Dallas News Blog

Courtesy the Dallas Theater Company

Liz Mikel

​Liz Mikel, a member of the Dallas Theater Center's resident ensemble and, from 2006 through '08, a co-star on Friday Night Lights, was among those who lost everything yesterday when the Holly Hills apartment complex near Greenville Avenue and Walnut Hill Lane caught fire. As she told KXAS-Channel 5, "Memories from Friday Night Lights, signatures, scripts that I had saved -- all of that, gone," she said. "But I am grateful to be here. I could be gone." She escaped with her daughter and 1-year-old grandson.

Mikel's one week away from the opening of the DTC's Give It Up!, described as on the Web site as a "sexy pop musical." Jacob Cigainero, the DTC's public relations director, sends word that all of the money from January 15's opening night at the Dee & Charles Wyly Theatre will go to Mikel; hence, the announcement today of a so-called Pay What You Can world-premiere, which "invites patrons to purchase tickets for any seat for any amount they are comfortable paying, with this particular production's Pay What You Can performance benefiting a local artist and DTC family member in her time of need."

Says artistic director Kevin Moriarty in the DTC's release, "DTC's Pay What You Can initiative gives anyone in our community the opportunity to see live theater for a price that's personally affordable to them, making great art available to virtually everyone regardless of their financial situation. In the same spirit of community, one of the ways we want to show our support and take care of one of our city's most vibrant artists and a DTC family member is by giving Liz the entire total of money from the Give It Up! Pay What You Can ticket sales to aid her in re-establishing a home and her life after such a profound loss."

Elaine's year-in-local-theater piece runs in the paper version of Unfair Park on stands tomorrow. Till then, then, this sneak peek from Theater Jones, where our theater critic and Mark Lowry look back at the highlights of the year (and decade) that was.

I spent 20 minutes trying to decide whether to use an old Kathleen Turner photo or a more recent one.

​But a month after Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith's book about the late, great Molly Ivins hit stores comes word of a stage production based on the Dallas Times Herald columnist's life: Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, scheduled to debut March 19 on the Philadelphia Theatre Company stage. And, as you no doubt guessed by the photo and the headline (a reference to Body Heat, ahem), Kathleen Turner will play Schutze's former drinking buddy, competitor and comrade -- and, natch, "the famously bawdy newspaper columnist, political commentator, and bestselling author." The piece was written by sisters Margaret and Allison Engel. So here's a bit from the blurb, for those who need to make travel plans accordingly:

A true Texas original, Ivins was a sharp-tongued liberal who skewered the political establishment and the "good ol' boys" with a heaping helping of her unforgettable wit and wisdom. This one-woman play celebrates Ivins' endurance and tenacity even when it seemed like a complacent America wasn't listening.

​It has been seven months since Dallas Theater Center artistic director Kevin Moriarty announced the lineup for DTC's inaugural season in the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, during which time the venue's been finished and feted and Moriarty wove a month-long Midsummer Night's Dream that ended its run yesterday. It has, he tells Unfair Park, been "its own min-super adventure. But like a good DC comic book, it ended victoriously in every way."

Which, right on cue, brings us to the reason for this item: the season-ending It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman, a top-to-bottom, side-to-side reworking of the short-lived 1966 Broadway production that takes flight seven months from now. How, we wondered, was it coming? It was a simple question that turned into a 45-minute conversation in which Moriarty revealed that next week, he and writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa will head to New York City to read the work with its original authors -- Charles Strouse (who wrote the music), Lee Adams (lyrics) and Oak Cliff's own Robert Benton (who penned the story with David Newman) -- and figure out whether they've struck gold or hit kryptonite.

"We'll divide the parts," says Moriarty, who adds that the confab will take place in Strouse's living room. "That will be our first time for all of us to be together to see what we have. That'll be exciting. It could be terrifying. But it will be fun. Not only will we hear the thing out loud, but we'll also brainstorm and share ideas. And it's possible we'll discover we need maybe two, maybe three new songs or that the old songs need really radical lyrical adjustments."

At the Dallas Hub Theater, founder and producer Tim Shane has kept production costs low by reusing set pieces, showcasing work from new playwrights, and driving through a blizzard with old rows of seats donated by an East Coast movie theater. You can hear from Shane in the video tour above, and read more about the theater in Elaine Liner's sidebar to this year's Best of Dallas Culture section.

We've got a handful of other videos from subjects of our Best of Dallas sidebar stories to give you a few more ways into this year's issue:
Market: Marc and Roger Andres remaking Henderson Avenue
Sports: The Lingerie Football League's Dallas Desire
Food: Low-profile chefs leading the back-to-basics cooking movement
Music: Defining the Dallas Club Sound with DJ Drop

Patrick Michels

Bill Kennedy onstage at The Majestic Friday night

​Ned Startzel was 3 years old when the new Majestic Theatre opened on Elm Street in downtown Dallas in 1921. Startzel began writing shows, performed in Vaudeville acts and fought in World War II, while Dallas's theater row rose and fell around the Majestic -- with 10 neighboring theaters downtown, at one point.

Last weekend Startzel brought his 2-year-old Spectacular Senior Follies revue to the Majestic's friendly confines, singing, dancing and -- in a carnival barker's hat and gold vest -- running through Vaudeville-style comedy routines on the same stage where Harry Houdini, Fred Astaire and Mae West once performed.

Startzel, 91, and artistic director Mark Carroll assembled a cast of singers and dancers over age 55 for the show, inspired by the elderly-only Palm Springs Follies, drawing on such local groups as the Dallas Tap Dazzlers and the Greater Dallas Rotary Chorus.

The show was a fundraiser for those groups and the Visiting Nurse Association and the Ms. Texas Senior America Pageant, and four performances last weekend included tributes to the Golden Age of Hollywood, showgirls numbers, and winking nods to the performers' ages, such as  "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)," "I'm Gonna Live 'Til I Die," and "Young At Heart."

This slide show's got more photos including a look backstage before opening night, and a few shots from the performance.

Earlier this week, Dallas Theater Center artistic director Kevin Moriarty announced the DTC's lineup for its inaugural season in the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, and among the list of familiar titles and newcomers, one in particular leaps off the page in a single bound: It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman. It is, after all, a brave, bold choice: The musical -- which starred Bob Holiday, Jack Cassidy and Linda Lavin -- was not a classic by any stretch. On March 29, 1966, It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman opened on Broadway, and, a mere 129 performances later, all but disappeared into the Phantom Zone and has seldom been seen since (save for a dreadful 1975 made-for-TV adaptation).

It has a decidedly Dallas connection: It's Superman was co-written by an Oak Cliff native son, writer-director Robert Benton, as he and writing partner David Newman were waiting for someone to make their screenplay for Bonnie and Clyde into a reality. (Benton and Newman would also contribute to the third draft of the Superman: The Movie screenplay in 1976.) But their version of It's Superman is not the one the Dallas Theater Center will present beginning June 18 of next year. The songs -- music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams -- will remain the same, but the book is, at this very moment, being re-written by Moriarty and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a noted playwright who's also penned Spider-man titles for Marvel Comics.

Tadd Myers

DTC artistic director Kevin Moriarty

For Moriarty, who made a splash with his take on The Who's Tommy, this revival is "a very big deal" for many reasons, chief among them: "Growing up in a very small town in Indiana, two of my most favorite escapes were comic books, which you could find in rural Indiana, and musicals, which I found in record stores or at the library. I stumbled across a cast recording of It's Superman when I was 12, and I could figure out Strouse and Adams were the writers of Bye Bye Birdie, which my high school had done, and Annie, and I felt like all of my dreams had come true. Had I been able to commission a piece as a high school kid, I would have had the writers of Annie do Superman!"

Horton Foote

The great Horton Foote, the Wharton native responsible for such works as the To Kill a Mockingbird screenplay (for which he won an Oscar), The Trip to Bountiful (filmed in Dallas) and Tender Mercies, died today at the age of 92 at his Connecticut home. This excerpt from his New York Times obituary:

Although he boarded a train for Dallas at the age of 16 to pursue a career as an actor, Mr. Foote never really left home. From his first efforts as a playwright, he returned again and again to set his plays and films amid the pecan groves and Victorian houses with large front porches on the tree-lined streets of Wharton. His inspiration came from the people he knew and the stories he heard growing up there. "I've spent my life listening," Mr. Foote once said.

Now, perhaps, would be a very good time to visit the DeGolyer Library on the SMU campus, where the Horton Foote Collection is kept -- with "close to 200 boxes of material [including] manuscripts, scrapbooks, handwritten drafts of screenplays, diaries, letters, photographs, and family memorabilia of the Wharton, Texas, native who has spent over 60 years in film, stage, and television." Six years ago, in fact, the DeGolyer Library mounted the exhibition "Horton Foote and The Trip to Bountiful, 1953-2003."

Jeremy Gerard, a theater critic for The Dallas Morning News some two decades ago, is now a New York-based editor for Bloomberg News, the first media outlet to which George Steel denied he was leaving his new Dallas Opera gig for an opening in New York. This morning, Gerard weighs in on Steel's abrupt departure from Dallas last week, insisting, as others have in recent days, that Steel had already worn out his welcome here and that it was probably best he return to Manhattan. Which isn't the part of the piece I find most interesting, truth told. This is:

Like Steel, I know something about being a New Yorker in Dallas. It can be a silly city. It has skyscrapers outlined in green neon. It's deeply obsessed with how the rest of the world sees it.

Yet its self-confidence can be infectious. Tennessee Williams found refuge and solace there. Margo Jones practically invented theater-in-the-round on the same Texas State Fair grounds as the opera and guitarist Charlie Christian played electric jazz in the speakeasies of the Deep Ellum district. You just have to show a little curiosity to find the there there.

Translating live improv comedy to the page is tough, so for a companion to our cover story this week about Mark Orvik, a comedian who's fighting a life-threatening illness with humor, check out these videos of the troupe's on-stage shenanigans. And hey, amidst waves of layoffs and foreclosures, we could all stand to follow Orvik's lead and use humor as a coping tool.
     

The top story in today's Hollywood Reporter billboards the cast of the new Sci Fi Channel series Stargate Universe, third in the Stargate franchise. Starring opposite Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty, Trainspotting) is Brian J. Smith, a young actor we've been writing about (OK, gushing over) since he wowed critics and audiences in A Clockwork Orange at Collin County Community College's Quad C Theatre in 2002.

Smith, pictured here, is one of the four leads on the show. He'll play Lt. Matthew Scott, a junior member of the Stargate team "thrust into the role before he's ready." (The character, not the actor.) The series, yet another based on the 15-year-old movie starring Kurt Russell, follows a group of soldiers, scientists and civilians left to fend for themselves after being forced through a Stargate (a sort of time portal/black hole) after their base is attacked. The survivors are led by Dr. David Rush (Carlyle), who takes charge of trying to unlock the ship's mysteries and return the group to Earth. The show will debut in the fall as a two-hour movie on Sci Fi.

"I think this is going to be a pretty cool project," writes Smith via Facebook. "There's been a lot of criticism of the show already, and it hasn't even been SHOT yet. A lot of the fans of SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis were appalled at the cast breakdown, calling it Stargate: 90210 based on some of the character's ages (mid-20s)."  Smith, 27, actually is the second youngest of the cast so far.

How do you freak out a serious stage actor? Ask him or her to do some improv. On video.

That's what we did with members of the new Dallas Theater Center resident acting company. After we conducted the serious interviews about being ack-tohrs in big-time regional theater, we made them act on command. Such whining. "They made us feel like dancing monkeys!" the thesps complained later to DTC artistic director Kevin Moriarty (or so we heard).

Look, even James Lipton gets his subjects to tap-dance on Inside the Actors Studio. So what's wrong with goofing around a little? Seven of the nine actors gave it a go. Do jump along. --Elaine Liner

The next production at the Dallas Theater Center, In the Beginning (opening January 21), also marks the start of a new era for actors at the 50-year-old playhouse. It will be the first production to star all of the members of artistic director Kevin Moriarty's new nine-member resident acting company: Hassan El-Amin, Chamblee Ferguson, Matthew Gray, Sean Hennigan, Liz Mikel, Cedric Neal, Sally Nystuen Vahle, Lee Trull and Christina Vela.

DTC hasn't had a resident ensemble since the early 1990s. Resident companies are a rarity in regional theater these days. Theater biz is hurting so badly, some are trimming their seasons and booking cheap-to-produce two- and three-character plays. Addison's WaterTower Theatre informed subscribers this week that it was reducing runs from four weeks to three and canceling upcoming productions of Our Town and How to Succeed in Business..., replacing them with The Glass Menagerie and another small-cast show to be named later in the season.

Good news for nostalgists with kiddos: The Electric Company makes its return to PBS January 19th, when the network sneak peeks the easy-reader with a two-hour marathon in advance of its official January 23 debut. Alas, no Morgan Freeman, Rita Moreno or Bill Cosby this go-round, but says the media release we received this a.m., there is a local on the show: William Jackson Harper, familiar to patrons of the Dallas Theater Center, the Courtyard Theater and Dallas Shakespeare Festival. The 28-year-old also has a lengthy off-Broadway résumé, including, recently, Queens Boulevard (The Musical).

Harper's character's name on the show is Danny Rebus, described thusly in the media release: He "leaves riddles in rebus form, creating havoc within the neighborhood and the people in it. He is super touchy and offended by the most innocuous perceived transgression. His good traits are that he's a whiner, a grudge-holder and an all around bitter pill." To which I can totally re-late, relate. --Robert Wilonsky

Bad news this afternoon from Kurt Kleinmann, whose Pegasus Theatre has been coloring its stage productions a distinctly retro shade of gray since 1986: There will be no new "In Living Black and White" production next month at the Charles W. Eisemann Center in Richardson, where, last December, Kleinmann opened his Full Moon Murders! The reason for the no-show? You guessed it. "The state of the economy seems to be affecting almost everyone, and we're no exception," he writes. "In addition to our own personal disappointment, we realize this will no doubt be a letdown to our loyal fan base. I promise you, it was not an easy decision to make."

But, he adds, there is some potentially promising news mixed in with the bad, as Pegasus is "in negotiations with an experienced tour producer" to take the "Black & White" shows on the road to "medium-sized Texas towns." The tour would start in Dallas, then travel to smaller cities "that don't have as many live theatre options as Dallas has," Kleinmann says -- "and best of all, the venues we will perform in are renovated vaudeville and old movie theaters across the state, a perfect setting for the 'Black & White' shows which are designed to look like old movies come to life on stage." How decidedly retro, just like a Great Depression. --Robert Wilonsky

The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts has a new CEO, Mark Nerenhausen, formerly president and CEO of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, where he worked for 10 years. As announced earlier today, Nerenhausen will start the job here in March, six months before the opening of the $354-million DCPA. (The rest of the press release with quotes from Nerenhausen is here.)

Nerenhausen succeeds Bill Lively, the current president and CEO of the Center, who now will transish into a new role as president of the Center's Endowment Trust beginning January 1. Lively also will continue to lead the Center's fund-raising campaign, notable for its individual contributions of $1 million-plus from more than 100 Dallas families.

Now, the bad news: The Dallas Theater Center, which will move into the DCPA's Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre as its primary resident company next fall, is suffering some financial setbacks. Tickets sales have slumped -- though the annual splashy production of A Christmas Carol is selling well, we hear -- and to keep the theater from going into the red, seven staffers have been laid off. We don't yet know who got the boot, but after the jump, the official statement and more.

A brief follow to yesterday's item concerning the Fort Worth playwright suing Tyler Perry over Diary of a Mad Black Woman out in Marshall -- chiefly, because Perry testified yesterday and reiterated his claim that he didn't lift a single word from Donna West. Recounts the Associated Press: "'I never stole anything from anybody -- never,' Perry said, locking his eyes with the jury." One look at the video above, with Perry being swamped for autographs outside the courtroom, probably gives some indication of how this'll turn out.

But this curious note from the end of the story: "L.D. Dabney, an associate of West and a theater arts enthusiast of the Dallas area, testified earlier Wednesday that when he first saw Perry's film in July 2006, he thought it was based on West's play because he knew what was going to happen from one scene to the next." L.D. Dabney -- that names sounds familiar. Because it is: He's the guy for whom Ron Price worked as a sales manager, dispensing hospital supplies, during his run for the Dallas Independent School District board way back when. --Robert Wilonsky

Over in Marshall, a Fort Worth woman named Donna West has taken cross-dressing franchise Tyler Perry to federal court, claiming that Perry used her 1991 play Fantasy of a Black Woman as the basis for his 2005 movie Diary of a Mad Black Woman. West actually filed the suit in May 2007, but the trial's underway at this very moment -- and Perry's attorneys are insisting that West's claims are unfounded, as in: "Why would he need to copy Ms. West's script?"

Dunno, but the jury will likely hear the case for another week and then decide. Till then, you can play along: After the jump, I've uploaded both West's initial complaint -- which includes mention of the play's July 1991 debut at the Junior Black Academy of Arts and Letters at the Dallas Convention Center -- and Fantasy of a Black Woman's script, which was entered into evidence. If nothing else, it seems ripe for a revival. --Robert Wilonsky

For once the squeals they're hearing over at Theatre Three aren't coming from the elderly patrons' hearing aids. It's the reaction of a new audience of teenage girls who've discovered Curt Mega, the 20-year-old TCU student playing the romantic lead, Fabrizio Nacarelli, in the musical Light in the Piazza.

They squeal when he comes onstage, they squeal again when he takes his shirt off (in a love scene with co-star Kim Whalen), and they go teenybopper nutso when he comes out to take his bows. Then they rush home and friend him on Facebook. But Mega (great name for a teen idol, by the way) is being careful. "I haven't confirmed any of them as friends yet," he says. "That just makes it, I don't know, so permanent."

He might have to get used to the fan following. Box office for the show has been great at a time when other theaters are playing to empty seats. Light in the Piazza has been extended through the Thanksgiving weekend, with matinees on Sundays.

We thought you'd like to see and hear this mega-talented young actor. After the jump, he sings one of the show’s big ballads, "Love to Me." --Elaine Liner

Theater in this town has never been better. So why are there so many empty seats? Tickets are reasonable—about $10 for most shows, with free parking at most theaters. Many companies, including Kitchen Dog and Theatre Three, even offer “pay what you can” performances.

But opening nights recently have seen the curtain going up for woefully sparse houses. Twelve people at the marvelous Neat at the African American Rep in DeSoto. Fifteen at the Sunday matinee of Make Me a Song at WaterTower.

If there’s any show right now that deserves to be SRO, it’s Topdog/Underdog, the first show by the aptly named Upstart Productions. More about the show after the jump -- including video from the production.

Percussionist-athlete John Angeles spent his entire childhood in Fort Worth and studied music every step of the way, drumming in the Nolan Catholic High School marching band and majoring in music at Texas Christian University.

After college he joined a touring percussion group, and got hooked on the traveling lifestyle. Now he’s with the touring production of Stomp, and every now and then he gets back to the Dallas area -- to steal his parents' pots and pans and cruise the local junkyards. He's here now for one such visit, a week-long run at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, presented by Casa Mañana. The show runs tonight through Sunday. After the jump, bang out a Q&A with Angeles.

The Texas stage spoof Greater Tuna opened in Austin 27 years ago and has spawned a handful of spin-offs, with actors Jaston Williams and Joe Sears playing the entire cast of characters, and all, until now, based in small-town West Texas. The latest in the Tuna catalog, Tuna Does Vegas, opens tonight in Fort Worth at the Bass Performance Hall, presented by Casa Mañana and running through October 26. Williams was good enough to sit down with us at Unfair Park HQ to chat about his new show, the first bite of fresh Tuna in 10 years. It's after the jump.

Win a DFW Theater Critics Forum award and you get … absolutely nothing. No bronze trophy. No crystal gewgaw with your named etched into it. Not even a lousy parchment certificate with a gold sticker. Nope, the critics honor local actors with little more than an annual list of who we think did the best work over the past theater season. We didn’t even put the list in print this year. It’s online only, here (after the jump) and on the DFW Critics’ Facebook page.

This year’s list was compiled during a three-hour lunch and argument session last Saturday, which was marked by two near-walkouts over the nomination of a certain actor who some believed gave a fine performance that others of us (*cough*) deemed overly shout-y and gruff. (On the final tally, he didn’t make the list.) Critics are critical of each other -- and not just behind our backs.

Participating in this year’s voting: Glenn Arbery, People Newspapers and D (he’s now off the beat for two years, teaching at a college in Massachusetts); Martha Heimberg, Turtle Creek News; Arnold Wayne Jones, Dallas Voice; Perry Stewart and Mark Lowry, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Lowry leaves that paper September 19 in another round of buyouts); Lawson Taitte, Dallas Morning News; and me.

Note that The Who’s Tommy, currently playing at Dallas Theater Center, is included because performances began in the last week of August. Shows had to play in professional productions on local stages between Sept. 1, 2007, and August 31, 2008, to qualify for this year’s awards. Also, Tommy’s too damn good for us to wait a year to say so. So, the envelopes please ... --Elaine Liner

With a cast of 30 and a 32-member orchestra onstage, the production of West Side Story that opens Friday is one of the biggest shows Irving's Lyric Stage has ever produced. It's directed by Grover Dale, a veteran Broadway dancer who originated the role of Snowboy in the 1957 production of the Bernstein-Sondheim musical. Choreographer Kate Swan, a graduate of Greenhill School, taught the young cast the notoriously difficult Jerome Robbins dance steps.

Main roles -- Maria, Tony, Anita, Bernardo, Riff -- went to Equity professionals, including some hired out of New York. But the Jets and the Sharks, the show's warring street gangs, are played by area dancers, many of them teenagers from Booker T. Washington School of Performing and Visual Arts.

At auditions last spring and rehearsals over the summer, we noticed one standout among the dance corps: Harry Nathan Feril, an 18-year-old Booker T. senior. The Grand Prairie native has been dancing since he was 7, and West Side Story marks his first musical theater role. Dale cast him as Diesel, the "big, dumb guy" among the Jets. Feril proved to be such a good actor, Dale also assigned him dialogue usually spoken by another character. Video proof and more, after the jump.

Love the concept (and the logo): free tickets to Dallas stage productions, no strings attached. It's called Free Night of Theater, go figure, and it takes place not only in Dallas, but in dozens of cities across the country -- a far cry from the three (Philadelphia, San Francisco and Austin) that participated in the pilot program back in 2005. This is Dallas's first year to participate in the program, created by New York City-based nonprofit Theatre Communications Group with the intention of attracting strangers to the live theatuh.

All of the local bigwigs are participating in the event, which runs October 16 through November 10; a complete list of theaters and shows is on the Office of Cultural Affairs' Web site. Only, it'll be a while before you can get in virtual line: You can only snag tickets -- about 3,000 of which will distributed through the program -- from the Free Night of Theater site beginning at noon October 1. And do note, "reservations are handled on a first come, first serve basis," says the site, which adds that "each participating theatre will set a reservation ticket limit for their productions." By the way, they do ask one thing of the seasoned theatergoer: Please, please, please pick a theater you've never visited. Speaking of live local theater, incidentally, a delightful item from Elaine Liner is forthcoming today. --Robert Wilonsky

A good Friend of Unfair Park named Bob J. yesterday noted in the comments section to this little-commented-upon item that, well, the Dallas Theater Center's not playing fair with folks looking for seats in the DTC's under-construction home at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. Notes our Friend, who's been a DTC subscriber since 1973, "Priority seating is apparently based pretty much on how much you contribute" to the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. "So much for being a loyal subscriber all these years." His complete detailed complaint follows after the jump.

Jacob Cigainero, DTC's public relations manager, told Unfair Park today that there is a "seating campaign" under way, but said he didn't know much beyond that. He referred our query to marketing director Melinda Nelson, who was on her way into a meeting and unable to chat; Cigainero said he'll have her call back later. But as our own Elaine Liner points out, the theater -- which has about 600 seats, as opposed to the current 450 -- is so "adaptable" that there "won't be one seat that's that much better than another." And, as Elaine mentioned in April, newly installed artistic director Kevin Moriarty is a man of the people. Of course, Bob, maybe you're just not rich enough? --Robert Wilonsky

Update: Bob, looks like you're right. Cigainero called back to explain how this seating thing will work, and, yes, it's a points-based system in which contributions made to the Dallas Theater Center count far more than dollars spent on subscriptions. Jump with me to see if this makes any sense.

Kevin Moriarty, installed as Dallas Theater Center artistic director in June '07, makes his debut as DTC director later this month with, of all things, The Who's Tommy. Moriarty also makes his debut as DTC spokesman (not counting his video chitchat with Elaine in April) with this just-posted pitch for Tommy, which was extended through September 28 weeks before it even opened. Interesting note: DTC has hired the very theatrical, kinda classic-rocking Denton band Oso Closo to do the Who. Interested, very interested, though I've always been more of a Quadrophenia kinda guy myself. --Robert Wilonsky

Jersey Boys has been dubbed “the guy musical.” It’s packed with all those great tunes by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, and it’s got more F-words than Goodfellas. There are hookers. And mobsters. And a scene where Tommy DeVito, the Season who dragged the group a half-mil into debt, shotguns a joint to Bob Gaudio, the Season who wrote most of the songs. High School Musical it ain’t.

The national touring company of the Tony-winning Jersey Boys will stick around at the Music Hall at Fair Park till August 16. If you think you hate musicals, you will love this show. If you hated those awful jukebox musicals they hauled onstage at the Summer Musicals this year, you’ll love this show. This one was co-written by Marshall Brickman, who won an Oscar for the screenplay of Annie Hall. So it’s funny -- grown-up funny. And thanks to the cool choreography by Sergio Trujillo and Kelly Devine, and the snappy direction by Des McAnuff, it floors it from start to finish.

Best part is when the audience goes into a full-out frenzy at the first notes of “Sherry.” They don’t stop cheering till the end of the concert-style medley at the finale. I dug it. And as the show's a sort of souped-up Behind the Music, we went behind the curtains to get to know the four Jersey Boys paying the leads on the national tour: Joe Bwarie, Andrew Rannells, Steve Gouveia and Erik Bates. And we took a camera. --Elaine Liner

On Saturday, Undermain Theatre publicist Lisa Taylor sent out the reminder that director Katherine Owens; bandmates Kenny Withrow, Paul Semrad and Alan Emert; and cast members Bruce DuBose, Newton Pittman, Shannon Kearns-Simmons and plenty others are heading to NYC this week with their stage adaptation of Neil Young's Greendale. They'll take the show to the annual Ice Factory Festival, presented by Soho Think Tank at the Ohio Theatre, this Wednesday through Saturday -- where, just maybe, Neil Young will finally see the adaptation after skipping it during its Dallas run (which was end of March through early May).

Yesterday, The New York Times ran its own reminder in the Arts & Leisure section: a generous piece about "Morphing Neil Young for the Stage and Page." Young didn't talk for the story, which also deals with DC Comics' forthcoming comic book adaptation (ugh), but all the main Undermain'ers did, among them DeBose, the company's exec producer who initally applied for the stage rights once he discovered no one else had them. “I gather that it interested [Young] that we are a fairly small, experimental theater,” DuBose says, “He has really been generous and pretty much hands off.” Betcha at least one of Withrow's bandmates catches the four-day run. --Robert Wilonsky

Nastia Liukin was born in Moscow but lives in Parker, that Collin County hot spot; moved here when she was little, with her very famous and very decorated parents, both of whom were Soviet champion gymnasts. Fourteen years ago, her father, gold medalist Valeri Liukin, opened the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy in Plano; also in Dallas and Frisco, it's turned into a franchise. So, of course, a very local story.

Also a very international one, as the gymnast is on the U.S. Olympic Team headed for Beijing this summer. Which is why she's on the cover of the one and only official Olympics-based video game -- titled, go figure, Beijing ’08. Liukin's at the bottom right of the cover, and she's joined by Amanda Beard, Tyson Gay and Reese Hoffa. All of whom I could best ... at, oh, Lego Star Wars on the PS2, maybe. --Robert Wilonsky