Weekend Event Planner

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

There are a couple of top shelf music headliners leading the way this weekend around Dallas. Joining them will be two stand-up comedy performances, four separate local theater productions, a chance to win the playhouse of your kids' dreams, a trio of other concerts in varying genres, and the final days of a historical exhibition.

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, June 13

Majestic Theatre presents B. Simone and Friends
B. Simone, a comedian, actress, and businesswoman originally from Dallas who now resides in Atlanta, will headline a night of comedy with a some of her comedian friends. B. Simone is a long-standing cast member of MTV's Wild N' Out. She's also appeared in multiple feature films as well as dozens of appearances on BET, MTV, and VH1. The event takes place at Majestic Theatre.

Theatre Three presents Pirates of Penzance
Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan's hilarious, hopeful musical, follows young love-struck Frederic, who has mistakenly been apprenticed to a raucous band of pirates. A smash hit on Broadway in the 1980s, the comical operetta is a colorful, playful romp about love, honor, and cleverness. The production runs through July 14 at Theatre Three.

Shakespeare Dallas presents Scenes from The Odyssey
Scenes from The Odyssey is a show about a modern young woman who is struggling to understand Robert Fitzgerald's translation of Homer’s The Odyssey when suddenly a Greek muse appears, and the young woman becomes the goddess Athena and a tireless advocate for Odysseus in his struggle to get home. The production highlights the epic story of Odysseus' 10-year journey with characters such as Circe, the Cyclops, Poseidon, Calypso, the Sirens, and more. The production, which will run in repertory with Twelfth Night, runs through July 19 at Samuell-Grand Amphitheater.

Friday, June 14

Dallas CASA presents Parade of Playhouses
The annual Parade of Playhouses highlights imaginative children’s playhouses to help child victims of abuse or neglect. The 2024 parade will feature 16 children’s dream playhouses, including cottages, a castle, a pink paradise, a basketball shoe, an ice cream stand, and more. Taking place at NorthPark Center through June 30, visitors can buy raffle tickets to try to win one of the playhouses and raise funds for Dallas CASA.

Family Music Theatre presents The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre Dame brings Victor Hugo’s epic novel to life in a theatrical story-telling experience. Featuring songs from the Disney animated feature, the production intertwines the beauty of the film's score with a new book by Peter Parnell that embraces the essence of story theatre. Combining narration, live action, and choral commentary, the musical transports audiences to 15th-century Paris, where the bells of Notre Dame toll and Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer, yearns to venture "Out There." The production runs through June 29 at New Vida Church of God.

NTPA Repertory Theatre presents Anastasia
Anastasia transports its audience from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s, as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Pursued by a ruthless Soviet officer determined to silence her, Anya enlists the aid of a dashing con man and a lovable ex-aristocrat. Together, they embark on an epic adventure to help her find home, love and family. The production runs through June 23 at North Texas Performing Arts.

Majestic Theatre presents Jared Freid
Jared Freid is a stand-up comedian based out of New York City with a strong focus on dating and relationships. His comedy is current and reflects the ordinary daily thoughts of everyone you know, especially if you know a lot of millennials that are obsessing over dating apps, trying to be real adults, and worrying about their bodies. He'll perform at Majestic Theatre.

Robert Earl Keen in concert
Even through Texas legend Robert Earl Keen brought his touring days to a close in 2022, he - like fellow legend George Strait - has continued to play one-off concerts and release new music. His 2023 album, Western Chill, the 20th release of his career, is part of a special boxed collector's set. A member of the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame, he has written songs for music superstars like George Strait, The Chicks, The Highwaymen, and Nanci Griffith. He'll play at Texas Trust CU Theatre.

Alanis Morissette in concert
It's just shy of 30 years since Alanis Morissette became one of the most iconic singers in the 1990s with her now-classic album, Jagged Little Pill. Since then she's released seven more albums, most recently The Storm Before the Calm in 2022, and even had Jagged Little Pill turned into a Tony Award-winning musical. She'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion as part of The Triple Moon Tour, joined by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and Morgan Wade.

Saturday, June 15

Chris Stapleton in concert
When country star Chris Stapleton comes to town, it's always a big deal in the literal and metaphorical sense. In 2021, he brought his All-American Roadshow to Globe Life Field in Arlington for the first time. In 2023, he played back-to-back nights at Dos Equis Pavilion right before the release of his fifth album, Higher. And now he's back at Globe Life Field again, this time joined by Charley Crockett and Nikki Lane.

Sunday, June 16

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza presents "Two Days in Texas" closing day
Sunday will be the final to to view "Two Days in Texas," an exhibition commemorating the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. It sheds new light on the President’s final campaign, tracing his journey through the state and highlighting its impact on everyday Texans. The exhibition at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza follows in the President’s footsteps as he made campaign stops in San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth before his untimely death in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

A Night of R&B with Babyface, Tamar Braxton, and El DeBarge
R&B fans will be in for a full night of great music as Babyface, Tamar Braxton, and El DeBarge team up for a special concert. Babyface has released 11 albums in his career, most recently Girls Night Out in 2022. Braxton has released five albums in her career, most recently Bluebird of Happiness in 2017. El Debarge has released five albums in his career, most recently Second Chance in 2010. They'll perform at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie.

Itzy in concert
Ever since K-Pop band BTS got big in the late 2010s, the world has opened up to a host of other K-Pop bands. After releasing their debut album, Crazy in Love, in 2021, Itzy made their first appearance in the U.S. with a tour in 2022 that stopped at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving. They're back there again in support of their new mini-album, Born to Be.

Photo courtesy of Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette will play at Dos Equis Pavilion on June 14.

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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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