Jerome Weeks | August 30, 2010
DISD has been climbing out of the arts-education hole it dug back in the ’80s and ’90s. But it’s been able to do it with outside, non-profit money — from groups like the Wallace Foundation. We look at how Little Kids Rock is bringing the power of rock — for free — to young headbangers and songwriters in DISD.
Jerome Weeks | August 23, 2010
Baroque music often sounds serene, glorious, confident in praising God, king and universal order. But the 17th and 18th centuries, the period of the Baroque, saw the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, religious strife and the conquest of the New World. This month, Circle Theatre and the Fort Worth Symphony give us THAT Baroque.
Stephen Becker | August 20, 2010
Stomping and roaring across the plains. Nope, not us, but a whole warehouse full of animatronic dinosaurs right here in North Texas. Today, we take a visit to Billings Productions in McKinney, one of the country’s largest producers of the Big Guys.
Jerome Weeks | August 5, 2010
The WashPost talks with Kennedy Center head Michael Kaiser after he traveled to all 50 states to give advice to artists and troubled arts institutions. Last November, he spoke and answered questions at the Latino Cultural Center. Like Kaiser himself, the report is sobering and clear-eyed — but also encouraging.
Jerome Weeks | July 29, 2010
“Elsewhere, Texas” is a small show, mostly just color photos of 23 projects around the state from the past decade. But in his review, Jerome Weeks says ‘small’ is part of the point. These are not big-ego, big-ticket projects. But they point to what may be our future.
Jerome Weeks | July 23, 2010
This time, Think TV talks with Lake Simons, director-designer-puppeteer-clown. The daughter of Hip Pocket founders Johnny and Diane Simons, Lake has puppets onstage in New York and next month presents a show at the Cowtown Puppetry Festival. We talk with her about playing with dolls, puppetry vs. acting and why she hides her nose.
Stephen Becker | July 16, 2010
The Program emerged two years ago as a splinter from the Video Association of Dallas. It offered a way of extracting (and highlighting) independent video artworks from the festival’s roster of more conventional documentaries and narratives. This summer the Program is back with a gallery installation and three incredible, full-length videos that are eerie and whimsical works. We talk with curator Charles Dee Mitchell.
Jerome Weeks | July 16, 2010
The 12th annual Festival of Independent Theatres opens at the Bath House Cultural Center. FIT, as it’s called, is the oldest theater festival in North Texas. But with the city budget cuts — for the past several years, not just the new ones — FIT continues mostly through the grit and creativity of the artists.
Jerome Weeks | July 9, 2010
Circle Theatre is presenting the Texas premiere of ‘Something Intangible’ by Bruce Graham — which is loosely based on the struggles of Walt Disney and his brother Roy to make the film ‘Fantasia’ — including their infamous collaboration with conductor Leopold Stokowski. Jerome Weeks reviews.
Jerome Weeks | June 30, 2010
The musical, ‘It’s a Bird . . . It’s a Plane . . . It’s Superman’ originally flopped on Broadway in 1966, but attracted by the musical score and its comic-book source, the Dallas Theater Center has poured money and talent into trying to make it fly. In his review, Jerome Weeks considers how it may take some mad scientist-genius to fuse the comic book and the Broadway musical.