The State Fair closed on Sunday, and for the first weekend since September the answer to “what are we doing” is not Fair Park, which is better news than it sounds. Halloween is still a week out, and the city is warming up for it sideways: Rocky Horror on a lawn on Main Street, a dog costume contest at the Farmers Market and a Frankenstein ballet on Jefferson Boulevard. Eight picks below, and two of them are free.
Friday, October 23
Roy Lichtenstein in the Studio, final two days at the Nasher
Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora Street, Arts District. Open 11AM to 5PM Friday and Saturday, $10 for adults, and Saturday is the last day. This is the Nasher’s half of the Lichtenstein gift it shares with the Dallas Museum of Art next door: work tied to three sculptures in its own collection, Head with Blue Shadow, Peace through Chemistry and Double Glass, plus drawings and maquettes for his Brushstroke sculptures. It is the comic book painter working the jokes out in three dimensions, and the DMA’s side of the show closed in July, so Flora Street is the last place to see any of it. Take the long lunch. Details at the Nasher.
October BOE Exhibition Receptions at The Cedars Union
The Cedars Union, 1219 S Ervay Street, The Cedars. 6PM to 8PM, open to the public. Three openings at once from the BOE, the project that hands the historic Boedeker building to the Union’s member artists: Untouchability and The Threshold by Gaurii S Kumaar, Playing A Part by Katherine Lam and Christina Hahn, and Past Selves, a group show curated by Chukwudi Ukonne. Otherwise all three are open by appointment only, so this is the night to walk in without emailing anyone. Then head up Ervay for the double feature. Details at The Cedars Union.
Addams Family Values and The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Main Street Garden
Main Street Garden, 1902 Main Street, downtown. Free. Downtown Dallas, Inc. has run horror and camp classics on the lawn every Friday this month, and this is the double feature: Addams Family Values at 6:45PM, then The Rocky Horror Picture Show, rated R, at 8:30PM. Free Rocky Horror under the downtown towers, eight days before Halloween, is the best deal in the city this weekend. It is listed as pet friendly. Bring a blanket and the call-backs you have been saving since college. Details at Downtown Dallas, Inc.
Saturday, October 24
Do Good Fest Texas with Barenaked Ladies
Levitt Pavilion Arlington, 100 W Abram Street, downtown Arlington. Gates at 4PM, $20 a ticket. The posted lineup, subject to change, has the Beats for Good band at 5PM, Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories at 7PM and Barenaked Ladies at 8:30PM, with food trucks and proceeds going to the Tarrant Area Food Bank. Twenty dollars for a headliner that size, outdoors in late October, justifies the drive out I-30. It overlaps Klyde Warren’s trick-or-treat night and the Dallas Symphony, so pick your Saturday. Details at the Arlington CVB.
Trick-or-Treating in the Park at Klyde Warren
Klyde Warren Park, 2012 Woodall Rodgers Freeway. 5PM to 9PM. Free. The park’s sixth annual trick-or-treat night: candy collecting and costume contests across the deck, then a nighttime screening of Toy Story 5. It is built for families and drew more than 20,000 people last year, so if you are going without kids, treat it as the city’s biggest costume parade, get there early, and walk over to the Arts District for dinner after. Details at Klyde Warren Park.
Rachmaninoff and Schubert at the Dallas Symphony
Meyerson Symphony Center, Arts District. 7:30PM, tickets from $44. Fabio Luisi conducts and Lise de la Salle is the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1, bracketed by Hovhaness’s Symphony No. 2, “Mysterious Mountain,” and Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, the “Unfinished.” A haunted-sounding program for the week before Halloween, and a dressed-up Saturday that still leaves the rest of the night open. If two of you are going, buy by Friday at 11:59PM, when the DSO’s second-ticket-half-off offer ends. Details at the Dallas Symphony
Sunday, October 25
Howl-O-Ween at the Dallas Farmers Market
Dallas Farmers Market, 920 S Harwood Street. Saturday 9AM to 5PM and Sunday 10AM to 5PM, with the Doggy Costume Contest on the Main Stage at 1:30PM both days. On Sunday, Doodle Rock Rescue and Social Dallas Dog are there from 10AM to 2PM, Moonstone Cafe runs Coffee, Cops and K9s in the morning, and Courtney Istre plays The Shed from 11AM to 2PM. Saturday has Hearty Paws Great Dane Rescue and two stages of music if you would rather go early. Put the dog in the costume you bought in September and try to leave with only the produce. Details at the Farmers Market.
Bride of Frankenstein with Bishop Street Ballet at the Texas Theatre
The Texas Theatre, 231 W Jefferson Boulevard, Oak Cliff. Doors at 4PM, show at 5PM. Bishop Street Ballet returns with an all-new ballet inspired by James Whale’s 1935 Bride of Frankenstein, then the film itself runs: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive and the most famous hair in the Universal monster catalog. Ballet before a monster movie in the old movie palace on Jefferson is about as Oak Cliff as a Sunday gets, and it is the right end to a weekend that keeps saying Halloween without quite being Halloween. Details at the Texas Theatre.
The rest of it
Two of the eight are free: the Main Street Garden double feature and Trick-or-Treating in the Park at Klyde Warren. If you do one thing, make it Rocky Horror. If you do two, get to the Nasher before the Lichtenstein closes Saturday at 5PM.
What got cut: Anna Lapwood’s Sunday organ recital at the Meyerson was already sold out when we checked, though the DSO lists limited seats for her Thursday, October 29 show. Pumpkins and Pints is back at the Arboretum Friday from 6PM to 9PM, but it was a pick last week and Autumn at the Arboretum runs through November 1.
If the Texas Theatre is your Sunday, the Oak Cliff guide has the rest of Jefferson Boulevard. If Rocky Horror leaves you wanting a bar, Deep Ellum is just east of Main Street Garden.
Halloween is next Saturday. The Drop lands every Thursday at /weekend/. The nightly version is at /tonight/, and everything we have on the city sits at /dallas/.