Arts Blog

The Lexus Broadway Series, the tour presenter for the new Winspear Opera House about to open at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts in October, is scooping its own first show. The Lincoln Center South Pacific is the first subscription item in December. But today the organization announced that it is bringing Billy Crystal's Tony Award-winning one-man show, 700 Sundays, from Nov. 17 through Nov. 22.

Crystal's tribute to his late father set the record for one-week sales for any non-musical show on Broadway back in 2005. A short tour hit some American cities and Australia. AFter a two-year hiatus, the actor-comedian is reviving the piece for a six-city tour.

It's a coup for the series and the DCPA to get a star as big as Crystal duriing its first month of regular operation. Tickets go on sale in July and will be available only to subscribers of the main Lexus Broadway Series.

(Photo by Carol Rosegg)

She knows how to make an entrance: Dame Edna hit the Bass Hall stage on Tuesday night swathed in what seemed an acre of cascading hot pink and silver ruffles, all topped by that magnificent coif of Easter-egg purple. The regular Bass Hall drapes had been replaced by purple ones, of course -- and really, you can't help but admire a woman who apparently considers purple a neutral (as do I).

From reporter Michael Granberry: Achmed the Dead Terrorist and his "master," the wildly talented comic-ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, will now play American Airlines Center on Friday night instead of Saturday night, because of the Dallas Mavericks needing the arena on Saturday. So, Dunham will take the stage at 8 p.m. Friday, 24 hours earlier than expected. A graduate of Richardson High School and Baylor University, Dunham has gotten so big that he is now selling out arena shows. His popularity is due, of course, to his frequent appearances on Comedy Central (where he's about to have his own show) and to hundreds of millions of hits on YouTube, where Achmed ("I kill you!") has become a major star. My favorite line from Dunham's recent European tour (yes, he and Achmed have even toured Europe): Achmed expressed frustration in Sweden because when he said, "I kill you!," the Swedes thought he was saying "Ikea."

Photo: Achmed the Dead Terrorist, left, and Jeff Dunham

This just announced: The Smothers Brothers are going to bring their particular brand of humor to Nokia Theatre at Grand Prairie on Wednesday, Oct. 21.

Tom and Dick, famous in the '60s for the line (!) "Mom always loved you best," and later for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on TV. In 2008, they celebrated 50 years of performing together. Now, the legends have their own brand of wine.

Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

(Photo from smothersbrothers.com)

Denis Leary brought his tour to Nokia Theatre on Thursday night. We were there:

By PUNCH SHAW
Special Contributor

GRAND PRAIRIE -- It was an evening of comedy and anger -- but not always in that order.

Actor-comedian Denis Leary brought his Rescue Me Comedy Tour to Nokia Theatre on Thursday night, where he ranted and raged on a number of topics with a little help from some equally miffed friends.

What ticks Leary off? Let's see, the answer to that would be ... everything!

Celebrities seemed to be an especially sore point. While projecting their photos, Leary explained to the crowd of about 2,500 exactly what was wrong with various forms of tabloid fodder, such as Madonna, Dr. Phil and Brad Pitt. His highly profane attacks were sometimes funny, and the vehemence of his vitriol was often enough to make the material work. But his subjects were such paper tigers that some came off as hollow or just mean for the sake of being mean. The less-confrontational material also worked only sporadically because he so overworked anatomical and scatological jokes.

(Photo by Robert Presutti/The New York Times)

Actor and comedian Bob Newhart will make a stop at Fort Worth's Bass Hall on April 11.

Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. and range from $43 to $73.

As recently as 2007, Newhart was nominated for a Grammy for I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This, based on his 2006 book.

Hopefully, this won't all be a dream.

(Photo by Business Wire)

Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean will bring their six-week, 30-city tour to Nokia Theatre at Grand Prairie on Saturday, May 2.

This time, the guys will be Unwigged and Unplugged, performing music from heavy metal band Spinal Tap and folk music from A Mighty Wind, among other selections. It could be considered a 25th anniversary celebration of This Is Spinal Tap. Guest, Shearer and McKean, considered a legendary trio of comedians and musical artists, will be performing their alter ego-music as themselves for the first time. No wigs, no amps, no electric instruments. Let's see if they can hit "maximum volume" in an acoustic setting.

Tickets go on sale Friday through Ticketmaster.

(Photo of (left to right) Shearer, McKean and Guest by Suzanne Tenner/Warner Bros. Pictures)

You can't see me, but I'm typing reallyreallyreallyfast and I'm nottakingabreathever and I'mgoingtodothisfortwohours-
straightwithoutstopping. There: Now you have some idea of what Robin Williams is like in concert; he's like the Energizer Bunny on steriods, with a shot of NoDoz and about a gallon of Red Bull thrown in for good measure. "I"m exhausted," exclaimed the woman in front of me after the sold-out concert.

Yes, it paid to have eaten your Wheaties if you hoped to have had even half a chance of keeping up with Williams' rapid-fire patter as he hilariously, raunchily riffed on everything from buying the end zone at Texas Stadium ("the Cowboys didn't use it during the playoffs") to the alarm bells that should go off when "chimp," "Xanax" and "alcohol" are used in the same sentence to the single funniest routine I've ever seen onstage, about the designers of the human reproductive system, which unfortunately I can't print even one word of.

He's utterly fearless, playing naughty and not always nice on subjects as diverse as "moderate Republicans" ("That's like having a gun rack on a Volvo, not something you see very much") and the alarmingly petite women who compete in Olympics gymnastics. "They're not women! They're Shetland females!"

For a full review, see GuideLive.com on Saturday evening/Sunday morning.

When I saw the 3 Redneck Tenors over the holidays, I was mildly suprised to find out they're not all tenors. Ditto, finding out that the 3 Blonde Moms ... well, aren't. Blonde, that is. And that their show dwells much more on marriage than on motherhood.

The show, running through Saturday at Richardson's Eisemann Center, is actually three comediennes doing stand-up. The show starts with a too-long, totally unnecessary slide show (festooned with incorrect grammar on the captions -- urgh!) about the three women, leading audience members to believe they're somehow connected and that they'll interact during the show. Not so much: They appear onstage together for just a few minutes, and from then on the nearly two-hour show is straight stand-up.

The token brunette, Cathy Ladman, kicks things off in fine form with lines like "Marriage is like a jigsaw puzzle with 5,000 pieces ... all sky." She also gets a good one in about, at age 53, mothering a 5-year-old. "I could belong to PTAARP."

The actual blondes, Joanie Fagan and Beaumont Bacon, are likewise hilarious -- although Fagan's silly brand of Martha Stewart perkiness gets on one's nerves A LOT at the beginning of her stint. Bacon is a master of physical comedy, and her depiction of the horrors of a public bathroom is worth the price of admission.

Look for a full review Thursday afternoon at Guidelive. And for tix, go to the Eisemann.

Carol Burnett had a sold-out Bass Hall audience eating out of the palm of her hand before she ever took the stage Monday night -- she cleverly started the show with a series of big-screen clips from The Carol Burnett Show, and after about two minutes of that, we were all so enchanted that she got a standing ovation before she ever uttered a word. All she had to do was appear on stage.

The evening consisted of Burnett's reminiscences about the show, more clips and answering questions from the audience. Now in her 70s, Burnett looked amazing (to one woman in the back of the house who asked, "How do you stay so pretty and so thin?" she quipped, "And you're sitting on what row?") and her timing and ability to tell a story to maximum effect remain gleefully vigorous. Both with the clips and in person, she reduced the audience to delirious giggles over and over. And she proved herself to be the epitome of "Old Hollywood"-style grace: She doesn't diss anyone, ever, and she's polite and generous with everyone she talks to. She invited so many audience members backstage, to get this or that signed or just because they wanted to meet her, it's a wonder there was anyone left to go to the parking lot after the show.

She's a treasure, and for everyone who was at Bass Hall on Monday, it's a time together they'll never forget.

Look for a full review here.

Tickets will go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. for Denis Leary's show at Nokia Theatre at Grand Prairie. The comedian/actor/spokesman will appear at Nokia on April 9.

Nokia also announced today that Cedric the Entertainer will perform there on March 14. Those tickets go on sale Jan. 16 at 10 a.m.

(Photo by DARLA KHARZEI)

You've still got a few days to catch Chicago's famed Second City comedy troupe (touring edition) at the Majestic Theatre, presented by the Dallas Summer Musicals. This is undoubtedly the most fun you'll have this week -- and they even have a two-for-one ticket deal going right now (see the DSM Web site for details). The show runs through Sunday.

On Tuesday, troupe members were in fine form, and there was a definite sense that we were seeing the comedy superstars of tomorrow (this is the same group that gave us the Belushis, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, ad infinitum). I confidently predict that Ross Bryant and Tara DeFrancisco will end up on Saturday Night Live, based solely on their spew-your-drink-hilarious sketch about two secret agents playing an absurd version of six (more like 60) degrees of separation. Their improv at the end of the bit was dazzling, and so funny I almost forgave the woman in front of me who didn't stop talking during the entire show. (Yes, you, on Row H in the left section!)

Other highlights included Brian Jack's conversation with a T-Mobile representative who asks an endless series of "identity-proving" questions -- most of the answers had to do with unicorns -- and the entire cast doing an improv that had them trying to guess, Charades-like, the words "symbiotic," "Nicaragua" and "adjudicate." They also did dead-on, sublimely hilarious sendups of Avenue Q and Riverdance.

Just get on down to the Majestic this week; you'll thank me. But don't wear a good shirt, because you're going to end up spewing your beer or wine on it. Go to the Dallas Summer Musicals or Ticketmaster Web site, or call 214-373-8000 for tickets.

Trust me on this: You don't have anything more fun to do on Saturday than heading to the McKinney Avenue Contemporary for an hour-and-a-half with Leslie Jordan. The impish scene-stealer from Will & Grace, Boston Legal, Reba and other shows is in town doing his hilarious one-man show, which is really much more than stand-up comedy; it's a full theatrical experience. He's touring in support of his new Logo TV show, Sordid Lives, and his book, My Trip Down the Pink Carpet. In keeping with that theme, the show is bathed in neon pink, with requisite pink carpet (he actually rolls himself up in it at one point), and at Friday's performance he was nattily attired in a suit that included a pink tie and cuff links.

The Emmy winner nails his own appeal spot-on when he declares, early in the show, that he's actually a "high-school cheerleader trapped in the body of a 53-year-old gay man. ... If someone cut me open, Hannah Montana would spill out." Mr. Jordan has so much infectious energy, coming right at you in the MAC's relatively small space, that I was gloriously exhausted just from watching him.

Other highlights include Mr. Jordan's tales of Hollywood crushes (the same as mine, really -- Mark Harmon, Robert Urich, George Clooney), his fearlessly hilarious depiction of the difference between "butch queen dancing" and "queen dancing" (it's mostly in the facial expressions) and the way he imitates Faye Dunaway imitating Tennessee Williams (just go with me on that one). He also tells a spew-your-drink-it's-so-funny story about Beverly D'Angelo and a trip to a Dallas Victoria's Secret for frilly underthings. I will divulge no more.

Really, go. Just go. You'll thank me later. Two shows on Saturday, at 2 and 7 p.m. At the MAC, 3120 McKinney Ave. $50. 214-953-1212. www.thelesliejordan.com.

Galleria Dallas has a cool new free series going for the kids called Showtime Saturdays, and you can expect a touch of humor, with the folks at Slappy's Puppet Playhouse helping to produce it. Darren Collins will do his comedy juggling act tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. adjacent to the Play Place on Level 3.

Actress and comedienne Wanda Sykes, observational, scathing, hilarious Wanda Sykes, has just been added to the TITAS 2008-2009 season. She is scheduled to perform at McFarlin Auditorium on Friday, Sept. 26, at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $25 to $75, and available at the TITAS Box Office, 3625 N. Hall Street, Suite 740. Or you can call 214-528-5576 or 800-462-7980, or go online. TITAS also offers a $5 Youth Ticket (K-12) that is available only at the McFarlin Auditorium box office on the day of the show. Group discounts are available, but you have to call the box office for more information.

Depending on your view of him, comedian George Carlin was either offensive or honest. What ended up being his final comedy album, It's Bad For Ya, was released today, a little more than a month after he died of a heart attack at 71. His site describes it as:

It's Bad For Ya features Carlin's noted irreverent observations on such taboo subjects as religion, death, patriotism and big business, as well as pungent examinations of modern language and the "decrepit state of the American culture."

Read the rest here.

Are you going to see Jerry Seinfeld Saturday night? If you went, how was the Jerry Seinfeld show?

Be part of the "supporting cast" in the new Jib Jab viral video. Follow the instructions at the end of the new presidential campaign spoof and paste your face on a cameo character in the video. Oh, the splendorous comic-relief that is Jib Jab. Those guys should get a Nobel Peace Prize for creating such a healing balm of laughter for our social and politcal anxieties.

Okay, I went and did the photo upload (see my video here). It's a little tricky. You want to use a fairly high resolution jpeg (mine was 281 kb - about 200 dpi). Don't worry if your head doesn't fit on the first step of the editing - you get a chance to fine tune on step two. Their editing page took me a long time to load. And you have to register with them to be able to send your customized video. Time waste factor: 1/2 hour. Fun factor: Worth it if you have the time. And you can then send the link to all your pals.