Weekend Event Planner

These are the 9 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

With kids going back to school and the oppressive heat bearing down on us, the slate of events across Dallas is a little slower than usual this week. Choices include four well-known comedians, two new local theater productions, two concerts by long-tenured bands, and the final days of a notable art exhibition.

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, August 21

Majestic Theatre presents Marcello Hernández
Marcello Hernández is a Cuban/Dominican stand-up comedian, writer, and actor who's currently a featured player on Saturday Night Live, becoming popular for his recurring character, Domingo. Doing stand-up since he was 18 years old in 2016, he has opened for headliners such as Tim Dillon, Jim Breuer, Mark Viera, Gilbert Gottfried, and more. He'll perform for one night only at Majestic Theatre.

Urban Arts Collective presents The Color Purple
The Color Purple is the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (and the popular 1985 Steven Spielberg film). It spotlights Celie, a downtrodden young woman whose personal awakening over the course of 40 years forms the arc of this epic story. With a joyous score featuring jazz, ragtime, gospel, African music and blues, The Color Purple is a story of hope, a testament to the healing power of love, and a celebration of life. The production runs through August 31 at Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Improv Addison presents Marlon Wayans
Actor, producer, comedian, writer, and director Marlon Wayans has had an enviably long career, with much of it thanks to collaborations with other members of the Wayans family. He premiered his first-ever comedy special, Woke-ish, on Netflix in 2018, hosted a week's worth of shows for The Daily Show in 2023, and had a cameo in the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck movie, Air. He'll perform six times through Sunday at Improv Addison.

Friday, August 22

The Offspring in concert
Believe it or not, The Offspring recently celebrated their 40th anniversary as a band, having formed in 1984. They released their debut album in 1989, but it wasn't until their third album, Smash, in 1994 that they had their breakthrough thanks to hits like "Come Out and Play" and "Self Esteem." They've gone on to release 11 studio albums, most recently Supercharged in 2024. They'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion, joined by Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Pure Prairie League in concert
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils came to fame as part of the Southern rock boom of the early 1970s. Although the bulk of their discography came out during that decade, they're reunited a couple of times to release new music, most recently Off The Beaten Path in 2018. Like many in their age group, they've decided to hang it up for good with When It Shines, their final tour. They'll play at Winspear Opera House, joined by Pure Prairie League.

Art Centre Theatre presents ACES!
ACES! is about five incredible women who did the impossible - again and again and again and again. It's the true story of five Miss Texas USAs who all became Miss USA from 1985-1989, adding in their fictionalized televised reunion special. The production runs through August 31 at Art Centre Theatre in Plano.

Improv Arlington presents Bill Bellamy
Using his experiences growing up in Newark, Bill Bellamy started doing stand-up while he was a student at Rutgers University. His long comedy career has led to multiple roles in both television and movies, including Love Jones, How to Be a Player, Any Given Sunday, and Insecure. He also hosts the podcast Top Billin’ With Bill Bellamy. He'll perform five times through Sunday at Improv Arlington.

Sunday, August 24

Nasher Sculpture Center presents "Generations: 150 Years of Sculpture" closing day
Sunday will be the final day to view "Generations: 150 Years of Sculpture" at Nasher Sculpture Center. Drawn from the Nasher’s permanent collection, the selection of works features numerous recent acquisitions and offers conversations about the possibilities for sculpture, both past and present. The exhibition features over 50 works of art by 24 artists, with sculptures by Nairy Baghramian, Kevin Beasley, Huma Bhabha, Anthony Caro, Jaume Plensa, Jean Tinguely, and others.

Kurtis Conner: The Goodfellow World Tour
Canadian comedian Kurtis Conner began his career on the now-defunct Vine before transitioning over to YouTube. His long social media presence has led him to get over 5 million subscribers, which has also boosted the audience for his stand-up comedy shows. Also the host of the podcast Very Really Good, Conner will perform for one night only at Majestic Theatre.

Photo courtesy of The Offspring

The Offspring will play at Dos Equis Pavilion on August 22.

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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