Theater Critic Picks

These are the 10 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for August

UPDATE: AT&T Performing Arts Center announced that Charlie & the Chocolate Factory will now have a shortened run, from August 22-25.

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Do you like new work? Do you like lots of new work? Then August is a good month for you, as there are not one, but two, festivals showcasing pieces written by local and visiting playwrights and tackling everything from healthcare to the border crisis. There are also two new full-length plays written by locals, as well as beloved classics like the universal story of family that pays a visit to both Dallas and Forth Worth.

Here are the 10 shows to see in order by start date:

Kentucky
Imprint Theatreworks, August 2-17
Leah Nanako Winkler, recipient of the 2018 Yale Prize for Drama, explores identity, religion, and love in this coming-of-age story with a kick (complete with a chorus and a talking cat). Hiro is an Asian-American, self-made woman making it in New York. She is also estranged from her dysfunctional family in Kentucky. When her little sister, a born-again Christian, decides to marry at 22, Hiro takes it upon herself to do whatever she can to stop the wedding and salvage any shred of hope she had for her sister's future.

Fiddler on the Roof
Dallas Summer Musicals, August 7-18
Broadway at the Bass, August 20-25
Rich with musical hits you know and love, including "Tradition," "Sunrise, Sunset," "If I Were A Rich Man," "Matchmaker, Matchmaker," and "To Life (L'Chaim!)," this heartwarming story of fathers and daughters; husbands and wives; and life, love, and laughter has been a crowd-pleaser since 1964.

Broadway or Bust
Pegasus Theatre, August 8-24
In a converted strip-mall carpet store somewhere in Dallas, The Plush Pile Players are primed to stage Dicky Steinberg's Off-Off-Broadway flop Broadway Glitz when director Jan Flaggit trips on a toaster and breaks her ankle. A lifeline comes in the shape of bona fide Broadway director Percy Scott, but Jan's eccentric ensemble soon learn that their new messiah may not be all he seems.

One-Minute Play Festival
Kitchen Dog Theater, August 10-12
America's largest and longest running grassroots theater event investigates the zeitgeist of different communities through a performance of 50-100 short moments generated by local playwrights of all ages, genders, races, cultures, and points of career.

The Cake
Uptown Players, August 9-25
Bekah Brunstetter's new comedy focuses on North Carolina baker Della, who is overjoyed when her best friend's daughter returns from New York to get married and asks Della to make her wedding cake. Della, a sweet-natured Christian, is forced to re-examine her deeply-held beliefs and her own marriage when she realizes there is not one bride, but two.

Latinidades: A Festival of Solo Shows
Cara Mía Theatre Co., August 15-September 8
The festival will open with Puerto Rican poet, singer, and actor Flaco Navaja's love letter to salsa and the Bronx, Evolution of a Sonero (August 15-18), and continues with Your Healing is Killing Me, a play about healthcare, nutrition, and traumatic stress for people of color by Virginia Grise (August 22-25). It finishes with Ursula, a border experience through the eyes of child by CMT artistic ensemble member Frida Espinosa-Müller (August 29-September 8).

As You Like It
Dallas Theater Center, August 16-18
The Public Works collaboration with Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts and AT&T Performing Arts Center is back with its groundbreaking community engagement and participatory theater project designed to deliberately blur the line between professional artists and Dallas community members. The production features 200 actors and community members, only five being professional actors. Featuring an original folk-pop score by Shaina Taub and running 90 minutes long, As You Like It is appropriate for all audiences and groups.

A 3D Adventure
Circle Theatre, August 15-September 14
A small theater troupe's madcap production goes inexplicably, spectacularly off the rails in Matt Lyle's latest comedy. The actors find themselves cast into a strange, surreal world resembling some of your most beloved films.

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
AT&T Performing Arts Center, August 20-September 1
Willy Wonka is opening his marvelous and mysterious chocolate factory to a lucky few, and that includes Charlie Bucket, whose bland life is about to burst with color and confection beyond his wildest dreams. He and four other golden ticket winners will embark on a mesmerizing joyride through a world of pure imagination. Get ready for Oompa Loompas, incredible inventions, the great glass elevator, and more, more, more at this everlasting showstopper.

What We Were
Second Thought Theatre, August 28-September 21
Following 2017's The Necessities and 2018's Enemies/People, Second Thought presents its third world premiere from acclaimed local playwright Blake Hackler. It tells the story of Carlin, Nell, and Tessa, three sisters who suffered a childhood of abuse. Now adults, each lives in some degree of denial, but the lies are starting to become more unbearable than the truth.

Fiddler on the Roof stops at both the Music Hall at Fair Park and Bass Performance Hall.

Photo by Joan Marcus

Fiddler on the Roof stops at both the Music Hall at Fair Park and Bass Performance Hall.

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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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