Weekend Event Planner

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

Dallas typically only gets one Broadway tour at a time, but with two premier venues in the city, this Easter weekend will feature a rare double dip. Other choices include three local theater productions, a symphony concert, a stand-up comedy event, a concert celebrating an iconic venue, a beatboxing/popping performance, and a concert featuring the music from a popular anime.

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, as well as a list of places serving Easter brunch.

Thursday, April 17

Soul Rep Theatre Company presents Pretty Fire
Pretty Fire is a one-woman show that explores beautiful, funny, dark, and exhilarating vignettes tracing the life of playwright Charlayne Woodard from a premature birth to a joyous maturity at 11 years old. It is a powerful exploration of three generations of family love, struggle, and triumph. The production will have three performances through Saturday at Latino Cultural Center.

Plague Mask Players presents Alice
Alice by Ara Vito is a movement and storytelling-focused adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, told through the lens of a female playwright and ensemble cast of all female and non-binary performers. The Texas premiere of the new work, which is part of AT&T Performing Arts Center's Elevator Project, runs through April 27 in Wyly Theatre's Studio Theatre.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony"
Inspired by seeing the ruins and moors of Scotland, and especially Mary Queen of Scots’s Holyrood Castle on a walking tour, Mendelssohn created his aptly named Third Symphony. Also, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's principal winds will gather for the world premiere of a concerto commissioned for them from one of the most sought-after American composers, Sean Shepherd. The concert, conducted by Fabio Luisi, will have three performances through Saturday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Broadway Dallas presents Mamma Mia!
Set on a Greek island paradise where the sun always shines, a tale of love, friendship, and identity is told through the timeless hits of ABBA. On the eve of her wedding, a daughter’s quest to discover the father she’s never known brings three men from her mother’s past back to the island they last visited decades ago. The production runs through April 27 at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Broadway at the Center presents Mean Girls
Cady Heron may have grown up on an African savanna, but nothing prepared her for the vicious ways of her strange new home: suburban Illinois. Soon, this naïve newbie falls prey to a trio of lionized frenemies led by the charming but ruthless Regina George. But when Cady devises a plan to end Regina’s reign, she learns the hard way that you can’t cross a Queen Bee without getting stung. The production will have four performances through Saturday at Winspear Opera House.

Friday, April 18

Killers of Kill Tony
Killers of Kill Tony is a standup comedy lineup featuring regulars and fan-favorites from the podcast Kill Tony. Building upon the success and energy of the original podcast, Killers of Kill Tony showcases the diverse talent pool of comedians and their wit, humor, and unique comedic styles. Performers will include Kam Patterson, Ari Matti, David Lucas, and Martin Phillips. There will be two performances at Majestic Theatre.

Saturday, April 19

Dallas Children's Theater presents James and the Giant Peach
Based on the novel by Roald Dahl, young James Henry Trotter's resilience is tested when he is sent off to live with his mean aunts, Spiker and Sponge, after a chain of unfortunate incidents. Life is no fun there until he accidentally spills some tiny green things on a tree, and … voilà, a giant peach. When James and his new oversized friends - Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybug, Earthworm, and Spider - snip the stem of the peach, the quest for happiness and great adventure lands them in New York City and at the center of attention. The production runs through May 24 at Dallas Children's Theater.

Longhorn Jubilee featuring St. Paul & the Broken Bones
To celebrate Longhorn Ballroom’s 75th anniversary, the venue is hosting a series of events to honor the iconic room's past, present, and future. Dubbed the Longhorn Jubilee, the all-genre-encompassing event will unfold both inside the Ballroom and outside in the Courtyard combining music with food trucks, local vendors, and more. This event will feature performances by Saint Paul & The Broken Bones, Abraham Alexander, The Suffers, and more.

Eisemann Center presents Beatbox Meets Popping featuring Amirah Sackett & Mr MiC
An internationally recognized hip-hop dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Amirah Sackett explores and embodies her Muslim American identity through combining hip-hop movement and Islamic themes. She is widely known for her creation of the choreography and performance group known as We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic. The performance takes place at Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson.

Sunday, April 20

Attack on Titan: Beyond the Walls World Tour
Attack on Titan: Beyond the Walls World Tour is a celebration of music and anime, a concert experience that features a fusion of rock and orchestral music, vocal performances, and visuals that transports the audience straight into the heart of the universe of the anime series Attack on Titan. The concert will be performed by rock musicians joined by a symphonic orchestra, accompanied by synchronized scenes from the anime series. It takes place at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie.

Photo by Gabrielle Mannino

Eisemann Center presents Beatbox Meets Popping featuring Amirah Sackett & Mr MiC on April 18.

theater music concerts symphony comedy dance event-planner

Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

---

Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

movies film