The Oak Cliff native, whose Trinity River Plays was premiered by the Dallas Theater Center last year, is one of five playwrights given money, benefits and full stage productions for five years by the celebrated off-Broadway company, the Signature Theater.

The DTC opens its season with a stripped-down but fancied up Tempest. It’s director Kevin Moriarty’s best Bard to date because stripped-down and fancied-up, it plays like a heartfelt fairy tale — thanks to a couple of truly moving performances.

It’s Bier in Addison! Bier Barrel Rolling and Bier Barrel Bowling and who knows, maybe some actual bier. It’s the Addison Oktoberfest! Alpine Dancers, music by Brave Combo – and a Dachshund Parade.

Mashing up Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, as wicked-cool as it initially seemed, really just wed two kinds of heavy metal. So how about Stevie Wonder … and Metallica? Headbanging with a funky brass section. It even gets Grover dancing.

The final roundup of the week gets tagged in Dallas (twice), examines the trend of one-painting shows at art museums, notes the changes in Sunday’s (gay pride) Festival in Lee Park and manages a quick go-round of reviews. So the roundup needs a weekend of rest.

We’ve given $4 million already so far, and because of the delays the large numbers of donors have caused, the gift-giving deadline is now midnight. So call or go online. No need to feel frustrated by any earlier delays.

North Texas author Merritt Tierce has been waiting tables at a steakhouse — the source for her stories in the collection she’s been working on, Love Me Back. The waitress stories have paid off to the tune of $25,000.

Full-screen this visualization of a complex human data interaction. It’s a beautiful and inspiring demo of person-to-person micro loans. Really.

In Sarah Ruhl’s comedy, In the Next Room or the vibrator play, the Victorians are amusingly clueless when it comes to treating “hysteria” with a new invention. But Ruhl is after more than chuckles. The results, in Kitchen Dog’s area premiere, are … relatively pleasant.

The European Union just changed its music copyright, making it more like America’s: It’s the life of the artist, plus 70 years. You may support copyright for all the right reasons, but according to one study, the extensions benefit corporations far more than any individual artist. Let C. G. P. Grey explain — in this lively, clever video.