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Weekend Event Planner

These are the 13 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Alex Bentley
Aug 3, 2023 | 6:00 am

As they often do, music and theater will dominate the landscape in and around Dallas this weekend. There will be six different theater productions to choose from, four of them local and one a national tour of a favorite Broadway musical. Five concerts take the stage, including two local boys made good. Add on some great art and a funny comedian, and there are plenty of choices out there.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, August 3

Rhett Miller
Photo by Ebru Yildiz

Rhett Miller will play at Texas Theatre on August 4.

Fair Assembly presents As You Like It
“All the world’s a stage,” and when at court, Celia and Rosalind know their parts. But when the two young cousins are unexpectedly thrust into exile in the Forest of Arden, the disguises they adopt allow the women to write roles of their own. Far from the death sentence intended by the usurping Duke Frederick, banishment into the Forest of Arden becomes an opportunity for rebirth - a place for the exiled to discover themselves, find (and test) true love, and ultimately seek redemption us adventure for all those daring enough to venture into the forest. The production runs through August 13 at Wyly Theatre.

Broadway Dallas presents The Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon, the nine-time Tony Award-winning Best Musical, is an outrageous comedy that follows the misadventures of a mismatched pair of missionaries, sent halfway across the world to spread the Good Word. With songs that entertain and offend in equal measures, it's been a phenomenon since its debut on Broadway in 2011. The production runs through Sunday at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Thomas Rhett in concert with Cole Swindell and Nate Smith
Country singer Thomas Rhett has been churning out hits almost from the moment his debut album, It Goes Like This, came out in 2013. All but four of his singles have made it to the top 10, and each of his six albums has finished at No. 1 or No. 2 on the Billboard Country charts, something his forthcoming new album, Country Again: Side B, is destined to do as well. He'll play at American Airlines Center, joined by special guests Cole Swindell and Nate Smith.

Junior Players presents Crowns of Power: Henry IV
In collaboration with Shakespeare Dallas, Junior Players presents Crowns of Power: Henry IV. Set in a kingdom plagued with rebellion, treachery, and shifting alliances in the period following the deposition of King Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV focus especially on the development of Prince Hal (later Henry V) from wastrel to ruler rather than on the title character. The production runs through Sunday at Samuell-Grand Amphitheater.

Dominic Fike in concert
If you don't know the name of singer/songwriter Dominic Fike yet, chances are you will soon. He released his debut album, What Could Possibly Go Wrong, in 2020 to modest success, but he has since added acting to his résumé, appearing in the second season of Euphoria and the 2023 film Earth Mama. He also earned a Grammy nomination as a featured artist on Justin Bieber's 2021 album, Justice. He'll play at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving in support of his new album, Sunburn.

Rover Dramawerks presents The Fox on the Fairway
The Fox on the Fairway is a non-stop rapid-fire romp reminiscent of the great English farces from the 1930s and '40s. It begins as rival country clubs compete in the Annual Interclub Golf Tournament … with a sizable wager at stake. Complete with mistaken identities, slamming doors, and over-the-top romantic shenanigans, this is a charmingly madcap adventure about love, life, and man’s eternal love affair with golf. The production runs through August 19 at Cox Playhouse in Plano.

Friday, August 4

Dallas Museum of Art openings and closings
It's moving week at the Dallas Museum of Art, with one exhibition opening and another closing. Debuting on Friday is Tiffany Chung: "Rise Into the Atmosphere," the sixth iteration of the Dallas Museum of Art’s Concourse mural series. Her commissioned mural centers narratives of migration and movement, especially those found within Dallas, in recognition and celebration of these lived experiences. Closing on Sunday is "Bamana Mud Cloth: From Mali to the World," which highlights mud cloth, or bogolanfini, a design that originated among the Bamana peoples of Mali, and whose designs can be spotted in products across the world.

Outcry Theatre presents Let the Right One In
Oskar is a bullied, lonely teenage boy living with his mother on a housing estate at the edge of town when a spate of sinister killings rock the neighborhood. Eli is the young girl who has just moved in next door. She doesn’t go to school and never leaves the flat by day. Sensing in each other a kindred spirit, the two become devoted friends. What Oskar doesn’t know is that Eli has been a teenager for a very long time. The production runs through August 13 at Addison Conference and Theatre Centre.

Auriga Productions presents The Homecoming
Family history, lies and betrayal set the stage for Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, a comedy of menace, concerning a family of four men living all together, but who are all alone. When the eldest son returns home after six years with a wife whom no one else has met, the family must come to grips with the hidden truths that have infected their relationships for decades. The production runs through August 26 at Bath House Cultural Center.

Rhett Miller in concert
Music fans in Dallas know the impact Rhett Miller has had on the local scene. After releasing a debut solo album, Mythologies, in 1989 alongside future bandmate Murry Hammond, he formed the alt-country band Old 97's in 1992, going on to release 21 albums (and counting). In 2002, he started releasing solo albums again, putting out a new one every few years, with 2022's The Misfit being his ninth solo release. He'll play at Texas Theatre.

Hyena's presents Marcello Hernandez
Marcello Hernandez is a Cuban/Dominican stand-up comedian, writer, and actor who's currently a featured player on Saturday Night Live. 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 four times through Saturday at Hyena's at Mockingbird Station.

Saturday, August 5

George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic in concert
George Clinton wore colorful braids in his hair for decades, but he ditched the style over a decade ago in favor of an old-fashioned, dapper look. The 82-year-old soul/funk legend is no Samson, though, as he can still bring it musically even after all these years. He and his band will show how it's done at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory.

Post Malone in concert
One of the biggest contemporary artists to come out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, rapper/singer Post Malone has been huge since the release of his debut album, Stoney, in 2016. Since then, he's gone on to work with a string of other big artists like Nicki Minaj, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, and Doja Cat, helping him solidify himself as a trendsetter. He'll play on both Saturday and Sunday at Dos Equis Pavilion in support of his just-released fifth album, Austin.

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Movie Review

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

Alex Bentley
Dec 18, 2025 | 3:15 pm
Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash
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.

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