Stage Notes is a weekly aggregate post about theater, classical music, dance, comedy and stage news, events, reviews and other pertinent information.
Opening this week:
Uptown Players: Application Pending, opened Thursday-Aug. 30 at Theatre Too.
Theatre Denton: The Diary of Anne Frank, Friday-Aug. 30 at Point Bank Auditorium.
Uptown Players: Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions, Friday-Aug. 30 at Theatre Three.
Repertory Company Theatre: The Case of the Missing Ruby, 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Onstage now:
Pocket Sandwich Theatre: King Arthur & Merlin: A Tale of Sword & Sorcery, through Saturday.
The Firehouse Theatre: Grease, through Sunday.
Lakeside Community Theatre: Little Shop of Horrors, through Aug. 29.
Allen Contemporary Theatre: Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor, through Aug. 30.
The Core Theatre: Tennessee Wet Rub, through Aug. 30.
Hip Pocket Theatre: Raggedy Farm, through Aug. 30.
Jubilee Theatre: Klook and Vinette, through Aug. 30, pictured.
Richardson Theatre Centre: See How They Run, through Aug. 30.
Stage West: The Cottage, through Aug. 30.
Theatre Arlington: 33 Variations, through Aug. 30.
Upright Theatre Co.: In the Heights, through Sept. 13.
On newsstands now and online
See our annual Applause issue that focuses on North Texas stages.
Features include Uptown Players two new releases, New York actor Will Kelley who started here in Dallas and now headlines his own cabaret, how to get a Broadway fix away from the theater and a select calendar of upcoming shows with a bit of a rainbow touch.
A bonus feature in this week’s issue on Visions for Change which celebrates its 10th anniversary with a gala this evening (Friday, Aug. 21) at Cathedral of Hope and founded by local theater icon Denise Lee.
Cara Mía Theatre launches its 30th season with Latinidades Theatre Festival
Kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month, Cara Mía Theatre will kick off its 30th anniversary season, A Legacy of Community and Creation with the 7th annual Latinidades Theatre Festival: Creating New Worlds in September. Bringing together artists from Dallas and across the United States, Latin America and Spain, Latinidades offers three weeks of theatre, dance, music, artistic exchange, residencies, and new work.
“Cara Mía brings artists from around the world to collaborate with Dallas artists and communities, making Latinidades a place where Dallas and the world create together,” Cara Mía Theatre Executive Artistic Director David Lozano said in Friday’s press release.
The festival will run Sept. 26 – Oct. 11 at the Latino Cultural Center.
The schedule includes:
Sept. 26: 2026 Latinidades Festival Kickoff with a community procession featuring puppets and music, followed by movement theatre, dance, live music, and poetry. 5 p.m.
Oct. 1 and 2: Third Annual Latinidades Arts Symposium: Sustaining the Arts through Alternative Models. A two-day collaborative laboratory for artists, cultural leaders, educators, and arts organizations. Participants will explore new approaches to artistic creation, operations, funding, AI, peer mentorship, collaboration and community development.
Oct. 1-4: Bruma (pictured above) by Teatro del Cielo (Ecuador). Two virtuosos of physical theatre reveal humanity’s eternal conflict with bureaucracy—even in the afterlife. When Anastasia dies, she encounters an office where she must complete mandatory procedures before continuing her journey and determining the fate of her soul.
Oct. 2 and 3: Leave a Message After the Beep by Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, (New York). A bilingual musical theatre experience weaving Puerto Rican poetry, memoir, music, and memory. Foundational Nuyorican voices and contemporary poets from Puerto Rico create a living dialogue between the island and its diaspora.
Oct. 4: Alien Number (pictured up top) by Las de Allá Dance Collective (Austin). Through dance, visual art, and spoken-word poetry, Alien Number explores Latine identity, immigrant stories, and collective resilience. This work-in-progress is being developed through a Latinidades residency with Mai Rojas and Escultores del Aire.
Oct. 8-11: F.Punk Junkies. Cara Mía Theatre & Soul Rep Theatre present Teo Castellanos D-PROJECTS (Miami). Punk music and ecstatic movement ignite Orisha narratives and Caribbean folktales, transforming into femme power, anti-colonial rebellion, and mosh-pit liberation. Six archetypes gather to share stories of an anti-colonial femme fatale, a secret society of beautiful femmes, and reunification in the mosh pit. F.Punk Junkies is the eighth Café/Negro Series collaboration between Cara Mía Theatre and Soul Rep Theatre.
Tickets and festival passes are available now at CaraMiaTheatre.org.
Review: Laughter on the 23rd Floor is a slow rise to the top at ACT
Neil Simon is undoubtedly a master of comedy for the stage. With his shows, there’s a nostalgia for a different time that comes through. He’s theater comfort food but sometimes that food doesn’t always age well. The Sunshine Boys is one example – Laughter on the 23rd Floor could be another one. Allen Contemporary Theatre opened the comedy last weekend.
The premise is inspired by the playwright’s early career experience as a young writer for a variety show. Lucas (Simon’s alter ego) narrates the show as he joins the staff of veteran comic writers. Laughter offers a comedic behind the scenes look at 1950s television while also making political and social statements throughout the story. The team battles network executives, tiptoes around the star Max Prince’s erratic behavior and acclimate to each other’s varying nuances of humor, neurosis and frustration.
Frustration was the ultimate feeling from this show.
More a slice of life than an actual narrative, Simon’s story doesn’t really go anywhere – it just always pretends to. The high stakes of job loss or crafting a show to impress audiences and executives were never the dramatic arcs they should have been. In some ways, this felt more like an episode of Seinfeld where nothing really happens – just a lot of talking.
There’s also dated language that some people may have mixed feelings about. I’m not too sensitive to these but worth bringing up. Here, Simon’s use of race humor and fag slurs stuck out as easy tricks for a laugh rather than anything deeper. So there’s that.
Saving the show was its cast that played these characters with colorful flair.
Alex Eding was ideal as the eccentric Max Prince whirling in with a hurricane of a performance. His caustic delivery was every bit the tv star diva with just enough humanity to show off Max’s tender side. In stark contrast, Owen Wildoner’s understated and amiable Lucas was a solid performance. Lucas was a relatable bridge between the madcap onstage and the audience and Wildoner’s performance helped to balance out the hectic goings-on.
The writing veterans was its own cast of colorful characters: Val, a Russian emigre with a heavy chip on his shoulder; Carol, the pregnant writer who just doesn’t seem to give a damn; Kenny, the most sensible of the bunch; Milt, the perpetual jokester; Brian, the perpetual smoker who always had a bigger deal in the works if not in his head and Ira the neurotic hypochondriac.
Each actor delivered fully realized characters with no weak links.
Eddy Herring was impressive as the powder keg Val playing with an erratic energy and an unflustered Russian dialect. As Milt, Brian Hoffman dialed up the smarm while Joe Barr played Brian with a wily bent both as the coworkers everyone dreads but who still bring excitement – or something – to the job.
Molly Bower’s portrayal was a stellar example of the lone woman in the boys club. Carol was nurturing with a mix of nerves that Bower juggled with ease. As the sanest of the bunch was Kenny which Christian Black played with a straightforward approach. Like Lucas, Kenny helps to balance the motley crew’s personalities, but that didn’t refrain Black from delivering a warm performance.
Kenneth Fulenwider dove all the way into Ira with a manic performance. His performance even recalled Sid Caesar who was the star of the show Neil Simon wrote for. Ira was a living cartoon and Fulenwider pulled it off with great physicality and comedy. Tucked away most of the show was Hanna Mancuso as the secretary Helen but her final scenes were a charming mix of ditzy ambition.
Director Leigh Wyatt Moore juggled these characters with a skilled hand, particularly blocking them effectively to convey hierarchy and pertinence to each scene. Moore’s and Herring’s set felt like a vintage throwback to highrise office culture and writers’ spaces. The busy set echoed the characters’ frazzled high energy.
The marriage of a strong cast and an aimless story was tough, making the ride up to the 23rd floor slow.
Laughter on the 23rd Floor runs through Aug. 30.
–Rich Lopez
