Weekend Event Planner

Festivals top the 15 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Mid-May is prime festival season in and around Dallas, and three more will be held this weekend, if you can stand the heat. Other choices include three local theater productions, two symphony concerts, two rodeo events, two dance productions, the start of an art exhibition, a well-known comedian, and a concert by a big pop star.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. If you want more options, check out the calendar for an even longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, May 15

The Firehouse Theatre presents The Wedding Singer
The Wedding Singer takes viewers back to a time when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up, and a wedding singer might just be the coolest guy in the room. Based on the hit Adam Sandler movie, The Wedding Singer's score does for the '80s what Hairspray did for the '60s. The production runs through June 1 at The Firehouse Theatre in Farmers Branch.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5"
The first of two Beethoven-themed concerts by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this week features conductor Jonathan Heyward and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, who will be the soloist for Beethoven’s final piano concerto, “Emperor.” The evening concludes with Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony. There will be three performances through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Friday, May 16

City of Grapevine presents 41st Annual Main Street Fest
The 41st Annual Main Street Fest is a family-friendly event featuring live music, craft brew and wine experiences, food and unique shopping. Visitors can enjoy the Carnival and Midway, explore the KidZone and experience Texan-sized fun all weekend long. Country star Neal McCoy will be the headlining performer for the festival, which takes place through Sunday in Historic Downtown Grapevine.

Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival
The annual Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival features live performances by national, regional, and local bands. Headlining bands will include The Revivalists, Cold War Kids, Young the Giant, NEEDTOBREATHE, and Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Over the course of the festival, nearly 50 bands will perform on various stages. The event also includes kids activities, roaming performers, food, and more. The event takes place in Galatyn Park Urban Center outside of Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson through Sunday.

Professional Bull Riders presents Kid Rock's Rock N Rodeo
The big PBR weekend in Arlington kicks off with Kid Rock's Rock N Rodeo, a music-infused event that features Kid Rock live in concert. Six teams, each led by a legendary rodeo head coach, will compete head-to-head in bracket-style competition across barrel racing, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling, and breakaway roping. The event takes place AT&T Stadium.

Art Centre Theatre presents Southern Fried Nuptials
Harlene Frye is going to marry her childhood sweetheart this weekend ... assuming the typical Frye family hijinks don’t derail the wedding. Harlene and Attie’s future together is threatened when the bride-to-be’s awful ex-flame shows up with information she doesn’t want her fiancé to find out. The production runs through June 1 at Art Centre Theatre in Plano.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre presents Spring Celebration
Dallas Black Dance Theatre's annual Spring Celebration will feature the world premiere of Kareem B. Goodwin’s Building the Beat, along with two audience favorites: Allyne D. Gartrell’s My Inspiration and Christopher L. Huggins’ Night Run. There will be performances on Friday and Saturday at Wyly Theatre.

Teatro Dallas presents El Otro
A simple ride to retrieve a birthday gift sends a young teenage girl named Romy and her two fathers on a phantasmagoric ride through a harrowing night. Lupe, her birth father, forces her to choose between him and Ben, the fresh-faced Fort Bliss soldier who recently married her mother. The winner gets to live. The production runs through May 31 at Latino Cultural Center.

Texas Ballet Theater presents Giselle
Closing Texas Ballet Theater's season is the world premiere of Giselle, where Artistic Director Tim O’Keefe intricately builds upon the foundational choreography of Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot, and Marius Petipa to present his own interpretation of the iconic masterpiece. Set to the hauntingly beautiful composition of Adolphe Adam, the production tells the tragic tale of love, betrayal, and redemption. There will be four performances through Sunday at Winspear Opera House.

Saturday, May 17

Art & Soul of Kaleidoscope Park
Kaleidoscope Park in Frisco will present the inaugural Art & Soul of Kaleidoscope Park, a two-day celebration of creativity and community that will showcase 30 artists from North Texas and beyond. The featured artists, selected by a jury of Frisco arts advocates, include Suzy Jones, Jennifer Luney, Donna Schmittler, and Rick Chambers, representing a diverse mix of mediums, from ceramics and glass to digital art, drawing, mixed media, and more. The event takes place on Saturday and Sunday.

Nasher Sculpture Center presents "Generations: 150 Years of Sculpture" opening day
Nasher Sculpture Center will present its 2025 summer show, "Generations: 150 Years of Sculpture." Drawn from the Nasher’s permanent collection, the new selection of works features numerous recent acquisitions and offers conversations about the possibilities for sculpture, both past and present. The exhibition features over 50 works of art by 24 artists, with sculptures by Nairy Baghramian, Kevin Beasley, Huma Bhabha, Anthony Caro, Jaume Plensa, Jean Tinguely, and others. The exhibition will remain on display through August 24.

Texas Theatre presents Ramy Youssef
Comedian Ramy Youssef comes to Dallas as part as of his love beam 7000 tour. Youssef created, produces, directs, and stars in the Hulu show Ramy, inspired by his own experiences centering around a first-generation Egyptian-American Muslim on a spiritual journey in his politically divided New Jersey neighborhood. He'll perform at Texas Theatre.

Halsey in concert
Pop/R&B singer Halsey is 10 years into her career, one that has been a success since the beginning. All five of her albums finished either No. 1 or No. 2 on the Billboard 200, including her latest, 2024's The Great Impersonator. Along the way, she's collaborated with other notable artists across multiple genres, including G-Eazy, Benny Blanco, Yungblud, Kelsea Ballerini, Marshmello, and Justin Timberlake. She'll perform at Dos Equis Pavilion.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Beethoven X Beyoncé"
Composer/conductor Steve Hackman will present a new blend of pop/R&B’s queen and classical music’s king as Beyoncé’s iconic repertoire is interwoven with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The symphonic world’s most joyful celebration of dance becomes the backdrop to 15 of Beyoncé’s chart-topping hits, including “Girls,” “Crazy in Love,” “Single Ladies,” “Sorry,” “Halo,” “Cuff It,” and “Texas Hold ‘Em” in the innovative new musical fusion. The concert takes place at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Professional Bull Riders World Finals: Championship
Professional Bull Riders will present the climatic end of the battle for the 2025 PBR World Championship. Following four rounds of competition, the bull rider with the most world points will be crowned the World Champion, earning the $1 million bonus, and coveted gold buckle. The competition takes place on Saturday and Sunday at AT&T Stadium.

Photo by Jason Anderson/Pendleton Photography

The Firehouse Theatre presents The Wedding Singer through June 1.

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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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