Let's Fest

Art, music, and family fun await at 2 treasured Richardson festivals

Add two festivals to the list of things blooming in Richardson each spring: Cottonwood Art Festival and Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival.

It’s the 55th year for Cottonwood Art Festival (May 4-5) and the 32nd for Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival (May 17-19). Here’s what you need to know about both:

Cottonwood Art Festival

What to expect: No matter your art personality type, you’ll find something to love amid more than 200 global artists’ juried work, spanning paintings and sculpture to ceramics, jewelry, fiber art, fine glass, woodwork, mixed media, and photography.

Make sure to look for this year's featured artist, ceramicist Gregory Story. The South Texas native now works out of his Chicago studio, Modern Clay, but studied at both Texas Christian University and the University of Texas at Arlington. He's known for his signature smiley sculptures, which were created as a welcome back post-COVID, and has added onto them with baseball caps in orange, blue, black, and red.

There’s also live music across two stages along with an arts-and-crafts area for the kiddos and plenty of food and drink for all on tap.

Where: Cottonwood Park, 1321 W. Belt Line Rd.

When: Saturday, May 4, 10 am-7 pm; Sunday, May 5, 10 am-5 pm.

Tickets: Admission and parking are both free, with shuttles running continuously between the park and the Richardson High School football stadium lot.

History lesson: Celebrating 55 years, the award-winning Cottonwood Art Festival is a twice-yearly juried show that has become a signature art event in the community and beyond. The festival also provides innovative outreach programs for students, with the goal of broadening interest in visual arts and bringing the art world into classrooms.

More details: CottonwoodArtFestival.com

Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival

What to expect: With six stages and 100-plus performers, including Nile Rodgers & CHIC, Randy Rogers Band, KC & The Sunshine Band, The Struts, Sister Sledge, Monica Saldivar, and more, your listening schedule will be packed at this fest.

Beyond the stages, the Prosperity Bank Marketplace is a one-stop-shop for local and regional accessories, art, home decor, apparel, and more.

There’s also The Zoo art guitar auction, songwriter competition, and Patterson & Associates Performance Row that features street performers, acrobats, and magicians. Plus, look for Wildflower! Kids, a family-fun zone with art, games, informative activities, and kid-friendly tunes.

Wildflower! in Richardson is always a can't-miss event.

Photo courtesy of Wildflower! Festival

Wildflower! in Richardson is always a can't-miss event.

Where: Galatyn Park Urban Center, located at Galatyn Parkway and U.S. 75.

When: Friday, May 17, 6 pm-midnight; Saturday, May 18, 11 am-midnight; Sunday, May 19, 11 am-6 pm.

Tickets: Friday and Saturday are $30 online ($45 at the gate), Sunday is $15 online ($25 at the gate), and kids 12 and under are free. Richardson residents can score tickets for only $15.

A three-day pass is $65, and the popular Friends of the Festival VIP package is $400. It includes 2 VIP wristbands for the weekend, access to preferred VIP seating at Methodist Richardson Medical Center Stage, complimentary food and beverages (including beer and wine), shade and relaxed seating in the VIP Hospitality Lounge, and 1 VIP parking pass valid for the entire weekend.

Parking: Complimentary parking will be available within the nearby surrounding area. Festival-goers are encouraged to take advantage of the DART Red Line light rail, which stops at the Galatyn Park Station, located immediately adjacent to the west side of the festival grounds.

History lesson: Wildflower! began as a small community gathering in 1993 and has since become one of the most popular cultural events in North Texas, with tens of thousands of fans showing up for their favorite artists.

More details: WildflowerFestival.com

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Movie Review

Andrew Garfield leads peasant rebellion in medieval film The Uprising

Photo by Betina La Plante/Focus Features

Andrew Garfield in The Uprising.

Writer/director Paul Greengrass made his name with a cinéma vérité style of filmmaking that brought immediacy and depth to three Jason Bourne films, United 93, Captain Phillips, and more. In The Uprising, he uses those skills to tell the story of the so-called Peasants’ Revolt in 14th century England.

Greengrass wastes no time starting the main plot as Ploughman (Andrew Garfield) and his fellow villagers object to onerous taxes put on them by the country’s nobility, led by the young King Richard II (Woody Norman), to fund an ongoing war. Ploughman initiates a violent response over the tone-deaf — and unseemly — way the king’s guard go about their business, and the rebellion soon starts to spread across the countryside, with the citizens looking for a degree of autonomy.

The ever-expanding group makes their way toward London to try to make their case to the king himself. Meanwhile, the king’s top advisors, including Archbishop Sudbury (Stephen Dillane) and Treasurer Hales (Tom Hollander), try to usurp power from the inexperienced monarch even as the king’s mother (Katherine Waterston) tries to get him to be more assertive.

The history of the English monarchy is long and lurid, as Shakespeare detailed in multiple plays, including Richard II. Though the events in the film took place almost 650 years ago, it’s easy to see parallels between what the peasants were fighting for and modern-day politics. Greengrass’ storytelling intent is solid, and the righteous anger the citizens feel is initially relatable and palpable.

But the populism theme of the story soon gets bogged down in drudgery and minutiae that is difficult to understand, especially when the details are lost in the thick regional English accents. The leaders of the rebels — including John Ball (Jamie Bell), Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), and Alyce (Thomasin McKenzie) — are shown doing a lot of planning, but the strong feelings they have about their quest don’t come across well, leaving the audience as passive observers.

When there is action, Greengrass and his team employ a frenetic style that is not great for comprehension. While the gist of what is happening and what side is winning is legible, individual moments go by so quickly so as to be nearly meaningless. Save for Ploughman, any connection that has been made with various characters proves futile, as Greengrass doesn’t seem to have any time for emotion. Scenes that should feel thrilling or heartbreaking instead come off as empty.

Garfield is a two-time Oscar nominee who has done great work across multiple genres. He’s fine in this role, but whether it’s the story, the filmmaking, or something else, he’s not as captivating as usual. The same goes for other strong actors like Bell, McKenzie, Dillane, Hollander, and Waterston, who each seem to be giving their all to their performances but are somehow muted in the process.

Done right, The Uprising could have been a rip-roaring account of people standing up against their oppressors. What Greengrass has made, though, is a film that can’t translate its medieval story for a modern audience and concentrates too much on unexciting elements and too little on thrilling ones.

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The Uprising is now playing in theaters.

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