Theater Critic Picks

These are the 8 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for August

Casa Mañana presents Bonnie & Clyde, August 6-8.

Photo by Chip Tompkins

Besides North Texas making history as the first place in the U.S. to host a big Broadway touring show following the COVID-19 shutdowns, there are still a handful of other impressive debuts happening.

From an Edinburgh Fringe participant to free community performances, there's a show for every taste during August.

In order of start date, here are eight local shows to watch this month:

12th Night: A Rock Musical
Junior Players and Shakespeare Dallas, August 3-8
Illyria is the new Coachella as The Bard's poetry is mixed into original infectious rock/pop style melodies in a new production of this classic gender-bending comedy. The madness for love unfolds after a shipwrecked Viola falls onto the Illyrian Shores.

Wicked
Dallas Summer Musicals, August 3-September 5
The first national Broadway tour post-pandemic has flown into the Music Hall at Fair Park, bringing with it an extraordinary green-skinned woman, her bubbly best friend, and a different angle on The Wizard of Oz.

Death on Delivery!
Pegasus Theatre, August 5-21
The setting is City Hospital, where Lt. Foster’s wife (Beverly, a.k.a. Bubbles) has just given birth to their first child, Harriet. But danger lurks around every corner, so the intrepid trio (Harry, his paid-by-the-hour assistant Nigel Grouse, and Lt. Foster of the “real” police) must solve a mysterious string of murders before a madman claims one of their own. RadioVizion is an alternative technique devised by Pegasus Theatre for the presentation of the Living Black & White series of Harry Hunsacker adventures. While RadioVizion does not employ the trade-secret makeup, it instead focuses on evoking the experience and glamour of being in a live radio studio of the 1930s and 1940s (though in this case you'll be at the Bath House Cultural Center). Live sound effects, actors at period-style live microphones, and costumes suggestive of the era complete the effect.

Bonnie & Clyde
Casa Mañana, August 6-8
America’s most notorious lovers and bank robbers take the country by storm in this compelling, Tony-nominated musical, which is part of Casa'a Apprentice Program. At the height of the Great Depression, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow went from two small-town nobodies in West Texas to America’s most renowned folk heroes and Texas law enforcement’s worst nightmares.

The Little Glass Slipper as Performed by the Queen of France and Her Friends
Cara Johnston, streaming August 6-30
France: 1789. Tensions are high and whispers of revolution fill the halls of Versailles. We are at the Queen’s Theatre attending a performance given by Marie Antoinette and her aristocratic friends. It is the 14th of July and today the Bastille will be stormed. Chaos ensues as both play and Ancien Régime fall apart. Follow as actors flee, assassination is attempted, and the age-old saying “the show must go on” is pushed to the limit. The show was recorded at Dallas' Majestic Theatre on July 14, 2021, in front of a small audience and is being streamed as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Your Healing is Killing Me
Cara Mía Theatre Co., August 19, 21-22
Playwright-in-residence Virginia Grise is performing her manifesto in the neighborhoods of Pleasant Grove, Oak Cliff, and Bachman Lake for free. Part performance, part writing and movement workshop, this interactive community tour asks audiences to come in comfortable, ready-to-move attire as they will become part of Grise’s performance. The script is based on Grise’s lessons learned in San Antonio free health clinics and New York acupuncture schools; from the treatments and consejos of curanderas, abortion doctors, Marxist artists, community health workers and bourgie dermatologists.

Fun Home
Uptown Players, August 20-28
Based on Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir of the same name, Fun Home, developed by Lisa Kron (book/lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (score), is hailed as the first mainstream musical with a lesbian protagonist, and it explores themes of family, sexuality, and secrets. Originally postponed from last season, the musical is finally making its debut at the Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Libra Season
Second Thought Theatre, streaming August 20-September 4
Commissioned as part of the 2020 S.T.E.P. Program (Second Thought Emerging Playwrights), Libra Season has been in development for the past year specifically for zoom by Erin E. Adams. This play will be performed live each night and streamed via Zoom webinar from each actor’s own home. The employees of Libra Ltd. are having a bad autumn. After several stressful months of working from home, they now face a leaked memo with possible disastrous consequences. Plus, an impending public nervous breakdown from their teen spokesmodel.

theater

Season of Love

Dallas-Fort Worth theater stars release original holiday album

Cherish Love Robinson Love's Holiday album

Photo by Jordan Fraker

The album is out now.

Move aside, "Jingle Bells." Members of Dallas-Fort Worth's theater community have debuted a new holiday album full of original songs, all spearheaded by singer/musician Cherish Love Robinson.

"A few friends invite me to their annual Christmas parties, and I’m usually the last one to leave, hanging out at the piano with a group of others, singing holiday classics," she says. "Every year, I promise myself I’ll record a Christmas song, but either I remember too late or forget altogether. Then in January, after watching a documentary about Quincy Jones producing ‘We are the World,' I realized I’d been wanting to do this for years."

Titled Love's Holiday, the nine-song album was recorded, mixed, and mastered entirely in Dallas (in the digital liner notes, Robinson dedicates a special shout-out to Oak Cliff). Robinson fully composed and produced all the tunes, with rapper Cya Fix collaborating on the song "Better."

"I didn’t want to hassle with licensing or digging for public domain songs, so I made the decision to create original material instead," she says. "I just started writing like a madman and didn’t stop until June."

The song list spans comedic — "A Birthday Christmas," "Broseph & Mary" — to soulful with "I Pray" and sassy with "Slayeigh." Songs like "RSVP" and "Home" evoke classic Christmas vibes.

Frequent theatergoers will likely recognize many of the singers, including Justin Locklear, Lee Walter (as Jada Pinkett Fox), Brett Warner, Quintin Jones, David Lugo, and Dallas Theater Center Brierley Acting Company members Blake Hackler and Sally Vahle.

Area musicians like pianists Rebecca Lowrey and Cody Dry, guitarist Ian Ferguson, bassist Benjamin Brown, and fiddler Kat Glaze lend their talents as well, with Robinson herself accompanying several songs on keyboard and percussion.

"When I sat down to think about who I wanted to collaborate with, I was lucky that everyone I asked said yes," Robinson shares. "I didn’t just want to work with talented singers; I wanted to bring in musicians who really inspire me as well."

Cherish Love Robinson.Photo by Jordan Fraker

Some of Robinson's notable onstage work includes The Witch in DTC's production of Into the Woods, Doloris Van Cartier in WaterTower Theatre's Sister Act, the rock musical Hundred Days at Circle Theatre, and Theatre Three's original musical Solstice, which she also co-composed.

Robinson's voice and vocal production have been featured on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and HBO’s Big Little Lies, with superstars Erykah Badu and The Roots of The Tonight Show, and on The Colbert Show as a background singer. As a producer, she has crafted and arranged vocals for artists such as Elle King, The Texas Gentlemen, and Paul Cauthen.

"My favorite time of year starts with my birthday in October, and it spans all the way through the holidays until New Year's Day," Robinson says. "Those months are absolutely my favorite. I have to remind myself not to start listening to holiday music too early!"

Love's Holiday is available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music, and can be purchased for digital download here.

holidays theater music shopping