Theater Critic Picks

These are the 9 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for July

Have you caught your breath yet from June? That was a lot of theater. This month is a little more manageable, but the lineup does include the Festival of Independent Theatres, which pairs up one-act plays from eight indie theater companies over three weeks. There's also a historic collaboration between two big organizations and a timely original work developed by a group of socially conscious teens.

Here are the 9 shows to see, in order by start date:

Babel
Cry Havoc Theater Company, July 5-15
Following the success of Shots Fired, the documentary theater piece about the 2016 Dallas Police shootings, this youth theater's new work examines gun violence in America and the emotionally charged conversations around it. Inspired by and filled with first-person interviews from people on all sides of the gun violence and gun safety debate, the Elevator Project production in Hamon Hall includes survivors of recent shootings, experts on gun violence, gun owners, politicians, and more. A large-scale public art installation called The Cenotaph will display 8,000 shoes, each representing a person who has lost his or her life to gun violence.

Hairspray
Dallas Theater Center and AT&T Performing Arts Center, July 7-15
The new collaboration between the Tony-winning local company and AT&T's Broadway Series brings Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's musical (which is based on John Waters' iconic film) to the Winspear stage. 1960s Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad just wants to dance on The Corny Collins Show, but in pursuing her dream the curvy teen sparks a social revolution.

Don't Dress for Dinner
Stage West, July 12-August 12
The playwright behind Boeing-Boeing, Marc Camoletti, also penned this madcap farce (Robing Hawdon did this translation) where wild lies pile up, identities and bedrooms are swapped, and romantic plans are thwarted. Though this play was written in the 1960s, director Christie Vela has set it in the '80s, so expect lots of teased hair, legwarmers, and blue eyeshadow.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Uptown Players, July 13-29
Speaking of teased hair and blue eyeshadow... "girls just wanna have fun" in this stage adaptation of the1994 Academy Award-winning film, which finds three friends (two drag queens and a transexual) on a road trip in the middle of the Australian Outback. The score is a hit parade of dancefloor favorites, including "It's Raining Men," "I Will Survive," and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

Festival of Independent Theatres
July 13-August 4
FIT's 20th anniversary features eight companies with one-act plays, paired in two-show blocks. In the lineup this year are shows from Camp Death Productions, DGDG (Danielle Georgiou Dance Group), Eccentric Bear Productions, Echo Theatre, Imprint Theatreworks, Laughter League, Prism Movement Theater, and WingSpan Theatre Co. The art exhibitions Revived with Light: An Exploration of Expired Photographic Media and Road Trip – Photographic Journeys of the Dead Photographers Society are also on display at the Bath House Cultural Center, along with live music on weekend evenings in the Bath House's shore-level performance space, FIT Underground.

King Liz
Amphibian Stage Productions, July 13-August 5
Kenneisha Thompson stars in Fernanda Coppel's play about the making and breaking of basketball superstars and the power brokers behind them. The story — about sports agent Liz Rico and her new client, a high school basketball superstar with a troubled past — was sold to Showtime and is being developed into a half hour comedy-drama.

The Revolutionists
Imprint Theatreworks, July 20-August 4
Lauren Gunderson's play is a comedic quartet about four real women who lived boldly during the French Revolution: playwright Olympe De Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle, and former queen Marie Antoinette. Sometimes a revolution needs a woman's touch.

Love Never Dies
Dallas Summer Musicals, July 24-August 5
Did you know The Phantom of the Opera has a sequel? Andrew Lloyd Webber's follow-up to his smash musical hit premiered in London in 2010, but then mostly faded into obscurity (except for a 2012 DVD recording of the West End production). But now it's on tour! Check in with the Phantom and Christine, who are now in Coney Island 10 years after the big showdown at the Paris Opera House.

Blues in the Night
Jubilee Theatre, July 27-August 26
Set in a rundown Chicago hotel in 1938, this musical revue focuses on three women's relationships with the same "snake of a man" and their interweaving stories told through the torch songs and blues of Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, and Alberta Hunter, among others. Jubilee last performed this one in 2010, and now it's back by popular demand.

Don't Dress for Dinner at Stage West.

Stage West presents Don't Dress for Dinner

Photo by Evan Michael Woods

Don't Dress for Dinner at Stage West.

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Ancient Sculpture News

Fort Worth museum one of only 3 in U.S. to get rare sculpture exhibit

Lorenzo di Masi/Torlonia Collection

The Torlonia Nile

A major exhibition of ancient Roman masterworks is coming to the U.S. for the first time to be viewed at only three museums — including the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Called Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection, it's an assemblage of works stewarded by the Torlonia Family beginning in the early-19th century, and will be installed at the Kimbell from September 14, 2025 – January 25, 2026.

As part of the Foundation’s mission to showcase these historical works to the public, the exhibition will premiere at the Art Institute of Chicago on March 15 through June 29, before traveling to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Its third stop will be at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, from March 14 - July 19, 2026.

The Torlonia Collection was established during the course of the 19th century by the Franco-Italian banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia and his son Alessandro, then handed down over generations, eventually growing into the largest private collection of ancient Roman sculptures.

Today, the Torlonia Foundation represents the culmination of the Family’s continued passion for art. Created at the behest of Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1925–2017), the Foundation’s mission is to preserve and promote the Torlonia Collection and Villa Albani Torlonia.

In 1876, Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1800-1886) created a museum to house and exhibit the Family’s holdings, which was open to small groups until its closure at the onset of World War II. The sculptures remained unseen by the public from that time until the Foundation’s first exhibition at the Musei Capitolini in Rome in 2020. That was followed by a stint at the Louvre, the first presentation of the collection outside of Rome, where it has drawn more than 600,000 visitors to date, an unprecedented feat.

The exhibit
The curators of Myth & Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection are Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff of the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, in collaboration with the Kimbell Art Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and The Museum Box. All of the sculptures in the exhibition have been restored by the Foundation with the support of Bvlgari.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue co-published by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, edited by Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff, with essays by Silvia Beltrametti and Salvatore Settis.

The North American presentation will feature 58 highlights from the Torlonia Collection, including 24 newly restored works that have not been on view in nearly a century. The sculptures date from approximately the 5th century BCE to the early 4th century CE, with the majority of the works dating to the High Imperial period (1st–2nd centuries CE). Highlights include examples of the most emblematic genres of ancient marble sculpture, acquired by the Torlonia Family from the most prominent collections of Rome’s patrician families, as well as from excavations made on the Family’s own estates throughout Italy.

“The Foundation is excited to be sharing the Torlonia Collection with audiences in North America for the first time. This exceptional group of ancient sculptures is a testament to the enduring cultural legacy of ancient Rome, as well as the vision and passion of multiple generations of the Torlonia Family,” said Alessandro Poma Murialdo, President of the Torlonia Foundation.

The presentation is organized thematically in six sections, featuring sculptures found on the Torlonia Family’s properties in Rome and the surrounding suburbs and their estate in Porto, Portugal, as well as a number of exceptional sarcophagi (stone coffins), among the largest sculpted works in marble to survive from ancient Rome.

The tour reinforces the work of the Foundation to advance the appreciation and understanding of this unparalleled collection and the rich cultural heritage it represents. The Foundation’s mission is carried out through a continuous joint effort between the public and private sectors, including with the cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Culture. The Foundation is supported by a longstanding collaboration with Bvlgari as the principal sponsor of the restoration project since its inception in Rome and throughout the global tour, and Chiomenti, who has lent invaluable support to the Foundation’s core activities.

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