Month: April 2026

Julia and Patricia share the home where their mother passed. Patricia has a white-collar job with a good salary. Julia’s vocation as a teacher is more lofty. When she learns Patricia has landed a shot on the Flip & Fix show she’s appalled. The show refurbishes weary houses then markets them for a sizable profit. At least that’s the hope.

The chipper host arrives with a versatile crew. Contingencies arise: demolition, liability, cultural appropriation, all go into the mix.. Julia and Patricia fight over history the house that ties them to racial identity. Patricia’ s dismissive of Julia’s fanciful notions of incantation, metaphysical intervention, familial ghosts who mingle with the living. Patricia’s pragmatic and Julia’s intoxicated. As the game show goes forward misery and regret emerge. Seemingly innocuous entertainment becomes a kind of cannibalism. Articles of Patricia’s aspect are idolized and consumed.

Playwright Eliana Pipes creates a central metaphor for monetizing and trivializing the enigma of ancestry and recollection. The sacrament of cherishing loved ones and community. Patricia, like so many, craves a future without dread or exhaustion . The past, sketchy and too often painful, is no substitute for security. But, like D. H. Lawrence’s Rocking Horse Winner, the more you earn, the more you need. As Dream House  takes one turn and another, we watch their personal artifacts and clues to their past, dwindle and crumble.

Dream House is a marvel of tone shift: absurdity, menace, grief, cynicism. Intersection of clarity and bedlam. It’s a kick in the head to see Clare Floyd DeVries’ splendid set utterly destroyed before our eyes. The spectacle of one room swept away to replace another, less original. Dream House dazzles with layers of revelation, regret and yes, resignation. The unresolved, painful issues, the loss of ethnic identity for the sake of expediency, the strange symbiotic connection between white privilege and assimilation. Do we survive by trading in our complexity and uniqueness or do we forfeit it?

Kitchen Dog Theater presents Dream House playing through May 3rd, 2026. 4774 Algiers Street, Dallas, Texas 75207. kitchendogtheater.org. 214-953-1055.

 

Nick Cristano is up for a well-deserved promotion, but it’s not easy to explain to his grandparents.  Nick and his folks enjoy each other’s company, in the way only relatives can. They laugh, they squabble, they sing. They accept and appreciate you. Everything chipper and relaxed. Of course, elders have their own way of reasoning. It’s crazy-making. Like talking in French when it’s heard in Greek.

Hey Nicky, how’s it going with that redhead you’ve been dating? Gramps, I never dated a  redhead. What’s wrong with a redhead? Nothing, Gramps. Then why did you drop her? I didn’t drop anybody, Gramps.

When Nick explains he must move to another part of the country, they’re appalled. You could say they’re meddling, but they have a point. They invite an eligible girl to Sunday dinner. On the QT. This is ridiculously inappropriate, certainly, but she’s a catch. When they discuss the impact of moving, they’re not being manipulative. Their connection to Nick is solid. Formidable. It’s who they are. Nick no doubt has a say in his future, but how can he ignore his caring, nurturing, exasperating family? It feels impossible not to hope, but hurt is unavoidable.

Like Neil Simon, playwright Joe DiPietro alleviates pain with irony. Comedy turns on irony. The grandparents hit a conversational loop, and DiPietro revels in the absurd rhythm. Like Who’s on First?  DiPietro has a more subtle technique than Simon, his punchlines blend with less fanfare. With poise and authenticity, the humor and pathos come through.

Co-Directors Rachael Lindley and Lorna Woodford have done nicely by Over the River and Through the Woods, a narrative that ponders the loss that comes with a nuclear family. The decision to have only one generation under the roof. Over the River leans a bit more toward John Guare than Clifford Odets. It’s rare to see six actors (it feels like more) submerged in character without fuss or exaggeration. Charming, confident, ensemble work that sneaks up. Richardson Theatre Company has set the bar high with Over the River.  

C’mon. Do yourself a favor.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents: Over the River and Through the Woods: playing April 10th through May 3rd, 2026. 518 West Arapaho Road, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas 75080. 972-699-1130

 

Nick Cristano is up for a well-deserved promotion, but it’s not easy to explain to his grandparents.  Nick and his folks enjoy each other’s company, in the way only relatives can. They laugh, they squabble, they sing. They accept and appreciate you. Everything chipper and relaxed. Of course, elders have their own way of reasoning. It’s crazy-making. Like talking in French when it’s heard in Greek.

Hey Nicky, how’s it going with that redhead you’ve been dating? Gramps, I never dated a  redhead. What’s wrong with a redhead? Nothing, Gramps. Then why did you drop her? I didn’t drop anybody, Gramps.

When Nick explains he must move to another part of the country, they’re appalled. You could say they’re meddling, but they have a point. They invite an eligible girl to Sunday dinner. On the QT. This is ridiculously inappropriate, certainly, but she’s a catch. When they discuss the impact of moving, they’re not being manipulative. Their connection to Nick is solid. Formidable. It’s who they are. Nick no doubt has a say in his future, but how can he ignore his caring, nurturing, exasperating family? It feels impossible not to hope, but hurt is unavoidable.

Like Neil Simon, playwright Joe DiPietro alleviates pain with irony. Comedy turns on irony. The grandparents hit a conversational loop, and DiPietro revels in the absurd rhythm. Like Who’s on First?  DiPietro has a more subtle technique than Simon, his punchlines blend with less fanfare. With poise and authenticity, the humor and pathos come through.

Co-Directors Rachael Lindley and Lorna Woodford have done nicely by Over the River and Through the Woods, a narrative that ponders the loss that comes with a nuclear family. The decision to have only one generation under the roof. Over the River leans a bit more toward John Guare than Clifford Odets. It’s rare to see six actors (it feels like more) submerged in character without fuss or exaggeration. Charming, confident, ensemble work that sneaks up. Richardson Theatre Company has set the bar high with Over the River.  

C’mon. Do yourself a favor.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents: Over the River and Through the Woods: playing April 10th through May 3rd, 2026. 518 West Arapaho Road, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas 75080. 972-699-1130

Mary Woolley, a nimble and lofty scholar was named president of Mount Holyoke, in her late 30’s. One of the youngest of the early 1900’s. Intellect was her realm, her habitation, her jam. She earned her presence in the forum, on the strength of her mind. Like tap to the dancer, shade to the painter, moment to the photographer, for Mary Woolley her instant of revelation was who she was. Like the late poet prodigy Adrienne Rich, her dazzling, insolent mind was impossible to ignore. Cogent dialectic over ideology.

Woolley’s insistence that female students are scholars before hearthkeepers, defiant before submissive, upset too many donors and gatekeepers. Those who wielded influence and leverage fought a female university president who actually showed agency. Even Jeanette Marks (Mary’s life partner and lover) accuses her of expediency over conquest.

Playwright Bryna Turner’s Bull in a China Shop recognizes the astonishing achievements of Mary Wooley, an academic iconoclast who made remarkables changes in the way women were acknowledged and celebrated, not as some paradigm of femininity but strong, capable human beings. Throughout America and throughout Western Civilization. She may have gamed the system, she may have chosen her moments, but she wasn’t dishonest and she wasn’t devious.

Turner details the life of Mary Wooley (essentially a rebel and a rockstar) who also fights with her lover and companion, placates the whales, plays politics and rides the wave of cultural backlash. The characters of Bull in a China Shop are fractured. They’re very smart, but they mess up. They cheat, they sulk, they have fits, they throw themselves at teachers out of their league. You can’t live your life fully, if you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself. Turner shows heroism is attainable by the flawed. The broken.

Director Kels Ervi steers a formidable production:  a stage also library from an ivy-league university, hard core rock music, provocative and raucous, women who kiss and fight and grieve and run interference and get all itchy. A few of the memes may be coy, but that’s merely a distraction. Ervi fuses it like molten glass.

Second Thought Theatre presented Bull in a China Shop. It played April 1st through April  18th, 2023. 3400 Blackburn Street, Dallas, Texas 75219. Bryant Hall Campus. secondthoughtthesatre.com. 214897-3091.