Joan Arbery has always wanted to go to Tehran, wishes she had lived in France, and longs for Dublin like a lost kidney. But she’s happy in Dallas, which she never thought she’d love and is glad not to miss. She’s currently finishing up her doctorate from Notre Dame in literature (dissertation on Dublin, London and Paris), and writing a monthly events column for D Magazine.
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Reimagining Bishop Arts
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Ideas, Urban Planning on 3 December 2009
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There seems to still be a hang-up about opening grocery stores and pharmacies next to the higher end retail and restaurants in Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts District. Without these kinds of stores, there’s an implicit barrier created between those who can afford to frequent the District and those who can’t.

Wyly Opens With a Juvenile Dream
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Art, Reviews, Theater on 3 November 2009
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From the musical interludes, to the nerf gun fight, to the bizarre hipster clothing of the characters, made to look like boppy Breakfast Club kids of the Noughties, the Dallas Theater Center’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an exercise in the infantile.

Staring Into the Abyss
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Art, Reviews, Theater on 22 October 2009
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Theater Review
Rabbit Hole at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas

Buildings that Breathe
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Architecture, Art, Reviews on 19 October 2009
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The Nasher Sculpture Garden helps put the new Winspear Opera House into context of a career with the Norman Foster retrospective, “Art and Architecture of Norman Foster.”

Jaded Beauty
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Art, Reviews, Visual Art on 16 October 2009
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Art Review
A few hundred jade objects, permanent holdings of the Crow Collection of Asian Art, take the floor for the exhibit “Wild Flowering.”

Cooped Up Ladies
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Art, Reviews, Theater on 13 October 2009
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Theater Reviews
Grey Gardens at Water Tower Theater and My Sister in This House, produced by Wingspan Theatre Company.

A Spoonful of Spectacle
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Art, Reviews, Theater on 5 October 2009
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Theater Review
While there are flashes of compassion, humor, and sorrow in Mary Poppins, relaying these emotions never quite seems the object of the production. The story seems a vehicle for the spectacle more than the spectacle an outgrowth of the story.

Caesar: Sacrificed and Butchered
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Art, Reviews, Theater on 1 October 2009
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Theatre Review
Romans liked to orate; and they also loved their bread and circuses. What we find in Raphael Parry’s direction of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is much of both, sometimes clumsily married together, but often creatively and cogently done.

Twenty Things I’d Like to See Downtown
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Feature 1, Ideas, Urban Planning on 28 September 2009
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When it comes to the stagnant growth of Dallas’ downtown, the city sweats, residents gripe, and investors point to the lack of foot traffic. But Joan Arbery sees twenty realizable investments that could draw people downtown. (Listed in no particular order.)

Growing Songs
By Joan Arbery
Posted in Art, Reviews, Theater on 24 September 2009
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Theater Review
The Dallas Children’s Theatre’s Junie B. Jones & A Little Monkey Business drums up the difficulties of childhood with a little song and dance.