Weekend Event Planner

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

The weekend before Labor Day is a little slower than normal for events in and around Dallas, but there are still some fun things to do and see. They include a great comedian, a Harry Potter film backed by a live symphony, a music festival, a concert featuring a hot country duo, two local theater productions, a dinosaur exhibition, a big plant conference, and a violinist who plays way more than classical music.

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, August 29

Addison Improv presents Maria Bamford
Maria Bamford is revered for her deeply personal and experimental comedy about mental illness. She starred in the Netflix series, Lady Dynamite, about a comedian who suffers a nervous breakdown, and is the star of three unconventional hour-long stand-up specials. She also created and starred in the cult hit web series, The Maria Bamford Show, in which she plays all the characters. She'll perform the second of a two-night stay at The Addison Improv.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Concert
Harry Potter is having a moment in Dallas. The Triwizard Tournament comes to Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Concert. Audiences can relive the magic of Potter soaring across the big screen in high-definition and experience the music of a live symphony orchestra performing Patrick Doyle’s score. There will be four performances through Sunday at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Friday, August 30

The Black Academy of Arts and Letters presents 7th Riverfront Jazz Festival
The 7th Annual Riverfront Jazz Festival will feature a lineup of performers spanning the gamut from jazz to pop, soul, R&B, blues, and neo-soul music. Performers on the two main stages will include CeeLo Green, Jeffrey Osborne, Cassandra Wilson, Ginuwine, Sheila E., Ruben Studdard, Patrice Rushen, and more. There will also be a stage featuring promising young artists. The festival will take place through Sunday at The Black Academy of Arts and Letters.

Dan + Shay in concert
Since their debut album came out in 2014, country duo Dan + Shay have been consistent chart toppers with both their albums and songs. All five of their albums made it to the top 10 on the Billboard Country chart, and among their many top 10 hits have been three that went to No. 1, most recently "Speechless" in 2018. After recently serving as coaches on NBC's The Voice, they'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion, joined by Jake Owen and Dylan Marlowe.

North Texas Performing Arts presents The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Based on Charles Dickens’ final unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a hilarious whodunit that invites the audience to solve its mystery by choosing the identity of the murderer. The tale is presented as a show-within-a-show, as the Music Hall Royale, a loony Victorian theatre company, presents Dickens’ brooding mystery. The production runs through September 7 at Courtyard Theater in Plano.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents Nobody's Perfect
Harriet is a feminist publisher with a penchant for unsuitable men friends. Leonard is a stuttering statistician whose wife has walked out on him. Their lives become intertwined when Leonard submits his manuscript to Harriet's publishing house under the nom de plume of Myrtle Banbury. She offers Myrtle £15,000 to publish the book, and in order to get his hands on the cash Leonard has to keep up the pretense of being a woman. The stage is thus set for a series of comic encounters and misunderstandings. The production runs through September 15 at Richardson Theatre Centre.

Saturday, August 31

Jayne Drooger Images

Soul Violinist Omari Dillard will play at Wyly Theatre on August 31.

Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary presents Dinosaurs Live! opening day
Dinosaurs Live! is an annual exhibit that brings the ancient creatures back to life, allowing visitors to travel back in time along a half-mile nature trail with 10 life-size animatronic dinosaurs. The exhibit offers interesting facts about both herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs, and children can play on stationary baby dinosaurs or participate in an outdoor fossil dig. The exhibition will remain on display at Heard Natural Science Museum in McKinney through February 19, 2025.

PlantCon International Dallas
PlantCon Dallas is an all-inclusive plant experience where visitors can experience workshops, presentations, community building, and more. Guests can purchase products from internationally known plant exhibitors, and partake in workshops from field experts from around the globe. The event takes place through Sunday at Marriott Dallas Allen Hotel & Convention Center.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Omari Dillard: Soul Violinist
Classically trained and culturally inspired, Omari Dillard has over 30 years experience making the violin "speak," covering artists like Prince, Mary J. Blige, Luther Vandross, SWV, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and more. The soul violinist will play at Wyly Theatre in support of his new album, Sincerely, Omari.

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Movie Review

Ryan Gosling tries to save the universe in Project Hail Mary

Photo by Jonathan Olley

Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary

The reasons behind the success of 2015’s The Martian, which earned over $630 million worldwide and got nominated for seven Oscars, had as much to do with the novel written by Andy Weir as it did with star Matt Damon and director Ridley Scott. Weir’s commitment to making an entertaining story that was also scientifically accurate proved to be easy to translate into a blockbuster movie.

The same is true for Weir’s 2021 novel, Project Hail Mary, now a film starring Ryan Gosling. Gosling plays Dr. Ryland Grace, who opens the film waking up from an induced coma, alone on an interstellar spaceship named the Hail Mary. As his foggy mind clears, he - and the audience - learn that he was recruited to help an initiative to save the world after it’s discovered that a mysterious phenomenon is causing the sun to cool down, threatening all life on Earth.

The film toggles back and forth between Grace’s time on the ship and his whirlwind journey of scientific discovery on Earth, with revelations coming on both sides. On Earth, he mostly deals with Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), the unflappable and unstoppable leader of the international coalition dedicated to solving the problem. And in space, orbiting the far-off star known as Tau Ceti, he encounters another being he names Rocky, a five-limbed creature that looks like a boulder which teams up with him to try to save both of their worlds.

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and written by Drew Goddard (who also wrote The Martian), the film melds multiple genres into an astonishingly great whole. It starts off as a mystery, morphs into science fiction, transitions into actual science, becomes a thriller, adds in plenty of drama, and - for good measure - features plenty of comedy along the way. Shifting tones like this film does is tricky for many filmmakers, but Lord and Miller prove to be masterful at knowing just how much of each to include before it becomes too much.

One of the biggest keys to the story is the fact that Grace is not a hero in the movie sense of the word. He’s very smart, but he’s also an everyman, teaching middle school science after being shunned from academia. The circumstances of how he ended up on the Hail Mary are doled out in pieces over the course of the film, but it’s clear from the start that Grace’s talents are not the ones found in your typical astronaut. Ironically, it’s him being forced to do heroic stuff that imbues him with an atypical type of bravery.

The relationship between Grace and Rocky is unique, and Rocky ends up being as endearing an alien that’s been featured in movies despite the fact that he has no face and speaks only in musical tones. The film does a very effective job of putting the audience in Grace’s shoes, having to figure out ways to communicate with Rocky at the same time as he’s trying to figure out how to complete a mission he wasn’t trained to do.

Gosling is the ideal actor to portray a man like Grace. Essentially alone for much of the film, his innate charm and humorous delivery keep the film from feeling like an extended monologue. The flashback scenes to his time on Earth feature solid performances from people like Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall), Lionel Boyce (The Bear), and more, who fill in the pieces of the story without feeling out of place.

Project Hail Mary is a crowd-pleaser in all the right ways, delivering plenty of thrilling action and funny moments while also digging deep into science nerd elements. With a movie star like Gosling in the lead and successful filmmakers like Lord, Miller, and Goddard behind the scenes, the film makes an early case for being one of best of the year.

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Project Hail Mary opens in theaters on March 20.

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