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Yet Another Review of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

This is why Elaine Liner is the best theater critic in town. Check out what she has to say about opening night’s performance compared to the matinee she attended. (Her comments about the theater itself also resonated.)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Safe for a Fourth-Grader?

I’ve written here recently about what great fun is the DTC’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. My son, a fifth-grader, also shared his opinion of the show. So a FrontBurnervian sent me the following question:

I know you liked Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, so I need your considered advice. My wife has a friend who wants to take her fourth-grader to the play, but has heard that there are parts that aren’t appropriate for younger kids. She called the theater to ask what, and they told her it was sexual content, and advised her not to bring her child. But they won’t be specific. She’s in a quandary. She would love to take her kid, but she’s a little bit unnerved by the fact that the theater itself advises her not to bring her kid — but won’t tell her specifically what content has the potential to offend. Can you help? Is there [redacted] going on, or what?

The only thing I can think of that might be objectionable: near the end of the play, when Bottom kills himself repeatedly (and hysterically), one of the methods he employs is cutting off his penis. The act is pantomimed. As I say, it’s funny. Most fourth-graders would crack up and not have a problem with it at all. I find it very odd that the box office folks would advise someone not to bring a fourth-grader. I mean, it’s fourth-grade humor. (I mean that in the best possible sense.)

The Eric and Tim Show Goes to the Theater

At the last minute on Friday afternoon, Eric Celeste, after a hard day of shooting people with his finger guns, asked me to be his date to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Wyly. Given the glowing review of the play from the fruit of my loins, I jumped at the chance. And if you’ll be so kind as to jump, I’ll share some pics and some thoughts from the night (which included an after party at Jorge’s).

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How Not To Buy Tickets to the Dallas Theater Center’s Midsummer’s Night Dream, Ctd.

Mark Hadley, the overworked and by-now-has-to-be-exhausted general manager of the Theater Center, responds:

Let me first apologize for the colossal runaround we put you through.  We have a number of fronts that we’re battling as we open this new building.  We’re trying to maintain an excellent level of customer service — and this includes the website and the ticketing operations, along with the onsite experiences related to parking, house management, concessions, and so forth.  This has, admittedly, been challenging during the transition.

 We revamped our website just this week to provide improved information about our productions and to make the ticket-buying process more effecient.  I take your note about more specific seating maps on the site so that customers can know better what they are buying.  I am aware that the AT&T PAC is revamping their website as well.

 I hope you can understand the enormities of the challenges that arise when two organizations try to coordinate their efforts on customer service — and one is moving into a brand new home (DTC) and the other is transitioning from a fundraising organization to a presenting and building management organization (AT&T PAC).

 Still, we have to do better.  And we will.  Give us a little a time — I guarantee we’ll get this right.

And, with an attitude like that, I know they will.

How Not To Buy Tickets to the Dallas Theater Center’s Midsummer’s Night Dream

Based on a very strong recommendation from a certain 10-year-old, I decided to go to Midsummer Night’s Dream. So the easy thing to do — am I right? — was to go to the DTC website, pick my dates, pick my seats, and buy the tickets. On the seat selection page, there’s a neat little diagram that shows the different tiers (labelled as Area I, Area 2, etc.). This being my first time at the Wyly and having read how the layout changes from the production to production, I clicked on “best seats available.” Voila! Next page showed that I had tickets A104-A106. That was nice. Except that it didn’t tell me where A104-106 are. What does A represent?

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A 10-Year-Old Reviews DTC’s Midsummer Night’s Dream

Last night, My Fair Lady and our 10-year-old son went to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Wyly. This being the boy’s first official play (I don’t count Stomp), we weren’t sure whether or how much he’d dig it. So we gave him the option of decamping at halftime (as he refers to it). I was dreaming my own dreams by the time they returned last night (old man) and had to wait till breakfast to hear how it went.

He was blown away. We were late leaving the house for school because I couldn’t get him to shut up about the play long enough to eat his breakfast. There were Nerf guns involved in the production. And water guns! The actors ran into the audience, shot their weapons over the audience’s heads. I asked if he thought the play was funny, and he proceeded to re-create a funny scene for me (something was lost in translation apparently). My Fair Lady said she, too, had an absolute blast. At many points during the production, she said, she thought it couldn’t get any better — yet it did. The final scene actually brings the audience up onto the stage for a dance fest with the actors. All of which is to say: go see the play.

On the drive to school, I had the boy record a two-minute audio review. For your listening pleasure:

Paul Baker, R.I.P.

Mark Lowry has the obit on Theater Jones (and says he’ll add to the obit throughout the day). The legendary founder of the Dallas Theater Center died yesterday at the age of 98.

Update: Go here to watch a video of Kevin Moriarty talking about his life-changing meeting with Baker.

Architect Explains Why There’s a Hole in the Wyly

One Arts Plaza has that big white square on the side, and the Hunt Oil Tower bulges out like a, well, like a giant H. So I guess it makes sense that downtown’s new Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre has a big rectangular hole at the top on its west side (at far left in this pic). At first I thought they just hadn’t finished the building yet. But I’ve learned since that it’s actually an important architectural feature. On the big media tour this morning, I asked the architect Rem Koolhaas–a tall, gaunt Dutchman who kept checking his cellphone–about the thinking behind the big hole. “You have to have some things where your interest can dwell for awhile,” he explained. Then he went back to checking his phone.

Dallas-Houston Bullet Train: Economics Brawl!

Is a high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston practical?  In a four-part series for the New York Times, Harvard professor Edward L. Glaeser used the example of a possible Dallas-Houston line to do his back-of-the-envelope calculations on whether it is worth the money. His conclusion: as much as he would like to be pro-rail, the cost-benefit ratio doesn’t justify it. Economist Robert Samuelson then used Glaeser’s numbers to denounce high-speed rail as a “boondogle”  in the Washington Post, a piece that was quickly attacked by economics writer Ryan Anent as a “hack job.”

On Tuesday, transportation researcher Yonah Freemark delivered another sharp rebuttal to Glaeser:

The problem is that–through a sorry mix of omission, oversimplification, distortion, and deficiency–his calculations bear no relation to the effects he is claiming to consider. So it’s important to show that “the numbers” do not at all undermine the viability of HSR in the US, even outside the northeast and California. In fact, they tend to support it.

Using projected population figures for 2019 (it would take ten years to build the line), Freemark concludes the only rational conclusion is to “build, baby, build.”

Yesterday, George Mason economist Tyler Cowen took a pencil to Freemark’s numbers, and did not like what he found:

I’m not sure what discount rates he is using but even if we put that problem aside this screams out: don’t do it.  Given irreversible investment, lock-in effects, and required hurdle rates of return, this still falls into the “no” category.  And that’s an estimate from an advocate writing a polemic on behalf of the idea.  I’m not even considering the likelihood of inflation on the cost side or the public choice problems with getting a good rather than a bad version of the project.  How well has the Northeast corridor been run?

We link. You decide.

Uptown Players To Produce At Kalita

Interesting news over at TheaterJones.com. As the Dallas Theater Center prepares to move to the new Wyly in the Performing Arts Center, one group is already stepping up. Uptown Players will put on two plays at the Kalita Humphreys this season.

What To Do In Dallas This Weekend

Mark Lowry over at Theater Jones gives a strong positive review to A Chorus Line, playing thru July 19th.

Unemployed? Theatre Three Is Offering 5-Cent Tickets to Woody Guthrie’s American Song

In an effort to help those who’ve lost their jobs due to a lousy economy, Theatre Three is offering nickel tickets to Woody Guthrie’s American Song, which is playing Thursday-Sunday until July 26. Here’s how it works. You call the box office at 214-871-3300, option 1, and mention the nickel ticket special. You provide the name of your last employer. Then bring proof of unemployment with you when you pick up your ticket before the show. Just because you’re out of work doesn’t mean you should sacrifice entertainment.