Of all the best-laid plans of mice and women that went awry in 2020, one I regret missing was a conversation with Stages artistic director Kenn McLaughlin.
Radical reinvention: That’s what Meg Booth, chief executive officer for Society for the Performing Arts, sees in this time when artists and audiences must stay separate to stay safe.
Since 2014, Houston has been host to a citywide takeover. For one week in April, the city itself is activated as a site for art, creativity, social consciousness, and dialogue as the CounterCurrent festival and its artists spread throughout the inner loop to hold a series of provocative performances.
The Dallas Symphony’s 2020 Soluna festival will encompass all that and more. The annual music and arts showcase, opening April 3, will feature Dallas artists plus globe-trotting guests; traditional concerts and multimedia immersions; a live incarnation of an acclaimed rock ’n’ roll album as well as a documentary film whose subjects perform in person in front of it.
Artists grappling with the political has been the norm for thousands of years, but when art and social-political questioning merge at an interdisciplinary performance festival like Austin’s Fusebox Festival 2020 (April 15-19), the results can sometimes expand artistic boundaries.
Nearly 20 years ago, Craig Lynch and Jeff Rane took a look around Dallas and noticed a gap. Despite having the sixth-biggest population of LGBTQ people in the nation and a reputation as one of the country’s most gay-friendly cities, no theater company in Dallas was regularly producing theater that told this community’s stories.