Archive for the ‘Comedy’ Category

The City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) is pleased to announce Dallas’ inaugural Free Night of Theater, to be held from Thursday, October 16 through Monday, November 10, 2008. Presented in conjunction with Theatre Communications Group (TCG), Free Night of Theater offers theatergoers over 3,000 free tickets to more than 26 Dallas-area theaters. Dallas is one of 120 communities across the country participating in the event, which campaigns to attract new audiences to live theatrical performances.

Theatergoers will be able to reserve tickets through the Free Night of Theater website, www.freenightoftheater.net, beginning at noon on Wednesday, October 1, 2008. Tickets can only be reserved online and reservations are handled on a first come, first serve basis. Each participating theatre will set a reservation ticket limit for their productions. Once tickets have been reserved through the website, patrons will be able to pick up their tickets at the will-call window of the individual theater’s box office on the night of the show. Patrons are strongly encouraged to visit a theater that they have never attended.

As of September 1, more than 3,000 tickets (valued at more than $50,500) have been pledged for Free Night of Theater Dallas. Participating theatres include: African American Repertory Theater, Charles W. Eisemann Center, The Company of Rowlett Performers (C.O.R.P.), Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, Dallas Children’s Theater, Dallas Hub Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Echo Theatre, Garland Civic Theatre, ICT MainStage, Jubilee Theatre, Lyric Stage, MBS Productions, One Thirty Productions, Pocket Sandwich Theatre, Repertory Company Theatre, Shakespeare Dallas, Teatro Dallas, TeCo Theatrical Productions, The Black Academy of Arts and Letters, The MET Theatre, Theatre Britain, Theatre Three, Uptown Players, WaterTower Theatre, and WingSpan Theatre Company.

“We are ecstatic that Dallas will join the other national communities offering rich and diverse live theatre opportunities to our citizens free of charge,” said Maria Munoz-Blanco, Director of Cultural Affairs for the City of Dallas. “Free Night is the perfect opportunity for Dallas to celebrate and build upon the contributions the theatre community has made to our cultural landscape.”

In response to the excitement generated by the program, Teresa Eyring, executive director of TCG, remarked, “The Free Night of Theater program has provided the theatre community a unique opportunity to open its doors to thousands of new theatergoers and introduce that audience to the joys of live theatre. We are very excited that the program has proven to be so successful in bringing in non-traditional theatre audiences to theatres from coast to coast.”

Free Night of Theater was conceived at TCG’s National Conference in 2003 as a way to remove perceived barriers that have historically prevented audiences from attending not-for-profit theater. The program was piloted in 2005 in three cities; Philadelphia, San Francisco and Austin. That year over 150 theatre companies welcomed nearly 8,000 theatergoers of which an estimated 80 percent were attending the theatre for the first time. Since 2005 the program has grown tremendously. In 2008, the fourth year for Free Night, the program will include over 600 theatre companies in over 120 cities and will provide an estimated 75,000 tickets. Recent attendance research gathered by Shugoll Research reports that 41 percent of last year’s Free Night patrons returned and purchased tickets to another performance at the same theatre following their Free Night experience. In fact, 80 percent of attendees to the 2007 program reported that they had attended live theatre somewhere since Free Night.

Some of the 2008 program participants include the following communities:

Cities: Austin, TX; Baltimore, MD; Charleston, SC; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Dallas, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Portland, OR; Salt Lake City, UT; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; St. Louis, MO; Washington, D.C.; and many more.

States: Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

According to Brad Erickson, executive director of Theatre Bay Area and participant in each of the previous three Free Night of Theater events, “Since the campaign’s pilot year…we have seen an extraordinary response from theatres, audiences and the whole community. The demand for live theatre—when it’s made accessible to all—is overwhelming. We’re bringing in new audiences—young people, people of color, people from all walks of life—and the research tells us they are going back for more. Free Night of Theater has thrown the doors of our theatres open wide.”

For more information on Dallas’ Free Night of Theater, visit the national Free Night website at www.freenightoftheater.net. Information is also available through the Office of Cultural Affairs website at www.dallasculture.org.

It’s that time of the month again!

Gay Bingo at the Lakewood Theater. Doors open at 5p / Show begins at 6p.

This month’s theme is: “Witches & Wizards”

There’s a new email list for the Dallas GLBT community at www.GayListDaily.com.

Here is the posting from today’s blast:

Weekend Calendar

Twilight of the Golds
Opens Friday, September 28
If your parents knew everything about you before you were born, would you be here? Uptown Players lend their award-winning talents to this tear-jerker about what might happen if genetic testing can predict the sexual orientation of an unborn child.
KD Studio Theatre, Tickets $22-25
www.uptownplayers.org

Ten Tenors
Saturday, September 29
Ten gorgeous voices singing as one. If the 1-in-10 rule holds true, the man of our dreams may be singing sweetly to us!
Nokia Theatre, Tickets $29-49
www.nokialivedfw.com

Lone Star AIDS Ride
Saturday & Sunday, Sept 29-30
Break out your “Biker short butts drive me nuts” t-shirt and cheer on hundreds of Spandex-clad hotties as they ride off into the sunset, all in support of North Texas AIDS charities.
Check out LoneStarRide.org for details

Southwest Invitation DanceSport Championships
Friday – Sunday, Sept 28-30
Can’t get enough “Dancing with the Stars?” Neither can we. We’re absolutely giddy for the fabulously tacky Britney-on-a-bad-day frocks and grinded-teeth permasmiles…and the skin-tight pants and pelvic gyrations are enough to make us swoon!
Hilton Dallas Lincoln Center, Tickets $10-40
www.southwesterninvitational.com

The Lion King
Begins Sunday, September 28
Calling all queens, the king is here. If you missed gay pride, you can still get tickets to see this pride of lions and other Tony-award winning beasties as they strut their stuff at the Music Hall at Fair Park.
Musical Hall at Fair Park, Tickets $29-72
www.dallassummermusicals.org

Bill Cosby @ Bass Hall
Sunday, September 30
Paging Dr. Huxtable, we have a fashion fatality – someone is wearing one of your 80’s Christmas sweaters. Everybody’s favorite sitcom father figure comes to Fort Worth for a one-night gig. Sorry, Jell-O pudding pops not included in ticket price.
Bass Hall in Fort Worth, Tickets $40-60
www.basshall.com

What would J.R. Ewing think?

After years of drama, crime, hijinks, sordid sexual escapades, infidelity, and business deals gone bad, it seems that the long awaited “Dallas” movie is evolving into a comedy.

According to “Variety” (the Bible for the show business world), Regency & Twentieth Century Fox are chatting with the director of “The Brady Bunch”, Betty Thomas. Already on board is Pam Brady (no relation to the Bunch) for the script.

According to the Dallas Film Commission, the city of Dallas is still a contender for the filming to take place well (as damn well it should be especially with Texas new incentive program!)

After Dolph Lundgren’s recent foray into to town to tape with Joe & Jason Martin of Martin Bros Bikes and now Prison Break back in production, it would be interesting to have a comedy to lighten things up.

Tomorrow night (8:00p - 9:30p) at The Mac on McKinney Avenue will be “Comedy at The Mac“.

The line up is:

$15 in advance and are a member, $20 at the door.

So this morning as I was leaving my loft, I saw this Smart Car in the parking lot. As I sat there letting my bike warm up, I realized I had to take this photo.

Yes, that’s right. A Harley-Davidson FXDL costs about the same as a Smart Car, carries the same amount of people and is LONGER than the car.

Pajama Party GayBINGO happens TONITE at the Lakewood Theater, 1825 Abrams Parkway, with proceeds going to the Resource Center of Dallas. Tickets are $16.50 and doors open at 5 p.m.

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For those of you on the far west side of Dallas (a.k.a. Fort Worth), tonite the D-List Lady herself will be performing at Bass Performance Hall.

Any woman who can evoke Britney Spears’ nether regions and a chow tongue in the same sentence deserves your $32.50. And that’s exactly what you’ll need to enjoy Kathy Griffin who performs at 8 p.m. tonite at the Bass Performance Hall, Fourth and Calhoun streets in Fort Worth. Tickets are also available for $55, and there are limited premium seats for $100.

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DJ AM - known for his celebrity romances with Nicole Richie and Mandy Moore - will be performing at ghostbar this Tuesday nite and the event is complimentary with doors opening at 8pm.

You’ve heard all the hype now come check out this guy in person — and for FREE. See why artists like Papa Roach, Madonna, Will Smith and Shifty have all had him scratching on their tracks. Come and listen to his unique mixes in punk, crunk and funk, and see the man in action.

ghostbar is located on the 33^rd floor of the W Hotel at 2440 Victory Park Lane, Dallas, TX 75219.

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