Weekend Event Planner

Hadestown jazzes up the 13 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Performing arts will once again dominate the slate of events in and around Dallas this weekend, with five theater productions, two comedians, a chamber opera, a full-scale opera, and a dance production. There will also be two different festivals and a concert to celebrate a historic music venue.

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, February 27

Dallas Theater Center presents Primary Trust
Kenneth lives in a small town in upstate New York. For 15 years his life has been the same: by day, he works at a bookstore, in the evening, he drinks mai tais with his friend Bert. When the bookstore shuts down, Kenneth is forced out of his comfort zone to face a world he has long avoided - with transformative and heartwarming results. Performances of Primary Trust, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, run through March 23 at Bryant Hall in the Kalita Humphreys Theater complex.

Undermain Theatre presents Box
Part magic show, part historical speculation, part romantic drama, Box explores the harrowing story of Henry Box Brown, the abolitionist lecturer and early magician who escaped slavery by mailing himself to freedom and went on to become a famed magician on the London stage. Using actual magic, the world premiere imagines an unwritten chapter in the story of one of history’s most overlooked folk heroes. The production runs through March 24 at Undermain Theatre.

Broadway Dallas presents Hadestown
Hadestown intertwines two mythic tales - that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone - as it invites the audience on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. Singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell’s beguiling melodies and director Rachel Chavkin’s poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith, and fear against love. The national tour of the jazzy Tony Award-winning musical runs through Sunday at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Live With Jake Shane
Jake Shane is an influencer and comedian who became well-known for his viral TikTok videos featuring humorous re-enactments of historical events. In 2023, he was nominated for a Streamy Award and appeared on TikTok's inaugural LGBTQ+ Pride Visionary Voices List and on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. He'll perform at Majestic Theatre.

Friday, February 28

North Texas Irish Festival
The North Texas Irish Festival celebrates the best in music, dance, food and spirits, storytelling, art, and more originating in the Emerald Isle. The festival features 10 stages of live music, Irish step dancing, chef demonstrations and more. Guests will also enjoy beer and whiskey tastings, shopping, horse shows, sheepherding demonstrations, animal rescue groups, child-friendly entertainment, and arts and crafts for the kids. The festival takes place through Sunday at Fair Park.

Verdigris Ensemble presents Song From The Uproar: The Lives And Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt
In Song From The Uproar: The Lives And Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, composer Missy Mazzoli brings to life the remarkable journey of Isabelle Eberhardt, a Swiss explorer who abandoned European privilege to roam the Sahara as a Sufi mystic. Through a blend of live instruments and electronics, the chamber opera illuminates the tensions between opposing forces - man and woman, water and sand, Europe and Africa. The production will have three performances through Sunday at Theatre Three.

The Dallas Opera presents La bohème
Hungry, cold, broke, and deliriously in love, the artists in Puccini’s masterpiece La bohème break hearts over and over again each time it is performed, with pulses quickening as Rodolfo lights Mimì’s candle anew. The Dallas Opera’s period production returns with a fresh cast of some of opera’s brightest rising stars, transporting audiences to the cafés and corridors of Paris’s Latin Quarter as tragedy hovers nearby. The production will have five performances through March 9 at Winspear Opera House.

Teatro Dallas presents Nuevo Mundo (A New Directors Festival)
The final weekend of Teatro Dallas' Nuevo Mundo, a festival that incubates new directors and playwrights, will feature a semi-devised premiere piece called In the Beginning, created by Gerald Taylor II under the mentorship of Lauren Leblanc. In a world where everything feels like it is ending, sometimes the answer lies at the start. The production, an exploration of several creation myths from around the world told by four storytellers, will have three performances through Sunday at Latino Cultural Center.

Texas Ballet Theater presents International Woman
In a celebration of female creativity and choreography, Texas Ballet Theater presents International Woman, an evening dedicated entirely to works by female choreographers. Highlights include Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Shibuya Blues, an exploration of modern life and dance; Lamentation Variations, inspired by Martha Graham's elegy in movement; Martha Graham’s whimsical Maple Leaf Rag; and Natalie Weir’s vibrant Jabula, a celebration of motion and dance through the music of Hans Zimmer’s The Power of One. There will be four performances through Sunday at Wyly Theatre.

Majestic Theatre presents Luenell
Luenell is a force of nature best known for her role as the “hooker with the heart of gold” in Borat. She's also appeared in feature films like I Hate You Dad with Adam Sandler and Leighton Meester and Think Like a Man with Arielle Kebell and Meagan Good, as well as TV shows like The Middle and Always Sunny In Philadelphia. She'll perform for one night only at Majestic Theatre.

Saturday, March 1

Kitchen Dog Theater presents New Works Festival Staged Reading Series: Bad Books
When a troubled teen is given a controversial book, his mother visits the local library to discuss “appropriate” reading material with the librarian. However, their reasonable discussion quickly turns into a heated confrontation, sparking a dramatic chain reaction of unexpected consequences. With both heartbreak and humor, playwright Sharyn Rothstein offers compassion and empathy as an antidote to the deep debates that divide us. Part of Kitchen Dog Theater's Staged Reading Series, the production will be at Kitchen Dog Theater's new location in Expo Park.

City of Carrollton presents TEXFest
The 10th annual TEXFest is a celebration of Texas Independence Day. The Texas-sized festival features craft beer, good grub, and local artists performing Texas music. Visitors can ride on a mechanical bull, participate in two-stepping and lawn games, and more. The festival takes place in Historic Downtown Carrollton.

Sunday, March 2

Longhorn Jubilee featuring Toadies
To celebrate Longhorn Ballroom’s 75th anniversary, the venue will host a series of events to honor the iconic room's past, present, and future. Dubbed the Longhorn Jubilee, the all-genre-encompassing events will unfold both inside the Ballroom and outside in the Courtyard combining music with food trucks, local vendors, brand activations, and more. The inaugural event takes on Texas Independence Day, featuring performances by Toadies, The Band of Heathens, Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys, and more.

Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

Hadestown will play at the Music Hall at Fair Park through March 2.

theater music comedy festivals opera dance kids families concerts event-planner

Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

---

Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

movies film