Weekend Event Planner

These are the 13 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

January is typically slow when it comes to events, with everyone still recovering from the holiday onslaught. But the end of January/beginning of February changes all that, with offerings including a college football showcase, four theater productions, a symphony concert, three well-known comedians, the openings of two art exhibitions, a big tennis tournament, and a concert featuring classic bands.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, January 30

East-West Shrine Bowl
The college football season is officially over, but fans can get one last look at some of the best players from around the country at the 100th annual East-West Shrine Bowl. The game, taking place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, is a chance for players to showcase their talents as top NFL Draft prospects in front of all 32 NFL teams’ scouts and executives.

Soul Rep Theatre Company presents The African Company Presents Richard III
The African Company Presents Richard III is a historical play inspired by a true story of the first Black theatrical group in the country, the African Grove Company of New York. Forty years before the Civil War, the African Grove Theatre Troupe in New York sets about staging a production of Richard III to which black and white audiences flock. But when a major (and white) New York company scores a big-name star to be featured in their own production of Richard III, they are determined to shut down the African company's show at any cost. The production runs through February 8 at Bryant Hall, next to Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Brahms’ Violin Concerto"
A work of nearly symphonic proportions, Brahms’s Violin Concerto will be performed by master violinist Augustin Hadelich. The concert, conducted by Fabio Luisi, will also feature Bruckner's Symphony No. 7. There will be four performances through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Broadway Dallas presents & Juliet
& Juliet flips the script on the greatest love story ever told and asks: What would happen next if Juliet didn’t end it all over Romeo? Juliet ditches her famous ending for a fresh beginning and a second chance at life and love - her way. Her new story bursts to life through a playlist of pop anthems as iconic as her name, including “Since U Been Gone‚” “Roar,” “Baby One More Time,” “Larger Than Life‚” “That’s The Way It Is," and “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” The national tour runs through February 9 at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Improv Addison presents Craig Robinson
Craig Robinson is an actor, stand-up comedian, and singer who's arguably best known for his role as acerbic Dunder-Mifflin employee Darryl Philbin on NBC’s Emmy-winning The Office. He has also starred in films such as Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, the Hot Tub Time Machine series, and This Is the End. He'll perform six times through Sunday at Improv Addison.

Friday, January 31

Frontiers of Flight Museum presents "Aerials" opening day
"Aerials" is a curated photo gallery of U.S. military photojournalists’ stories of flight from the Vietnam era to modern day. The exhibition is not just about aerial photography; it celebrates the collective talent and stories of military photographers who have served the country. The exhibition will remain on display at Frontiers of Flight Museum through September 2.

Dallas Theater Center presents Shane
One of the greatest Westerns of all time finds new life on the stage. Shane, a mysterious ex-gunfighter, is a man with a dangerous past. Yet, the Starrett family finds kinship with him, and Shane helps protect their Wyoming farm. Their story sheds new light on the allure, mythos, and values of the Wild West - a chapter in history that still has many tales to tell. The production runs through February 16 at Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Lyric Stage presents Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill
To honor Black History Month, Lyric Stage will present Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. In 1959, in a small, intimate bar in Philadelphia, Billie Holiday puts on a show that - unbeknownst to the audience - will leave them witnesses to one of the last performances of her lifetime. Through her brilliant voice and sometimes haunting songs, one of the greatest jazz singers of all time shares her loves and her losses. The production runs through February 23 at Lyric Stage.

Katt Williams: Heaven on Earth Tour
Stand-up comedian, actor, rapper, and vanguard in an elite category of professionally-touring comics, Katt Williams is known for his insightful, often polarizing material. The once emancipated teenager performs comedy on his own terms, giving an articulate, sharp dialogue that surfaces with names like Trump, Cosby, and NASA, but is rooted in evergreen conversations like politics, race relations, and police brutality - all a mere (and mirror) reflection of the American political landscape. He'll perform at Texas Trust CU Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Saturday, February 1

Nasher Sculpture Center presents Haegue Yang: "Lost Lands and Sunken Fields" opening day
Nasher Sculpture Center will present "Lost Lands and Sunken Fields," a major exhibition by Haegue Yang (b. Seoul, 1971). Across the museum’s spaces, the exhibition features newly conceived airy and sprawling installations and a dense arrangement of her previous sculptures. For this exhibition, Yang explores a series of contrasts in response to the building’s architecture: light and dark, aerial and grounded, buoyant and heavy, sparse and dense. It will remain on display through April 27.

ATP Tour presents Dallas Open
The Dallas Open will move to the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco for the first time. After elevating its status from an ATP 250 to an ATP 500 event, the field for the tournament will be the strongest since its move to North Texas in 2022. That includes four of the top-ranked American tennis players, Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe, and Ben Shelton. Qualifying will take place on Saturday and Sunday, with main draw play starting on Monday and going through February 9.

Sunday, February 2

The Temptations & The Four Tops in concert
Classic Motown bands The Temptations & The Four Tops come to Dallas to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their first concert together. While the lineups of both bands have changed drastically since their heyday - only one original member of The Temptations, 83-year-old Otis Williams, remains, while a new foursome comprises The Four Tops - their songs remain timeless. Fans will hear hits like "My Girl," "I Can't Help Myself," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "Reach Out I'll Be There," and more at Texas Trust CU Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Kumail Nanjiani: Doing This Again
Comedian Kumail Nanjiani has a rich history in comedy, as he's best known for his role on the HBO series Silicon Valley. In recent years, he's appeared in the lead role on Hulu's Welcome to Chippendales and was nominated for an Oscar alongside his wife, Emily V. Gordon, for co-writing The Big Sick. Despite his success on screen, stand-up has always been a true passion. Now, he's ready to bring his sharp observations and unique comedic voice back to live audiences. He'll perform at Majestic Theatre.

Photo by by Matthew Murphy

The national tour of & Juliet will be at the Music Hall at Fair Park through February 9.

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Movie Review

Comedy all-stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd can't save Anaconda sequel

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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