Weekend Event Planner

These are the 14 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

It'll be a big festival weekend in and around Dallas, with two film festivals, a music/barbecue festival, and a sesquicentennial celebration of a Dallas suburb. Other choices include two concerts, a national tour of a Broadway musical, two local theater productions, three dance productions, a comedian, and a unique symphonic concert.

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

Thursday, April 23

Tyler Childers in concert
Country singer Tyler Childers, who is celebrating the 15th anniversary of his 2011 debut album, Bottles and Bibles, has slowly grown into a consistently popular artist in the genre. After a slow start to his career, his last three albums — including Snipe Hunter in 2025 — have each made the top 5 on Billboard's Country chart and top 10 on the overall Billboard 200. He'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion, joined by Scott T. Smith and Robert Earl Keen.

USA Film Festival
The 2026 edition of the USA Film Festival will feature 23 separate programs, including narrative feature films, documentaries, and short films. Highlights of the five-day event, taking place through Sunday at Angelika Film Center in Dallas, will include a salute to filmmaker Renny Harlin alongside a screening of his latest film, Deep Water; a 75th Anniversary screening of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train;a salute to actor Lesley Ann Warren, alongside a screening of her new short film, Olive; and more.

Dallas International Film Festival
The 20th edition of the annual Dallas International Film Festival will include more than 120 screenings, filmmaker Q&As, panels, nightly red carpets, and special events. Highlights include Cookie Queens, a documentary about Girl Scout Cookie season executive produced by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry; Poetic License, the directorial debut of Maude Apatow; Power Ballad, the latest film from writer/director John Carney starring Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas; a retrospective screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; and more. The festival runs through April 30, with most screenings taking place at Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas Victory Park.

Broadway at the Center presents Kinky Boots
In Kinky Boots, Charlie Price reluctantly inherits his father’s shoe factory, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. Trying to live up to his father’s legacy and save his family business, Charlie finds inspiration in the form of Lola, a fabulous entertainer in need of some sturdy stilettos. As Charlie and Lola work together to turn the factory around, this unlikely pair finds that they have more in common than they realized … and discovers that you change the world when you change your mind. There will be four performances through Saturday at Winspear Opera House.

Friday, April 24

Lone Star Smokeout
Country music stars Riley Green, Koe Wetzel, and Shaboozey will headline the second annual Lone Star Smokeout, which will feature almost 20 music performances over three days. A roster of more than a dozen world-class barbecue pitmaster teams from Texas and across America will serve up great 'cue, and there will also be a Sunday barbecue brunch. The event takes place through Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Sundown Collaborative Theatre presents The Great Impresario Boris Lermantov Would Like to Invite You to Dinner
Inspired by the iconic 1948 film The Red Shoes, The Great Impresario Boris Lermantov Would Like to Invite You to Dinner examines the inherent corruption of power, specifically in art leadership, and dives headfirst into the intoxicating, unsettling question at the heart of artistic ambition: does great art require great suffering? And if so … who pays the price? The production runs through May 3 at Golden Triangle Mall in Denton.

Garland Civic Theatre presents Drinking Habits
Accusations, mistaken identities, and romances run wild in the traditional, laugh-out-loud farce, Drinking Habits. Two nuns at the Sisters of Perpetual Sewing have been secretly making wine to keep the convent's doors open, but Paul and Sally, reporters and former fiancées, are hot on their trail. They go undercover as a nun and priest, but their presence, combined with the addition of a new nun, spurs paranoia throughout the convent. The production runs through May 3 at Granville Arts Center in Garland.

Bombshell Dance Project presents West
West offers an opportunity to step into another world and follow an eclectic cast of characters through the frontier as audiences try to untangle the good guys from the bad. Bombshell Dance Project is a contemporary dance theater company driven by collaboration and committed to redefining the audience experience through fresh formats and familiar stories that bring audiences closer to dance. There will be performances on Friday and Saturday at Sons of Hermann Hall in Dallas.

Nimesh Patel: With All Due Respect
Nimesh Patel is a comedian and Emmy-nominated writer based in New York City who was a writer on NBC’s late night show, A Little Late with Lilly Singh. In standup, he is a regular at New York’s famed Comedy Cellar, has appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and has opened for Chris Rock and Aziz Ansari. He'll perform at Majestic Theatre.

Saturday, April 25

Ballet Ensemble of Texas presents Celebration of Dance
In honor of their 25th anniversary in Coppell, Ballet Ensemble of Texas will move its annual Celebration of Dance to the Coppell Arts Center, featuring a performance of Cinderella. Following the 6 pm performance on Saturday will be a special Cinderella Ball with a silent auction and a champagne toast. There will be three performances through Sunday.

Avant Chamber Ballet presents Carnival of the Animals
Avant Chamber Ballet's Carnival of the Animals is a family-friendly performance that features Saint-Saëns’ orchestral suite Carnival of the Animals, choreographed by Katie Puder and featuring a live orchestra. The performance takes place at Moody Performance Hall.

City of Allen presents Allen 150 Fest
Allen 150 Fest is a one-day celebration packed with live music, food, local art, fun activities, and a few surprises, all honoring 150 years of heart, history, and community spirit in the city of Allen. There will be a parade along Main Street, carnival games, a car show, vendor and sponsor booths, a performance by Emerald City Band, a drone show, and more. The event takes place in downtown Allen, with shuttle buses running from the nearby Allen ISD football stadium.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Steve Hackman: Stravinsky x Kendrick Lamar
Musical polymath and creative visionary Steve Hackman returns to Dallas with his latest orchestral fusion, Igor Damn Stravinsky. The concert combines Stravinsky’s whimsical 1911 ballet Petrouchka with Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album. Damn. The DSO’s Young Professionals group will keep the night going with the YPX after-party experience following the special concert. The event takes place at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Sunday, April 26

Il Volo in concert
Italian operatic pop trio Il Volo, who call their style "popera," have won fans all over the world thanks to their unique performances. Their versions of "O Sole Mio" and "Grande Amore" reached the top of the classical charts in the United States, and four of their albums have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Classical charts. They have released 12 albums in their career, most recently Ad Astra // Ad Astra International in 2024. They'll perform at Winspear Opera House.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

The national tour of Kinky Boots will be at Winspear Opera House through April 25.

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Movie Review

Spanish film La Bola Negra showcases unique slice of gay history

Photo by Carla Oset/Netflix

Miguel Bernardeau and Guitarricadelafuente in La Bola Negra.

For a long time — too long — gay characters in movies tended to appear as either side characters with no real stories or as tragic figures who were usually unable to express their true selves for fear of what the world at large would think. That has changed in recent years, but the remnants of the past can still haunt, as the new film La Bola Negra demonstrates.

The film takes shape in storylines involving three different men: Carlos (Milo Quifes), a young man in Granada, Spain in 1932 who wants to join an exclusive casino (aka social club); Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), who unwillingly joins the military during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, only to have desires aroused in him when he’s asked to guard an enemy detainee; and Alberto (Carlos González), an out gay man in 2017 whose inheritance from his recently-deceased grandfather opens up a world he knew nothing about.

The film goes back and forth between each man, detailing how they handle their individual situations and the complications that arise in their individual lives. Along the way their stories are deepened through people they meet who either welcome them with open arms or shun them for various reasons. While tragedy bonds their stories, so too does hope, resistance, and love.

Co-director/co-writers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, along with co-writer Alberto Conejero, have expanded Conejero’s play, La Piedra Oscura, which was inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca’s unfinished play, La Bola Negra. Lorca, who was killed during the Spanish Civil War, had only finished four pages of the work, his first to feature an openly gay protagonist. It’s clear there’s a desire by the filmmakers to honor the legacy of Lorca as both a playwright and a gay man, and the seriousness of their pursuit is evident throughout the film’s 160 minutes.

Calvo and Ambrossi do little handholding to guide viewers through the three distinct stories, an approach that mostly works but occasionally leads to confusion, especially as more characters are added to the equation. None of the stories are overly complicated, but they take their time with each, making the long film feel even longer. Only Alberto’s story contains any kind of development that might be considered surprising, making it tough to fully engage with the other two.

Where the film does come alive is when it brings in two well-known actors for brief-but-fascinating stints. Penélope Cruz plays Nené Romero, a singer who entertains the troops and further expands Sebastián’s mind. Glenn Close pops up as Isabelle Durand, a scholar of Lorca who helps Alberto with a unique discovery he makes in his inheritance. Both actors bring up the level of the film significantly through their performances.

Quifes, Guitarricadelafuente (the stage name of Spanish singer Álvaro Lafuente Calvo, no relation to Javier), and González all put in good work in their roles, even if none are overly engaging. They are often overshadowed by supporting actors like Cruz and Close, as well as Miguel Bernardeau as Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the captured soldier; Julio Torres as Alberto’s partner, and Alberto Cortés as Lorca, who brings a symmetry to the film as a whole.

La Bola Negra — which means “the black ball,” represented both literally and figuratively in the film — is an ambitious film that becomes a slight victim of its filmmakers’ aspirations. Although each of the three stories contain interesting elements, a strong emotional connection is lacking overall despite good-to-great performances.

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La Bola Negra is now playing in select theaters; it debuts on Netflix on December 2.

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