THE WRITING ON THE WALL: When you spend more than $300 million constructing a pair of buildings, there are lots of details to consider. One of them is how you are going to inform people about the building they are entering. Signage takes all forms, from the chest-thumping grandeur of a team logo on a [...]
A DEAL IS STRUCK IN RICHARDSON: The economy has made it hard out there for a theater company these days. So a pair of them in Richardson made a smart move – they joined forces. The Labyrinth Theatre and Richardson Theatre Center had already partnered to produce a recent production of The Foreigner; now they [...]
Following the embarrassment of the George Steel “era” and with only six months to go before the company opens at the Winspear Opera House, the Dallas Opera has promoted from within. Jonathan Pell, who has been with the opera for 24 years, now assumes the role of artistic director, a position last held by co-founder [...]
Alexander McCall Smith — whom most people know as the author of the best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels (which recently became an HBO series) — is known to Dallasites for his long relationship with our town, having taught at SMU for many years. In 1995 in Edinburgh, as a typically droll sideline, the [...]
While wandering up and down the Deep Ellum Arts Festival on Sunday, I couldn’t help but be constantly reminded of the stasis that the once-bustling, always-historic entertainment district is in. First, the crowd: It was sizeable but not huge (I easily found parallel metered parking a block away on Elm Street), and eclectic but not all [...]
SUPPORTING A LOCAL: It’s good to see the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth devote some prime space to a North Texan on the rise. Rosson Crow, who grew up in Plano before attending Yale, is the subject of the museum’s current Focus show. Her large-scale paintings remind us of a bygone era, with depictions [...]
Today’s Art&Seek Saturday Spotlight checks in on the 15th Annual Deep Ellum Arts Festival.
As most of us know, the arts are among the first to suffer during an economic downturn. But a few institutions usually hold fast during tough times – mostly ones that are so woven into the American pop-cultural fabric that they’re relatively indefatigable by diminished funds to support them. Guitars, and the music associated with [...]
One of the premiere college jazz bands in the country has a new leader at the helm. The University of North Texas has named Steve Wiest director of the school’s One O’Clock Lab Band. The school filled two other vacancies today: Tim Brent has been named director of vocal jazz and John Murphy has been [...]
TEXAS FILM DAY: AFI Dallas is officially over for another year, but that doesn’t mean that the film buzz in this town is done. Today, Governor Rick Perry comes to Dallas to serve as host for A Celebration of Texas Filmmaking. At 7:15 tonight, he’ll speak about Texas’ place in the film industry and introduce [...]
