Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Fort Worth this weekend

ArtsGoggle takes place at Near Southside on October 8.

Photo courtesy of Near Southside Inc.

This weekend in Fort Worth will feature a big local focus, including the fact that all the listed events take place within the city limits. There will be two new local theater productions, a new version of an old opera, an arts festival, a new art exhibition, and more. You can also enjoy visits from an acclaimed comedian, an Oklahoma band, an EDM festival, and more.

Below are the 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, April 21

Cliburn Concerts: Jennifer Koh and Vijay Iyer
Violinist Jennifer Koh is a forward-thinking artist dedicated to exploring a broad and eclectic repertoire, while promoting diversity and inclusivity in classical music. In 2018, she launched Limitless, a project celebrating the collaborative relationship between composer and performer; duo commissions are played by Koh and the composers themselves. Her partner for this special Cliburn debut is leading-edge composer-pianist Vijay Iyer. They will perform at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Circle Theatre presents Pressure Makes Diamonds
Circle Theatre presents Pressure Makes Diamonds, an original production that will shine a bright light on a diamond’s similarities to life. Denise Lee, recently seen at Circle Theatre in The Glass Menagerie, with the help of her band, will touch audiences' souls with a collection of songs from many classic artists. The production, a collaboration with and directed by Monique Midgette, will run through April 30.

Amphibian Stage presents River Butcher
River Butcher is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcast host. Butcher is best known for personal, observational comedy focused on his vegetarianism, feminism, love of baseball, and experiences as a queer person. He will perform at Amphibian Stage through Saturday.

Turnpike Troubadours in concert
Oklahoma red dirt country band Turnpike Troubadours have been around since 2007, but they've been hiatus since 2019. Their last two albums, including 2017's A Long Way from Your Heart, each reached the top 3 on the Billboard Country charts, indicating their rising popularity. If their stint at Billy Bob's Texas is any indication, that popularity remains, as they'll play there for three straight nights through Saturday.

Friday, April 22

Fort Worth Opera presents La Traviata
Fort Worth Opera will present La Traviata, the timeless classic that was their first production on November 25, 1946. The emotionally gripping, 90-minute chamber realization of the opera is reimagined through a contemporary lens, bringing into sharp focus the inner conflicts of love and duty, freedom, passion, and self-sacrifice. There will be two performances — one Friday and one Sunday — at Bass Performance Hall.

Saturday, April 23

Fort Worth Botanic Garden presents Spring Japanese FestivalUPDATE: Given the potential for heavy rainfall Sunday, the Fort Worth Botanic Garden has canceled the Spring Japanese Festival on Sunday only.
The Fort Worth Botanic Garden | Botanical Research Institute of Texas will present Spring Japanese Festival, featuring the arts and culture of Japan. Hosted in cooperation with the Fort Worth Japanese Society, the festival includes cultural demonstrations, performances, unique shopping opportunities, and traditional foods. The festival will take place through Sunday.

Amon Carter Museum of American Art presents "Art Making as Life Making: Kinji Akagawa at Tamarind"
Opening on Saturday at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art is "Art Making as Life Making: Kinjia Akagawa at Tamarind," which offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of life at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in the 1960s. Akagawa collaborated there with more than a dozen leading artists, including Ruth Asawa, Herbert Bayer, and Jose Luis Cuevas. The exhibition, on display through October 30, features more than 40 works from the Carter’s collection of more than 2,500 Tamarind Workshop prints.

Near Southside Inc. presents ArtsGoggle
ArtsGoggle is Fort Worth's premier festival of local arts, featuring more than 1,000 visual artists, 50 musical performances, artistic displays of every kind, food, drink, and more. The festival exclusively focuses on highlighting the work of local artists, musicians, and performers of all mediums and experience levels. Taking place along 21 blocks of Magnolia Avenue, visitors are invited to park their cars and rediscover the revitalized urban neighborhood by foot or by bicycle, including Fort Worth Bike Sharing bikes.

Casa Mañana presents Disney's Descendants the Musical
Based on the popular Disney Channel original movies, Descendants is a brand-new musical comedy featuring the beloved characters and hit songs from the films. Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos — the children of Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Cruella De Vil, and Jafar — are welcomed to Auradon Prep to attend school with the children of their parents’ sworn enemies. Now entering a completely foreign world and way of life, the four Villain Kids have a difficult choice to make: should they follow in their parents’ wicked footsteps or learn to be good? The production runs through May 8 at Casa Mañana Theatre.

Ubbi Dubbi Festival
Ubbi Dubbi is a two-day, three-stage electronic dance music festival featuring some of the world’s top dance music artists, food and retail vendors, art installations, and more. Performers will include Alison Wonderland, Decadon, Kumarion, Peekaboo, Wreckno, Casmalia, Kyle Watson, Redrum, The Sponges, Zeds Dead, and more. The festival takes place at Panther Island Pavilion through Sunday.

Thunderstorm Artis in concert
Any fan of NBC's The Voice will already be familiar with Thunderstorm Artis, who was a finalist on Season 18 of the reality singing competition. A singer/songwriter hailing from Hawaii, he comes from a musical family, learning at a very young age how to play piano, guitar, harp, and percussion. He'll play at Downtown Cowtown at the Isis.

Sunday, April 24

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents "Recent Acquisitions 2002-2022" closing day
Sunday is the final day to view "Recent Acquisitions 2002-2022," a permanent collection installation focused on works acquired since the building’s opening. Both floors will showcase paintings, photographs, sculptures, and videos by artists from a wide range of cultures and geographies. Artists included in the exhibition include Takashi Murakami, Andy Warhol, Eddie Martinez, Ed Ruscha, Kamrooz Aram, Shirin Neshat, Kehinde Wiley, and more.

ArtsGoggle takes place along Magnolia Avenue in Near Southside on April 23.

Photo courtesy of Near Southside Inc.

ArtsGoggle takes place along Magnolia Avenue in Near Southside on April 23.

opera concerts festivals families theater kids music comedy galleries

Movie Review

Oscar-worthy film A Complete Unknown digs deeply into Bob Dylan

Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown.

Music biopics never seem to go out of style, although they’re rarely very good because most of them tend to tell the same story. A musician/band gets discovered, rises to popularity, experiences trouble at their peak due to (insert sex/drugs/alcohol/ego), and either finds a measure of redemption once they’ve been sufficiently humbled or dies due to their lack of control.

Paradoxically, what few music biopics fail to do is properly showcase the music that made the person popular in the first place, a mistake that A Complete Unknown doesn’t repeat, becoming a smashing success in the process. The film follows Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) over a roughly four-year period from when he first arrived in New York City in 1961 to his then-revolutionary electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

Dylan seeks out well-known folk singers Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and an ailing Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) when he first arrives, with Seeger taking him under his wing. Dylan starts to establish himself in the local club scene with his unique songwriting voice, meeting fellow singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), with whom he starts an on-and-off relationship. As his popularity grows, his reaction is antithetical to what’s expected, as he rarely engages with fans and focuses on his next song(s) instead of the ones for which he became known.

Directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line) and written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, the film may not be much of a revelation for Dylan superfans, but for casual fans or those who know nothing about him, it is one of the most effective music biopics in recent memory, if not ever. Not only does Mangold track the musical evolution of Dylan, but he gives the full context of the people who influenced him most, including Guthrie, Seeger, Baez, and more.

The film is not a musical in the traditional sense, but the amount of music in it makes it the next best thing. Rarely does more than a few minutes go by before someone is singing, either on stage, for someone close to them, or as part of the songwriting process. Whether you’re a folk music fan or not, the way the genre is showcased in the film will make you believe in its power and why it was so popular at that particular point in time.

Dylan is famous for his enigmatic personality, and Mangold does a great job of maintaining that elusiveness while still exploring what drove Dylan early in his career. His relationships with Baez and the fictional Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) give him some dimension, but why he continually went back-and-forth between them (or why they put up with him) is only lightly explored. The film keeps most of the drama focused on the music, and it’s this decision that makes it as compelling as it is.

Chalamet has been “The Next Big Thing” since his Oscar nomination for Call Me By Your Name, but the combination of the Duneseries, Wonka, and now this has firmly established him as the star he is. His Dylan impersonation (including singing) is subtle-yet-clear, and he has the cool factor that makes him completely believable in the role. The supporting cast is also off-the-charts good, with Norton and Barbaro making the best cases for awards notice.

While 2024 has had its fair share of great movies, A Complete Unknown - in this critic’s opinion - should now be the favorite to win Best Picture at next year’s Oscars. It bucks the trend of mediocre music biopics by giving moviegoers the transporting feeling of what it was like to experience Dylan’s meteoric rise, and why his early songs remain so indelible.

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A Complete Unknown opens in theaters on December 25.

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