From its sherbet-colored town square to the apple-cheeked children who scamper through clusters of chattering townsfolk, RiverCity is the idealized realization of quaint, nostalgic charm.

Jeff Swearingen and Bren Rapp are the driving force behind Fun House, a theater troupe comprised mainly of adolescents that does some decidedly un-childish work.

Stefan Novinski’s production of Annie Baker’s The Aliens is a wonderful, bittersweet surprise, in no small part because her delicate, layered work performed out-of-doors.

On the surface, A.R. Gurney’s Black Tie appears to be about believing in true love and knowing that the heart will lead us true. Instead, this truncated play that originally premiered in 2011 feels like a relic of the 1950s,

Charles Smith’s play could have easily translated as a tad overwrought, what with the characters’ frequent flights of high-minded, tongue-twisting fancy. But not in the steady hands of director Tre Garrett.

Trying to examine and explain things in detail, like why Vanessa DeSilvio dances ecstatically one moment and spits bloody teeth into her palm the next, is as challenging as Solis’ script.

The Festival of Independent Theatres sneaked up on us a little this year, which means it’s right up against Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Festival. So many plays, so little time.

We spoke with Tavakolian about the Davis Street Collective, a hodgepodge new theater troupe, and the little-performed play by Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis, they will present in a gallery.

Instead of an original score that might deepen our connection to the characters, we get a jukebox set list carefully formulated to light up the “nostalgia” sections in the suburban brain.

He thought he’d be 50 before he got this job. Twenty years ahead of schedule, Tre Garrett is the best young artistic director in North Texas.

For all the darkness both literal and figurative inherent to Fly by Night, an ambitious work that examines high-minded ideas of fate, prophecy, and connectedness, there’s something almost blindingly brilliant about it.

Each year the Meadows presents a performance at the Winspear Opera House to help raise funds for scholarships. This year’s program included additional intrigue: a new commission of The Rite of Spring.

Win tickets to this special show featuring an eclectic set of works by Glen Tetley, Val Caniparoli, and Ben Stevenson, Artistic Director of the Texas Ballet Theater.

Closing at Stage West and Dallas Summer Musicals, and openings and one-offs at the Winspear and Wyly, top our run down of this weekend’s theater happenings.

We have four tickets for you to see the celebrated dance company as they return to Dallas for the first time in 30 years.

The man known as Sinbad will be stopping in Dallas to show us you can still be funny without using expletives.

Posey aims for real seriousness with what might be his first truly original play, and brushes up against a creepy, delicious darkness.

For a dramatist whose works have impacted writers like Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, and Eugene Ionesco, Strindberg is certainly under-produced here in the States.

At 10 years old, Wicked is quickly approaching the median age of its target audience, but age seems not to matter. On its fourth trip through Dallas, Wicked still casts a spell over its audience.

This stage adaptation is an honest, sometimes weary approach to Steinbeck’s iconic work that results in a play that’s trying at times and immensely rewarding at others.

Choppy, sitcom-style scenes and more set changes than you can shake a thermometer at disrupt the flow of an otherwise engaging rom-com romp through our overmedicated society.

Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama  follows the journey of an English professor stricken with terminal ovarian cancer. Now you can win tickets to Saturday’s performance of this award-winning play.

“It’s a great time to be an actor in Dallas,” Parker says, citing the abundance of local opportunities and the artistic freedom of working within Dallas’ arts community.

Yesterday Dallas Theater Center acting company member Lee Trull was named the Director of New Play Development, a new position for the company that will strengthen their commitment to supporting new work.

It’s April in Dallas, which means a bevy of cultural activities are upon us. Mayor Mike Rawlings has taken notice. Tomorrow at City Hall he will proclaim April 7-14 Dallas Arts Week.