Weekend Event Planner

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

It's a busy and eclectic weekend in and around Dallas, with a quintet of theater productions leading the way, three of them from local companies. Other choices include a chance to see college football stars in action, a classical music concert, a big-name comedian, an opera production, a big rock band, a dance production, a new art exhibition, and a tennis tournament.

Below are more 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, February 1

East-West Shrine Bowl
The college football season ended a few weeks ago, but more than 120 top college players and select juniors, coached by NFL coaches, will try to impress NFL scouts, agents, and media before the 2024 NFL Draft at the East-West Shrine Bowl. The game, which has long been held in California, is taking place at the Ford Center in Frisco for the first time.

Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue
Performed by an all-male cast, Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue brings Miami’s sassiest seniors to the stage for one more hurrah. Sophia is out on bail after being busted by the DEA for running a drug ring for retirees. Blanche and Rose have founded CreakN, a thriving sex app for seniors. And Dorothy is trying to hold it all together with help from a new (much) younger sex-crazed lover. The production runs through Sunday at Wyly Theatre.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Sibelius Violin Concerto"
"Sibelius Violin Concerto," featuring conductor Donald Runnicles and violinist Alexi Kenney, is an all-Sibelius program that includes the composer's En saga (A Legend), Violin Concerto, and Symphony No. 5. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra will present three performances through Saturday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Theatre Three presents God of Carnage
In God of Carnage, two sets of Brooklyn parents meet to deal with a playground altercation between 11-year-old boys and a calm and rational debate between grown-ups transforms into a hysterical night of name-calling, tantrums, and tears. Winning the Tony Award for Best Play in 2009, this hilarious, emotionally charged production asks the question, “How many parents standing up for their children become infantile themselves?” The production runs through March 3 at Theatre Three.

Improv Addison presents Craig Robinson
Craig Robinson is an actor, stand-up comedian, and singer who's arguably best known for his role as acerbic Dunder-Mifflin employee Darryl Philbin on NBC’s Emmy-winning The Office. He has also starred in films such as Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, the Hot Tub Time Machine series, and This Is the End. He'll perform eight times through Sunday at Improv Addison.

Friday, February 2

Opera Arlington presents Rusalka
Dvořák's fairytale masterpiece, Rusalka, is based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, a magical tale that transports the audience into a fantasy forest, where a water nymph yearns for the love of a human prince and an evil witch plots her downfall. But is it the witch's curse that will bring her demise, or the fickleness of the human heart? The opera, performed in Czech with English supertitles, will have performances on Friday and Saturday at Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington.

Dallas Theater Center presents I Am Delivered't
Good Friday. The New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church’s Seven Last Words service is in full swing. But outside – in the church parking lot – another resurrection story is taking shape. Sis, the Vice President of Usher Board Number One, and her protégé, Pickles, find themselves in a battle royale of romantic quagmires. Dallas Theater Center will present the new comedy by Jonathan Norton through February 18 at Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Tool in concert
Rock band Tool has maintained a solid place in their fans' hearts over the years despite only releasing five albums since their debut in 1993. It's clearly a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder as each of their last three albums - including Fear Inoculum in 2019, which came after a 13-year break - made it to No. 1 on the overall Billboard 200. Although they don't have any new music to play, their concert at American Airlines Center is sure to rock as hard as ever. They will be joined by Elder.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents Murder on the Orient Express
Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer. An American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed eight times, his door locked from the inside. Isolated and with a killer in their midst, the passengers rely on detective Hercule Poirot to identify the murderer – in case he or she decides to strike again. The production runs through February 18 at Richardson Theatre Centre.

TITAS/Dance Unbound presents Rennie Harris Puremovement: Rome & Jewels
Puremovement – American Street Dance Theater, which has emerged as an international Hip-hop and Street dance ambassador, presents Rome & Jewels, based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, reimagined in the streets of Philadelphia. They'll perform on both Friday and Saturday at Moody Performance Hall.

Saturday, February 3

Nasher Sculpture Center presents Sarah Sze opening day
The Nasher Sculpture Center will present a solo exhibition by Sarah Sze, showing new works created specifically for the Nasher’s Renzo Piano-designed building by one of the most celebrated artists of recent years. Sze’s installations at the Nasher will integrate painting, sculpture, images, sound, and video engaging with the surrounding architecture to create intimate systems that reference the rapidly changing world. Stretching over three of the museum’s galleries, the exhibition will blur the boundaries between making and showing, process and product, digital and material ultimately to question how objects and Images acquire their meaning. The exhibition will remain on display through August 18.

TheatreWorks USA presents Cat Kid Comic Club: The Musical
A few weeks after the Dog Man musical came to town, a musical based on author Dav Pilkey's spin-off series will have a one-day-only performance at Majestic Theatre. Cat Kid and Molly Pollywog have started an epic club to teach 21 rambunctious baby frogs how to make their own comics. Their fishy father Flippy is overjoyed that his kids will learn to unleash their creativity, but when the frogs’ constant bickering and outrageous imaginations send their comics comically off the rails, Flippy flips out. Will the club survive? Will the frogs ever get along? And will creativity finally save the day?

ATP Tour presents Dallas Open
The ATP Tour's Dallas Open will be a weeklong tournament featuring some of the top men's tennis players in the world, as well as a special Women's Tennis Classic between Genie Bouchard and Caroline Wozniacki. The tournament will feature three of the top four Americans in the world among its player field, including No. 14 Frances Tiafoe, No. 15 Tommy Paul, and No. 16 Ben Shelton. The tournament will take place through February 11 at the Styslinger / Altec Tennis Complex at SMU.

Photo courtesy of Dallas Theater Center

Dallas Theater Center presents I Am Delivered't at Kalita Humphreys Theater, February 2-18.

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Shaq Sighting

Shaquille O'Neal cruises Dallas lake in custom '64 Chevy Impala boat

Courtesy of Effortless Motors/Youtube

A still from the Effortless Motors video

“Oh, my God! My Impala boat has arrived!” The shout comes from NBA Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal, as seen in a viral video from California-based Effortless Motors.

Those on Lake Ray Hubbard one day in early July witnessed the 7-foot-1-inch basketball superstar, known worldwide as Shaq, cruising the North Texas waters in a convertible 1964 Chevrolet Impala. A surreal sight, onlookers say.

“I had to do a double take, rub my eyes, and hope no one had spiked my coffee,” says Rockwall resident Steve Johns via phone. Johns was doing maintenance on his berthed boat when he saw the celebrity steering the craft through the waves with two other men aboard.

The passengers were Ahmad Abdelrahman and Daniel Ubario, classic car specialists who founded Effortless Motors, a full-service auto concierge in Riverside, California. They built and delivered the custom craft to O'Neal and filmed both its reveal and its maiden voyage.

O’Neal had semi-jokingly discussed the idea with the men last March, on his 54th birthday, while commissioning a Chevy Impala ‘64 restoration for his multimillion-dollar car collection.

“He wanted something crazy that no one in the world has ever seen,” Abdelrahman, Effortless CEO, tells CultureMap in an interview.

In early July, the team delivered O'Neal's consigned classic car to his home in the Ridge Lakes of Heath subdivision, on the lake’s east side. The video shows O’Neal treating family members to low, rumbling rides around his otherwise quiet suburban enclave and appearing ecstatic as he hugs and heaps praise upon the car specialists.

“You did a great job. Oh, thank you! Everything is perfect,” O’Neal says about the $1.2 million street-ready Impala, whose price reflects the extensive modifications needed to accommodate Shaq’s XXL physique. “But you promised me the boat for my birthday,” O’Neal quips.

On cue, a second trailer arrives hauling the gold Impala boat, a nod to Doughboy (Ice Cube)’s 1993 ride in the movie Boyz n the Hood.

The logistics of delivering both a car and a surprise boat — and secretly setting up the latter’s trial run — were challenging, but O'Neal's reaction made everything worthwhile, Abdelrahman says.

“The best thing was knowing we built something that has never existed before," he says. "Seeing that Impala on the water, it’s like seeing a unicorn flying across the sky.”

In the video, Shaq is seen settling into the customized captain’s seat and navigating choppy waters as Abdelrahman exclaims, “First seven footer to drive a ‘64 Impala in the water.”

“Once again, Effortless Motors delivers,” O’Neal says into the camera.

The video then shows the famous TNT broadcaster stopping under storm clouds to sign autographs and snap photos with starstruck lakegoers. “We love your boat, Shaq,” a teenage boy is heard saying after snapping a selfie. “You’re the best, man. We love you!”

O’Neal has lived part-time in the Dallas area since 2022, when he bought a $1.2 million Carrollton mansion. He sold it for $1.7 million and moved into his current 5,100 square-foot, approximately $2 million Rockwall County estate in 2024.

Since then, sightings of the megastar abound around Dallas-Fort Worth. In Mesquite in 2024, he treated 20 students to $500 shopping sprees at JCPenney. On another occasion he gave a $500 gift card to a couple he met at Fort Worth’s JCPenney, which they paid forward to children in need. And earlier this year at the Rockwall Target, he distributed $100 bills to shoppers at random. He's also behind the Big Chicken restaurant franchise, whose Fort Worth location recently closed.

But Shaq isn't the only retired athlete taking high-end toys to Texas waters. While his Impala jetboat is one of a kind, other luxury autos afloat have been spotted nearby. Former Dallas Maverick Charlie Villanueva regularly is seen cruising his Rolls Royce amphi-boat near his Lake Ray Hubbard home, many Instagram commenters pointed out after Shaq’s maritime adventure went viral.

Automotive journalists at The Autopian noted that, based video footage, Shaq’s new toy is not amphibious but rather a fiberglass silhouette of the Impala attached to a jet boat hull.

“That doesn’t take away from the spectacle of the thing much, with the rather slab-sided Impala body cutting an unexpected shape through the water,” wrote The Autopian's Andrew Evans.

A still from the Effortless Motors video

Courtesy of Effortless Motors/Youtube

Shaq featured in the Effortless Motors video.

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