Pole" closing day
Sunday will be the final day to view "Concentrations 63" at the Dallas Museum of Art. Berlin-based French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière creates work that bridges the realms of environmental science and cultural history. This focused exhibition — Charrière’s first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. — provides immersive encounters with the artist’s melancholic and beautiful portraits of nature in the human era, culminating with his most recent video project, Towards No Earthly Pole.

Dallas Summer Musicals will present Wicked at the Music Hall at Fair Park through September 5.

Photo by Joan Marcus

Dallas Summer Musicals will present Wicked at the Music Hall at Fair Park through September 5.

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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