Weekend Event Planner

These are the 11 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Theater fans will have plenty to choose from across Dallas this weekend, including a theater festival, the national tour of a Tony Award-winning play, and four local productions. Other choices include two concerts, two comedians, and a unique collaboration between two local arts groups.

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 7

SheDFW Theater Festival
SheDFW Arts will present the second annual SheDFW Theater Festival, which is dedicated to amplifying the voices of women, trans, and non-binary playwrights and theater artists from Texas and the central U.S. The festival, taking place through Sunday at the Studio Theatre on the UT Arlington campus, will showcase four new productions, including two musicals and two plays.

The Firehouse Theatre presents Rock of Ages
Set in the late 1980s on Hollywood's iconic Sunset Strip, Rock of Ages tells the story of aspiring rock star Drew and small-town girl Sherri. As they chase their dreams at one of the Strip's last legendary venues, German developers threaten to turn the area into a strip mall. Can they save the Strip with the power of rock 'n' roll? The jukebox musical features hits from Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, and more. The production runs through August 24 at The Firehouse Theatre in Farmers Branch.

Broadway Dallas presents Life of Pi
After a shipwreck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a 16-year-old boy named Pi survives on a lifeboat with four companions - a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Royal Bengal tiger. Told with jaw-dropping visuals, world class puppetry, and exquisite stagecraft, Life of Pi creates a breathtaking journey that will leave audiences filled with awe and joy. The production runs through August 17 at Winspear Opera House.

Teddy Swims in concert
The journey toward success for singers can sometimes be long and twisting. Many might think that Teddy Swims came out of nowhere with his 2023 No. 1 hit "Lose Control," but that song came after four years of releasing music that for some reason didn't grab the public's attention. He doesn't have that problem now as his second album, I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2), went to No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and he'll headline this concert at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving.

Friday, August 8

Theatre Arlington presents I’m Proud of You
Fred Rogers (aka Mr. Rogers) died over 20 years ago, but his legacy has lived on thanks to Fort Worth author Tim Madigan’s 2012 book, I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers; the 2018 documentary, Won't You Be My Neighbor?; and the 2019 feature film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Madigan's book was turned into a play which made its world premiere at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth in 2023. The production, running through August 24 at Theatre Arlington, chronicles male friendship at its finest and most powerful.

Improv Addison presents Bobby Lee
Bobby Lee is a Los Angeles-based comedian, actor, and podcaster. Recent roles include guest spots on Magnum, P.I., Reservation Dogs, and And Just Like That. He co-hosts the podcast Tigerbelly with his best friend, Khalyla, and Bad Friends with Andrew Santino. He'll perform five times through Sunday at Improv Addison.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents Be My Baby
John, an irascible Scotsman, and an uptight English woman, Maude, are brought together when his ward marries her niece. When the young couple decides to adopt a newborn baby, the older couple has to travel 6,000 miles to California to pick up the child. The problem is, John and Maude despise each other. But when they get stranded in San Francisco and have to jointly care for the helpless newborn, they form a new partnership and learn some startling lessons about life and love. The production runs through August 31 at Richardson Theatre Centre.

Theatre Coppell presents The Trip to Bountiful
The Trip to Bountiful is a moving play that tells the story of Carrie Watts, an elderly woman, who longs to escape the cramped Houston apartment where she lives with her protective son, Ludie, and her authoritarian daughter-in-law, Jessie Mae. Carrie wants to return to her beloved hometown of Bountiful, Texas, one final time before she dies. It’s the journey - and performance - of a lifetime. The production runs through August 24 at Coppell Arts Center.

Hyena's presents Jim Norton
Standup comedian Jim Norton is a two-time New York Times bestselling author and can be heard every morning on The Jim Norton & Sam Roberts Show on SiriusXM Satellite Radio. In addition to appearing on shows like Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central), Louie (FX), and Crashing (HBO), Norton has released a number of comedy specials, most recently Unconceivable on YouTube. He'll perform twice on Friday at Hyena's Comedy Nightclub.

Saturday, August 9

Uptown Players & Bruce Wood Dance present Imagine
The creative forces from Uptown Players and Bruce Wood Dance will join together for the first time to present Imagine, an entertaining and yet poignant new performance celebrating love, identity, and the transformative power of song and dance. Blending the expressive styles of cabaret, contemporary dance, and live music, Imagine offers audiences a moving and multidisciplinary experience that honors the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. The production will be at Kalita Humphreys Theater on Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday, August 10

Xdinary Heroes in concert
K-Pop bands are all the rage the past few years, but what about K-Rock? The band Xdinary Heroes is hoping to lead that charge. They formed in 2021, releasing a series of EPs prior to their 2024 debut album, Troubleshooting. Their most recent release is the 2025 EP Beautiful Mind. They'll play at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving.

Photo by Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman

The national tour of Life of Pi will be at Winspear Opera House through August 17.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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