Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Theater, comedy, and music events will compete for attention across Dallas this weekend. Choices will include three local theater productions, five concerts with music from a variety of genres, three well-known comedians, and wrestling in a baseball stadium.

Photo courtesy of Ashanti

R&B Summer Groove featuring Ashanti will be at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie on July 12.

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, July 10

Second Thought Theatre presents Your Wife’s Dead Body
Your Wife’s Dead Body is a play about a sci-fi experiment that takes place in the near future, as Jane takes advantage of a new AI technology that would extend her lifespan ... even if she's not around to see it for herself. A play about relationships, the nature of self, and what may or may not remain of us when we leave this life behind, the story asks audiences to consider the new and difficult questions humans may face as new technologies emerge. The production, making its world premiere, runs through July 26 at Second Thought Theatre.

Hombres G and Enanitos Verdes in concert
Spanish pop rock band Hombres G and Argentine rock band Enanitos Verdes come to Dallas as part of their Huevos Revueltos co-headlining tour. Hombres G are touring in support of their new album, Porque No Ser Amigos?, while Enanitos Verdes has released 15 albums in their career, most recently Tic Tac in 2013. They'll play at American Airlines Center.

Friday, July 11

Dallas Children's Theater presents Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella
Dallas Children's Theater will present a youth edition of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, a charming, timeless musical that brings the beloved fairy tale to life with whimsical characters and memorable songs like “In My Own Little Corner” and “Impossible.” The production runs through July 20 at Dallas Children's Theater.

Theatre Denton presents Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the charming adaptation of Roald Dahl’s whimsical story of five lucky “golden ticket” winners who are admitted into a mysterious chocolate factory. It features songs like “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” “Oompa Loompa Song,” and “Pure Imagination.” The production runs through July 27 at Theatre Denton.

Improv Addison presents Tommy Davidson
Tommy Davidson’s range, from stand-up comedy and acting to music accomplishments, have earned him a reputation as an extraordinary performer. Best known as one of the stars of the hit television show In Living Color, his visibility has allowed him to become a household name known for his innovative talent. He'll perform five times through Sunday at Improv Addison.

Improv Arlington presents Jay Pharoah
Jay Pharoah is an actor and stand-up comedian who is best known for his wide array of uncanny celebrity impressions, including President Barack Obama, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Stephen A. Smith, Kanye West, and Chris Tucker, all of which he showcased during his stint on Saturday Night Live. He'll perform five times through Sunday at Improv Arlington.

Hyena's presents The Sklar Brothers
Randy and Jason Sklar, aka The Sklar Brothers, are a post-modern take on a stand-up comedy duo. They have released six comedy albums, have had two Comedy Central Half Hour Presents specials, and currently have a one hour stand up special on Netflix, What Are We Talking About, and another one hour special that premiered on Starz, Hipster Ghosts. They'll perform twice on Friday at Hyena's Comedy Nightclub.

Saturday, July 12

All Elite Wrestling presents AEW All In: Texas
AEW: All in Texas is All Elite Wrestling's first time holding a pay-per-view event in Texas. The pro wrestling showcase will be the final piece of a 10-day blitz by AEW around the Dallas area, which will include a special promo giveaway at the July 2 Texas Rangers game, two wrestling events in Garland, and a special karaoke night. AEW's biggest stars will face off in the main event on Saturday at Globe Life Field in Arlington.

Slightly Stoopid in concert
Reggae rock is a subgenre dating back to the 1970s that has gone up and down in popularity through the years, with everyone from The Police, No Doubt, and 311 falling under its label. One of the bands currently playing that type of music is Slightly Stoopid, which has ruled Billboard's Independent chart since 2007, with each of its past five albums - most recently Everyday Life, Everyday People in 2018 - making the top 10. They'll play at The Pavilion At Toyota Music Factory, joined by Iration and A Little Stranger.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Disney '80s-'90s Celebration in Concert
Disney '80s-'90s Celebration in Concert features the best Disney and Pixar hits from two iconic decades. Broadway-star vocalists flashback through a defining generation of music, including fan-favorite moments from Hercules, A Goofy Movie, Toy Story, The Little Mermaid, Newsies, Aladdin, Tarzan, The Lion King, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, The Disney Afternoon, and more. The concert takes place at Winspear Opera House.

R&B Summer Groove featuring Ashanti
It'll be a night of heaven for R&B fans at R&B Summer Groove, headlined by one of the genre's queens, Ashanti. The singer burst out in the early 2000s with a slew of top 10 hits from her first two albums, including the No. 1 "Foolish." She'll be joined by the group Dru Hill, whose last release was InDRUpendence Day in 2010, and Mario, who released Glad You Came in 2024. The concert takes place at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie.

Sunday, July 13

Basically Beethoven Festival
The Basically Beethoven Festival is a three-week event that includes chamber music concerts featuring many of Dallas’ top professional musicians as well as pre-professional rising stars. The first event, titled "Preludes," will have pianist Liudmila Georgievskaya as the featured performer, as well as SMU Meadows School of the Arts Music Division MFA students as its rising stars. The festival takes place every Sunday through July 27 at Moody Performance Hall.

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Movie Review

Remake of Schwarzenegger classic The Running Man stumbles

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Glen Powell in The Running Man.

For all its cheesy ‘80s greatness, the original version of The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was a very loose adaptation of the novel by Stephen King. For the new remake, writer/director Edgar Wright has tried to hue much closer to the story laid out in the book, a decision that has both its positive and negative aspects.

Glen Powell takes over for Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a family man/hothead who can’t seem to hold a job in the dystopian America in which he lives. Desperate to take care of his family, he applies to be on one of the many game shows fed to the masses that promise riches in exchange for humiliation or worse. Thanks to his temper, Ben is chosen for the most popular one of all, The Running Man, in which contestants must survive 30 days while hunters, as well as the general population, track them down.

Given a 12-hour head start, Ben earns money for every day he survives, as well as every hunter he eliminates. Since he only has a relatively small amount of money to use as he pleases, Ben must rely on friendly citizens who are willing to put their own lives on the line to help him. That’s a task made even more difficult as the gamemakers, led by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), use advanced AI to manipulate footage of Ben to make him seem like a guy for which no one should root.

Co-written by Michael Bacall, the film is shockingly uninteresting, working neither as an exciting action film, a fun quippy comedy, or social commentary. The biggest problem is that Wright seems to have no interest in developing any of his characters, starting with Ben. Our introduction to the protagonist is him trying to get his job back, a situation for which there is little context even after we’re beaten over the head with exposition.

The situation in which Ben finds himself should be easy to make sympathetic, but Wright and Bacall speed through scenes that might have emphasized that aspect in favor of ones that make the story less personal. The filmmakers really want to showcase the supposed antagonistic relationship between Ben and Dan (and the system which Dan represents), but all that effort results in little drama.

Ben has a number of close calls, and while those scenes are full of action and violence, almost every one of them feels emotionally inert, as if there was nothing at stake. It doesn’t help that Wright doesn’t set the scene well, making it unclear how far Ben has traveled or who/what he’s up against. There are times when Ben feels surrounded and others when he can walk freely, weird for a society that’s supposed to be under almost complete surveillance.

Powell has been touted as a movie star in the making for several years following his turn in Top Gun: Maverick, but he does little here to make that label stick. With no consistent co-star thanks to the structure of the story, he’s required to carry the film, and he just doesn’t have the juice that a true movie star is supposed to have. Nobody else is served well by the scattershot film, including normally reliable people like Brolin, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, and Lee Pace.

The Running Man is a big misfire by Wright and a blow to Powell’s star power. On the surface, it has all the hallmarks of an action thriller with a side of social commentary, but nothing it does or says lands in any meaningful way. Schwarzenegger’s one-liners in the original film may have been goofy and over-the-top, but at least they made the movie memorable, which is way more than can be said of the remake.

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The Running Man opens in theaters on November 14.

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