“After all of those years being stuck on a page,” says the Cat and the Hat, “did you ever imagine you’d see me on stage?”

Few names in children’s literature are more beloved than Dr. Suess– the writer, cartoonist and master of rhyme who brought us such gems as The Cat and the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and Horton Hears a Who.  Though Seuss sadly died in 1991, his legacy lives on in the theater world in the surprise hit Broadway musical, “Seussical.”

Inspired by some of Seuss’ most memorable tales, “Seussical” has been touring the US and UK since its initial Broadway run in 2000.  While “Seussical” is arguably every bit as colorful and imaginative as the classic books, its complex plot and overwhelming cast of characters have caused some to say that it isn’t as accessible to a young audience as it ought to be.  This criticism inspired playwrights Lynn Ahrens and Steven Flaherty to develop a shorter, simpler version of the “Seussical” that could be enjoyed –and performed– by a Seuss-appropriate audience.

A one act rendition of the 90-minute play, the aptly-named “Seussical, Jr.” features all of the most beloved Seuss characters, including Horton, Gertrude McFuzz, and the Whos of Whoville, who romp through the Seussian universe amid a fun musical score that blends everything from Latin to swing to R&B.  Meanwhile, the script is designed to be easy to understand and interpret, making it ideal for adaption by elementary- and middle-schoolers; dramatic licensing agency Music Theatre International provides schools and theater companies with everything they need to produce their own small-scale “Seussical,” including Ahrens & Flaherty’s original music and choreography.

This month, Dallas gives its rendition of the musical adventure, with all-kid performances of “Seussical, Jr.” at Theatre Arlington and University of Texas, Arlington.  *Ticket procees to benefit Doctors Without Borders, as part of StubDog’s Unite for Healing Haiti campaign.*

In light of the recent drastic decrease in donations to Haiti relief organizations, this month, StubDog.com, Flavorpill and more than a dozen venues and arts organizations in NYC, LA, Houston and Dallas are partnering to raise money for Doctors Without Borders.  All proceeds from tickets sold the week of Feb. 22 will go directly to the organization to support its relief efforts in Haiti and around the world.

Since 1971, French humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) has been working to provide emergency medical assistance to populations around the world, specifically those affected by violence, neglect or catastrophe. In 1999, the organization received the Noble Peace Prize for its profound charitable impact.

StubDog is honored to work with such a prestigious organization; we hope the money raised will help enable them to continue their phenomenal work.

Participants in the “Unite for Healing Haiti” event include Ars Nova, ComedySportz, Crown City Theatre, Houston Ballet, Houston Family Arts Center, Main Street Theatre, Musiqa, Murder Mystery Los Angeles, OC Roller Girls, Pacific Resident Theatre, Pocket Sandwich Theatre, SPQR Stage Company, The Duplex, The Kitchen, Unity Theater, and many more.

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Who is “Pavlov?”  To the psychology community (or anyone who took a basic psych course in college), Pavlov is the father of classic conditioning, whose experiments with salivating dogs earned him the Nobel Prize at the turn of the century.  But to the Dallas-Fort Worth comedy scene, the name refers to four hilarious men who make up one of the area’s oldest and best-loved improv comedy troupes.

Pavlov’s Dogs began their comedic careers as members of Texas A & M’s Freudian Slip, an improv troupe for students, where they developed their own unique brand of improv before going on to form their own group with a psychology-inspired name.  The Dogs’ high-energy, character-driven “comedy with a bite” quickly earned them a earned them a loyal following, along with serious respect from fellow comedians.  Their signature format blends scene-based and short form improv, resulting in performances that are fast-paced, polished and fun.

Anyone in Dallas knows to buy tickets early for the group’s consistently packed Friday night shows at the Pocket Sandwich Theatre.  Free-flowing and occasionally R-rated, the skit material draws from current events and audience suggestions alike.  One of audiences’ favorite segments by PD is the now-classic improv game in which audiences shout words or phrases for the group to incorporate into a skit.  The Dogs’ unique personalities and techniques make for an interesting dynamic, while the intimate, microphone-free environment adds to the excitement.

Entertained by the hundreds each week, it’s no surprise that Dallasites have been conditioned to laugh when someone mentions Pavlov’s Dogs.

Any Gen Y-er who watched television in the 90s remembers Tom Green, the obnoxious yet hilarious Canadian darling of MTV who defined TV pranking and gross-out humor.

But today, Tom Green’s glory days as an MTV icon have long since passed, and after a somewhat embarrassing stint on “Celebrity Apprentice,” many would say the comic has been relegated to hasbeen status.  However, Tom Green Show fans will disagree– after all, who could deny that Green was funny in his heyday?   And sure enough, Green is ready to make a comeback…with a worldwide standup comedy tour.

Launched in the US in 1999, the Tom Green Show was hosted by Green and his longtime pal Glenn Humplik, and featured segments of Green performing outrageous stunts, harassing people on the street, and singing ridiculous songs.  The show was hugely popular, and when the plug was pulled in 2000 due to Green being diagnosed with testicular cancer, it remained a staple of MTV programming, even experiencing a brief revival as a late night talk show.

Though best known for his wacky sketches, Tom Green says his first introduction to comedy was via standup.  He performed in local clubs in Montreal as a teen, before launching into a briefly successful hip hop career.  The comic says he’s always wanted to go back to standup, and after spending months writing and practicing in L.A., he’s finally ready to give it another shot.

The tour launched earlier this month in Canada and will continue through April, with shows in New York, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, and other major U.S. cities.  Audiences can expect the same zany, interactive and totally unpredictable brand of humor that characterized the Tom Green Show.

Dallas suburb Denton, TX was once described by Paste Magazine as having “the best music scene” in the country.  Artists like Norah Jones and Bowling for Soup having emerged from the city’s artistically-nurturing environment, and while “best music scene” is definitely subjective, you have to respect a city that has historically valued and encouraged community creativity.   It only makes sense that Denton would choose an old community theater as one of its favorite downtown locales.

The aptly-named Campus Theatre was founded in 1949, with the purpose of serving as a movie house for “kids around campus.”  For decades following, the theater was a community hub, loved and frequented by students and adults alike.  In 1967, it hosted the world premiere of “Bonnie & Clyde,” which was filmed in the area.  The city was saddened by the the theater’s close in 1985, but the space reopened ten years later with an equally community-oriented purpose: to house the Denton Community Theatre, one of the area’s oldest and most respected arts groups.

Today, other community organizations, like the Music Theatre of Denton and the Tejas Storytelling Association, also call the venue their primary home, as does as DCT’s acting school for children.  The theater features family-friendly classics like Cyrano de Bergerac and Cinderella, and locals can frequently be seen performing in the lead roles alongside professional actors– Denton wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nestled between major cities Dallas and Fort Worth, Arlington, TX is the epitome of American suburbia — combining the metropolitan atmosphere of a big city with the community spirit of a small town.  So it makes sense that Arlington would serve as home to one of the largest professional community theaters (not an oxymoron) in the nation, Theatre Arlington.

Theatre Arlington began more than three decades ago, with the “Potluck Players,” a quaint and informal group of Arlington citizens who loved theater and want to create a community forum for professional-quality theater.  The theater evolved over the years, and assumed numerous incarnations –including being housed in a former church– before arriving at its current home in Downtown Arlington’s arts district.   Today, the theater is a fully-equipped 199-seat performance space, and one of Texas’ premiere venues for live theater, having entertained nearly half a million patrons over its 36-season run.

Aside from being a tourist destination, Theater Arlington is locally loved for its intimacy and accessibly, also offering a variety of  programs for Arlington citizens of all ages, including acting classes from beginner to professional level.  At the same time, the theater’s community vibe is deceiving; it also caters to hardcore theater buffs, featuring semi-professional talent–both established and emerging–and highly-skilled designers and staff, while fully outfitted with all the state-of-the art characteristics of a big-city venue.

Visitors to Texas’ biggest tourist hotspot, Dallas-Fortworth, love Arlington because it combines the pace of a big city with the warmth of a small town.  Meanwhile, a combination of community spirit and top-tier theater explains means they’ll love Theatre Arlington.

Uninformed residents of LA and NYC might scoff at the suggestion that Houston is one of America’s premier cities for fine art.  But the cultural loss would be theirs, for having never visited the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, one of the country’s largest and most impressive art museums, founded nearly a century ago and defiantly far from either coast.

The MFAH got its start in 1900, when a group of Houston civic leaders founded the Houston Public School Art League, an organization for “the encouragement of art and culture in the public school system.”  The first MFAH building opened its doors in 1924, making it the first art institution in Texas and the third in the South.

Seventy-five years later, the MFAH is a massive fine art complex that hosts 300,000 square feet of space for displaying fine art and welcomes more than 2.5 million patrons each year.  The museum’s collection is one of the most extensive and diverse in the nation, featuring more than 60,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present and representing civilizations of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, while specializing in Italian renaissance paintings, French Impressionist works and American art.  The museum also boasts two art schools and has extensive community outreach programs, upholding the founders’ mission of bringing art to public institutions.

Aside from being a historically important fine art museum, the MFAH is known today for its outstanding film programming.  The Brown Auditorium at MFAH is Houston’s oldest repertory cinema, having sponsored film exhibitions since 1939.  Today, the theater showcases a wide range of vintage and contemporary films, and frequently schedules appearances by prominent figures in the art world.

So let oblivious Angelenos and New Yorkers laugh — Texas will never be a “fly-over” state to art lovers, thanks to the MFAH.

Adjacent to Paramount studios in the heart of Hollywood, L.A.’s Hollywood Forever Cemetery is best known as the place where some of Hollywood’s brightest stars are interred.  But locals also know it as one of the area’s oldest and best-loved places to celebrate L.A. culture.

The historic burial ground was built in 1899 on 100 acres of land as “Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery.”  By the end of the 20th century, the cemetery had become run down, and the owners nearly declared bankruptcy at one point.  But in 1998, the plot of land was purchased by Forever Enterprises, revamped, and reopened as “Hollywood Forever Cemetery”  (the film “The Young and the Dead,” released two years later, documents the transformation).

Today, the sprawling and lushly-landscaped plot hosts crypts, mausoleums, monuments, exhibitions, and gardens.  It offers several unique services, including live funeral webcasts and “LifeStory” tributes for the deceased.  But in addition to being the place where the famous (still) go to die, Hollywood Forever has earned a place in Angelenos’ hearts as an under-the-radar recreational venue.  The cemetery’s seasonal late-night movie screenings, hosted by Cinespia, have become an L.A. tradition.  Each summer, hundreds of visitors gather on the cemetery’s lawn to watch cult classics projected onto the side of buildings.  And for the past ten years, Hollywood Forever has been home to one of L.A.’s biggest Dia De Los Muertos celebrations, which features an impressive range of performances, art exhibits and demonstrations, in addition to authentic food and crafts.

Hollywood Forever also caters to history buffs — visitors can choose from several historical walking tours, hosted by Karie Bible, a fittingly-mysterious woman who was born on Halloween with two different colored eyes, and also happens to be a film historian.   Naturally, the subject is the subject of countless legends, including one about a mysterious woman in black who brings flowers to Rudolph Valentino’s crypt.

Whether a final resting place or a date night destination, the cemetery has definitely cemented its place in L.A. cultural in recent years.

It’s rare a venue that allows patrons to throw food at the performers, let alone encourages it.  Dallas’ Pocket Sandwich Theatre does both, supplying each theater-goer with a tray of popcorn prior to each performance, and urging them to hurl handfuls at the stage –and at each other– as the show begins.  Impromptu popcorn fights are just one of the reasons Pocket Sandwich calls itself “the most fun you can have in a Dallas theatre.”

Founded in 1980, the quirky Pocket Sandwich has earned a name as Dallas’ premiere (and one of its only) dinner theaters.  The theater is known for producing purely-entertaining comedies, spoofs, musicals, and improv/standup shows, as well as distinctive after-hours performances.  In addition to being home to some of the best local small theater shows, the venue boasts an eclectic and unpretentious food and drink menu, which includes nachos, jello shots, cheesecake, rootbeer floats, and the namesake “pocket sandwich.”

Pocket Sandwich is the third oldest theater in Dallas and the second longest-running.  During its 220-show run, the theater has developed a host of traditions, including popcorn throwing and “find Lucy”–a “Where’s Waldo”-style hunt for a small gold-painted Peanuts’ “Lucy” figurine placed somewhere on the set of each production.

Today, the theater aims to bring Dallas’ most talented up-and-coming performers to the community, and to have the most fun possible while doing it.

New York City

New York City. It’s been said that if you make it here, you can make it anywhere. Home to Broadway, Fashion, Fine dining and the ability to have absolutely anything delivered to your 5th floor walk up. With so much going on in the city that never sleeps, you now have your own personal assistant, you’ve got StubDog.com.

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