Sights & sounds of fall THEATER
Experience the season’s best theater, dance, classical music and art exhibits
Dallas-Fort Worth has an abundance of arts and entertainment options, with the bustling 68-acre Dallas Arts District and more art museums than any other metro area its size in America. Here are top picks from Dallas Morning News critics for theater, dance, classical music and major art exhibits. For hundreds more great options, visit the GuideLive.com website.
‘Rent’
Before Hamilton changed our notion of what musical theater could be, there was Rent. The 20th-anniversary national tour of the contemporary Tony Award-winning take on
La bohème features a rousing rock score and a story that focuses on complicated lives and loves of artists struggling to be true to their work amid financial, emotional and physical pressures, including the devastation of AIDS. Through Oct. 2 at the Winspear Opera House, Dallas. attpac.org.
‘Bella: An American Tall Tale’
A black cowgirl goes in search of her true love in the late-19th-century West in this brand-new musical with a tall-tale feel. The show’s book, music and lyrics are by Kirsten Childs, who co-wrote the lyrics for Fly, a fresh take on the Peter Pan story. Bella is a co-production by Dallas Theater Center and Playwrights Horizons, which will present the show in New York City after it finishes its North Texas run. Through Oct. 22 at the Wyly Theatre, Dallas. dallastheatercenter.org.
‘The Phantom of the Opera’
Andrew Lloyd Webber, one of the most commercially successful composers of the past few decades, is back on top in New York, with three top 10 box office hits: the 2016 revival of Cats, the continued success of 2015’s
School of Rock and1988 Tony Award winner
The Phantom of the Opera still going strong after all these years. If you long for “The Music of the Night,” you just may find a mysterious masked man who’ll oblige you in D-FW. Oct. 20-30 at Bass Performance Hall, Fort Worth. basshall.com.
‘As We Lie Still’
A magician’s quest for a great illusion leads to unexpected results in this world premiere musical by Dallas composer Patrick Emile, a Frederick Loewe Award winner. The show, set at the height of vaudeville in the 1920s, is directed by Michael Serrecchia, an original Broadway cast member of A Chorus Line. Oct. 28Nov. 20 at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas. contemporarytheatreofdallas.com.
DANCE Texas Ballet Theater
TBT performs the U.S. premiere of legendary Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta’s take on Carmen. The program also includes contemporary ballet master Christopher Wheeldon’s Danse à Grande Vitesse. Oct. 7-9 at Bass Performance Hall, Fort Worth. texasballettheater.org.
Dallas Black Dance Theatre
The oldest dance company in North Texas appropriately opens its 40th anniversary season with the commissioned premiere of Matthew Rushing’s Tribute, chronicling 100 years of African-American choreography. For Tiffany Rea-Fisher’s B Side, audience members choose from three scores available on headphones. Nov. 4-6 at the Wyly Theatre, Dallas. dbdt.com, attpac.org.
Bruce Wood Dance Project
The company continues its sixth season with premieres by New York-based Polish choreographer Katarzyna Skarpetowska and artistic director Kimi Nikaidoh, who is collaborating on the new work Bloom with visual artist Shane Pennington. The Dallas premiere of Wood’s No Sea to Sail In rounds out the show. Nov. 11-12 at Dallas City Performance Hall. brucewoodance.org.
Dark Circles Contemporary Dance
Artistic director Joshua L. Peugh has commissioned a new work from Jonathan Campbell and Austin Diaz, artistic directors of New York’s Madboots Dance. Three Peugh works also are on the bill, including the premiere of Gal Friday. Nov. 18 and 20 at Bob Hope Theatre, on the Southern Methodist University campus, Dallas. darkcirclescontemporarydance.com.
CLASSICAL MUSIC Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Dallas has two more seasons to enjoy DSO music director Jaap van Zweden before he takes over the New York Philharmonic. At the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, soprano Lisette Oropesa and baritone Matthias Goerne join the orchestra and Dallas Symphony Chorus for Brahms’ deeply felt German Requiem, and whiz-bang pianist Yuja Wang performs the Bartók Third Piano Concerto. Oct. 6-9. dallassymphony.com.
Chiara String Quartet
One of the city’s most venerable concert presenters, the Dallas Chamber Music Society, opens the 2016-17 season with a foursome that, usually, plays from memory. The program includes string quartets by Beethoven (in E-flat major, Op. 127), Schubert (in A minor, D. 804) and Britten (Three Divertimenti). Oct. 17 at Caruth Auditorium, on the Southern Methodist University campus, Dallas. dallaschambermusic.org.
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
The FWSO is a very fine ensemble these days, and it’s blessed with a fine concert venue in downtown Fort Worth’s Bass Performance Hall. The young Australian Nicholas Carter is the guest conductor for an unusual all-English program: the Elgar Enigma Variations, Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings (with tenor Paul Appleby and FWSO principal horn Molly Norcross) and the contemporary composer Thomas Adès’ Three Studies from
Couperin. Nov. 4-6. fwsymphony.org.
The Dallas Opera: ‘Moby-Dick’
Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer teamed up to create an operatic adaptation (and, thankfully, compression) of Herman Melville’s famous novel. A hit in its 2010 world premiere, during the inaugural season of Dallas’ Winspear Opera House, it’s back at the Winspear this season, with Jay Hunter Morris as the doomed Captain Ahab, Stephen Costello as Greenhorn and Morgan Smith as Starbuck. Music director Emmanuel Villaume conducts. Nov. 4-20. dallasopera.org.
ART EXHIBITS ‘Clay Between Two Seas: From the Abbasid Court to Puebla de los Angeles’
Many of us know about the fabulous ceramics of Puebla, Mexico, widely known as Talavera. But few of us know the extent to which these popular works relate through trade to the ceramic traditions of China and the Middle East; Talavera can be argued to be the first truly global ceramic production. Hurrah for the Crow Collection of Asian Art for organizing this and its ancillary exhibitions with the Baroque Museum in Puebla. Through Feb. 12 at the Crow, Dallas. crowcollection.org.
‘Border Cantos: Richard Misrach/Guillermo Galindo’
As our politicians squabble about border issues and immigration, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art has quietly commissioned a distinguished photographer, Richard Misrach, to collaborate with an important composer, Guillermo Galindo, to create this multimedia exhibition. The vast metal line of the border fence is studied visually and aurally for its effects on a single landscape and a divided political and social human realm. Tough and important. Through Dec. 31 at the Amon Carter, Fort Worth. cartermuseum.org.
‘Modern Spanish Art From the Asociación Colección Arte Contemporáneo’
With this show, the Meadows Museum is focusing our attention on 20th-century Spanish art, which, save for the “big four” of Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí, is little-known outside Spain. The Meadows itself has a small group of 20th-century Spanish works, and this exhibition will make the case for the importance of the period in the continuous history of Spanish painting and sculpture. Oct. 9-Jan. 29 at the Meadows, on the Southern Methodist University campus, Dallas. meadowsmuseumdallas.org.
‘Monet: The Early Years’
The Kimbell Art Museum’s deputy director, Dr. George Shackelford, is one of the most distinguished scholars of impressionism in the world. This fall, he turns the spotlight on the early work of the greatest impressionist landscape painter, Claude Monet, bringing to Fort Worth a stellar selection of his paintings made before 1874. Few know the subject better than Dr. Shackelford, and few museums can equal the borrowing power of the Kimbell — a winning combination that will surely result in a blockbuster. Oct. 16-Jan. 29 at the Kimbell, Fort Worth. kimbellart.org.