Weekend Event Planner

These are the 10 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

This weekend around Dallas will be heavy on events from local groups, with one big notable exception. There will be a national tour of a Broadway musical, a film festival, cirque performers, two symphony concerts, a local theater production, a preview of the new Texas Rangers team, a new art exhibition, a Japanese drumming group, and an opera concert featuring all female conductors.

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, January 26

Denton Black Film Festival
The Denton Black Film Festival allows guests to immerse themselves in some of the best artistic showcases of Black cinema, music, spoken word, art, and more. The festival, running through Sunday, will take place at multiple venues around Denton, including Campus Theater, Alamo Drafthouse, Denton Civic Center, and more. They will also offer a virtual option from January 29 - February 5.

Broadway Dallas presents Pretty Woman: The Musical
Based on one of Hollywood’s most beloved romantic stories of all time, Pretty Woman: The Musical springs to life with a powerhouse creative team led by two-time Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell. The production, featuring an original score by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance and a book by the movie’s director, Garry Marshall, and screenwriter, J. F. Lawton, the production runs through February 5 at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Cirque Italia presents Water Circus
Cirque Italia presents Water Circus, featuring a stage that holds 35,000 gallons of water over which performers make dazzling moves, thrilling the audience with every feat. The event, taking place through Sunday, will be located in a tent in the parking lot of the Grand Prairie Premium Outlets.

Friday, January 27

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto"
Conductor Karina Canellakis returns to the Meyerson Symphony Center stage to present Dvořák’s orchestral poem, The Wood Dove, a dark work focused on a woman who poisoned her husband to marry another man. Also on the program will be rising violin star Randall Goosby, joining the Dallas Symphony to perform Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Major; and Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra. There will be three performances through Sunday.

The Core Theatre presents Every Livin' Soul
In Every Livin' Soul, a widowed farm woman struggles to fund her gifted son’s college education while simultaneously keeping the family farm afloat, a daunting task in depression-era America. A mysterious stranger comes begging for a meal, bringing hope, encouragement, and more than his fair share of danger. The production runs through February 26 at The Core Theatre in Richardson.

Saturday, January 28

Texas Rangers Fan Fest
With the Cowboys - boo hoo - now out of the playoffs, the revamped Texas Rangers can take centerstage in Arlington again. The annual Fan Fest at Globe Life Field will feature autograph sessions with current Rangers players and alumni; interactive Q&A sessions with Rangers executives, players, and announcers; on-field activities like running the bases, wiffle ball home run derby, bullpen fast pitch, and inflatables; and more.

Nasher Sculpture Center presents Mark di Suvero: "Steel Like Paper" opening day
Nasher Sculpture Center will present Mark di Suvero’s “Steel Like Paper,” a milestone exhibition of the sculptor’s more than six-decade career. The exhibition will survey di Suvero’s work, showing rarely-seen drawings and paintings along with small and moderately scaled sculptures, as well as some of the artist’s first forays into working at a large scale. The exhibition will remain on display through August 27.

Coppell Arts Center presents San Jose Taiko
Inspired by traditional Japanese drumming, San Jose Taiko performers express the beauty and harmony of the human spirit though the voice of taiko. All compositions performed by SJT are written or arranged by members of the group. They will also put on an interactive educational program at 1 pm, presenting the company's basic philosophical principles and engaging the students to actively participate in its high-action demonstration. Both events will be at Coppell Arts Center.

The Dallas Opera presents Hart Institute for Women Conductors Showcase Concert
Four of opera’s most brilliant young conductors - Celia Llácer Carbonell, Yuwon Kim, Blair Salter, and Anna Sułkowska-Migoń - are front and center for an evening of opera selections, sung by some of the country’s top singers and featuring The Dallas Opera Orchestra. Selections for the concert, taking place at Winspear Opera House, will include Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Bizet’s Carmen, Puccini’s Tosca, and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.

Sunday, January 29

Lone Star Wind Orchestra presents Rhapsodies in Blue
Shades of blue representing Earth and one of Gershwin’s most iconic works are celebrated as the Lone Star Wind Orchestra presents "Rhapsodies in Blue." Under the direction of LSWO Music Director Eugene Migliaro Corporon, the three-part concert will feature a new multimedia experience of Julie Giroux’s Symphony No. 6 The Blue Marble, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue featuring pianist Aaron Kurz, and a performance of American composer Frank Ticheli’s work, Blue Shades. The concert will be at Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson.

Photo courtesy of Denton Black Film Festival

The Denton Black Film Festival takes place at multiple venues in Denton through January 29.

festivals film event-planner theater music symphony sports kids families dance galleries opera

Movie Review

Shaun the Sheep gets PG-spooky in new movie for the Halloween season

Photo courtesy of Aardman / Sky UK LTD / StudioCanal 2026

Shaun the Sheep in Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom.

Since his introduction over 30 years ago, the Aardman Animations character Shaun the Sheep has been almost as popular as the studio’s flagship characters, Wallace and Gromit. There is never a shortage of trouble Shaun can get into as he leads his flock and proves to be a thorn in the side of his farmer and Bitzer, the farmer’s loyal sheepdog.

His antics lead everyone down some slightly spooky roads in the new film, Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom. At first, things are only slightly awry as Shaun and the flock are growing a secret pumpkin patch to have their own jack-o-lanterns. But when the farmer accidentally destroys the pumpkin patch, Shaun tries to regrow it quickly with a Frankenstein-esque experiment.

However, disaster looms when Shaun uses an old bottle of Hair-Gro as the container for the serum he creates. Naturally, the balding farmer uses it on his head, and everyone soon discovers how truly successful it is, with pumpkins growing out of control and the farmer sprouting hair all over his body. Through a series of mishaps, the farmer becomes the titular beast, creating mayhem while Shaun and others try to stop him.

Directed by Steve Cox and Matthew Walker, and written by Mark Burton and Giles Pilbrow, the film goes down just as easy as every other Aardman project has. They get the Halloween vibes started from the opening credits, with things like the sheep doing the “Thriller” dance, and continue the fun throughout, referencing everything from Psycho to Friday the 13th in a nice, PG way.

With no script — every character is mute save for reaction noises — the movie relies on sight gags for its humor, and the Aardman team is endlessly inventive in that respect. Sometimes it’s small things like a sheep using toilet paper rolls as binoculars, and sometimes it’s something like forcing the Bigfoot-like farmer to be shaped into a rectangle as he escapes through a window. But there’s a never-ending stream of such moments, so even if one doesn’t tickle your funny bone, chances are the next one will.

The biggest benefit of the characters not talking is that there’s no need for deep character development. The filmmakers do a great job of giving the basic traits of each character, and then use those attributes to color everyone’s actions for the rest of the film. Shaun is the troublemaker, the farmer is a bumbling fool, Bitzer is preternaturally smart, and the town’s vet is empathetic, and the combination of those characters and others makes for a highly entertaining blend.

Like all Aardman creations, Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is a fun lark that doesn’t make its audience think too hard. With just enough references to keep viewers engaged but not so many as to be overbearing, the film puts its well-worn characters to good use once again, delivering a Halloween season story that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

---

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is now playing in theaters.

movies film