The real scoop on Dallas (Fort Worth, Arlington: best city, hall, affordable house)

[ChargerFamily]

I have not read all the posts but does anyone play golf or like to go to NFL games? We are from San Diego and could never afford the house/country club lifestyle we enjoy here. The schools are awesome as well.

If you want to raise your kids in good schools, live in a nice house, belong to a private country club and have friendly neighbors, move to Dallas. The original poster is probably striking out with the ladies or something...

[lh_newbie]

As Stars77 and I have said, Dallas is a great place to LIVE. We have DFW for all out tourist ambitions.

[Drew610]

ChargerFamily - I completely agree. The OP ignored that if you live here you can enjoy anything a big city offers that people who live in a big city actually like to do (golf, symphony, theatre, movies, restaurants, 4 major sports teams, shopping). Dallas has issues to be sure - like anywhere - but it's absurd to ravage the standard of living in a city based on the quantity of tourist places.

[Drew610]

Also - have you recovered from losing to the Pats last year yet?

[aceplace]

I think Dallas is a better tourist destination than many believe. The reason many locals do not recognize it as such is that we live here, and the things it has are too familiar to us. For example, we may go to the State Fair every year, and the art deco murals are so much background noise to us. But a visitor who has never seen them before may find them fascinating.

One poster compared Washington as a visitor destination to Dallas, and conceded that Washington is a better visitor destination. I agree with that opinion. BUT... Washington is an extreme example... to consider the Washington-Baltimore area as "typical" and everything else as substandard is simply setting the bar way too high.

When I have out of town visitors, I have no problem entertaining them for days, showing them one thing or another. Not because Dallas has things no other city has, but because Dallas' attractions are individual and different, just as other cities' are. For example, many cities have aquariums, but the Dallas World Aquarium is not just a clone of every other city's aquarium.

Bottom line... the Dallas-Ft Worth area has no reason to apologize to anyone... either for its quality of life or its visitor attractions. We don't have to be sorry we're not number one in the world.

[momof2dfw]

I agree. There are MANY things in the greater Dallas area to do as a "visitor" that many residents sometimes miss out on. We have been known to book a weekend at one of the hotels in the Dallas area and act like a tourist and go see all the places we hardly ever do in our day to day lives. Escaping from the home setting and distractions and waking up "in the city" or wherever else gives one a different prespective. It really does feel like a vacation in our own hometown. There are not many other cities where a resident can do that. If you want to explore Ft Worth more than book a room over there for a long weekend. The options are ENDLESS.

Yes, Washington DC may blow Dallas away when it comes to historical attractions but so do many other MUCH smaller places like St. Augustine, FL, Charleston, SC, Savannah, GA. Having just gotten back from these places it was a whirlwind tour w/ many historical attractions to see. Myrtle Beach was also on the itinerary. BUT!!!! There was something DRASTICALLY different about these places and Dallas. While most of them are good sized cities but not as big as DC, Dallas or LA they are still a good size. What was missing? In the urban, historical areas there were no residents. No people that were living their day to day lives. Savannah and Charleston are two such examples. The areas where all of the tourists go and stay and many never venture from you don't see the day to day lives of the residents. Everyone is a tourist (except for the people working at the stores/shops/hotels). The people on the street are just as lost as everyone else. At least in a city like Dallas if you don't want to stick out like a tourist you can blend in easily. There was a distinct line between where the residents stayed and played and where the tourists stayed and played. I don't know about the rest of you but I like to find the local places to eat where the locals go - no chains please. We had to venture out of the "tourist zone" to find those places. DC is a great city to visit, that I totally agree. I would not want to live there nor would I want to hang out in the downtown DC area at night. This is one city where the difference between night and day are just that. The entire character of the city changes when the sun goes down. This is also where Dallas is better than so many other areas. The places that tourists want to visit are in the areas where we live, work and play. They get to intermingle w/ us the citizens of this city. We don't have a "tourist zone" or rather a "tourist trap". For that I am VERY thankful.

[Ankhharu]

Originally Posted by aceplace

ACT I Productions
Amateur Community Theatre of Rowlett (they perform out of a house, lol)
AmeriStage Players
Amphibian Productions
Artisan Center Theater
Azle Arts Association's Popcorn Players (Azle? you want to include El Paso in this list as well?)
Black Academy of Arts and Letters
Blacken Blues Theater
Bootstraps Comedy Theater
Box Theatre (Shut down in 2006)
Cara Mia Theatre Company (shut down in 2003)
Casa Manana (Ft. Worth)
Cautionary Tale Theater (Pocket Sandwich Theater)
Circle Theatre (Ft. Worth)
Classical Acting Company (Acting school that puts on 1 production a year, if that)
Contemporary Theatre of Dallas
Core Performance Manufactory (Acting troop that performs at Cultural Bath House once a year)
Cornerstone Theatre (Ft. Worth, shutdown)
Creative Arts Theatre & School (childrens acting school)
CrimeScene Company (never heard of it, can't find anything on it)
Dallas Children's Theater
Dallas Summer Musicals
Dallas Theater Center
Denton Community Theatre
Duncanville Community Theatre
Echo Theatre
Ennis Public Theatre (Ennis? thats like 40 miles south of South Dallas)
Family Music Theatre
Firestarter Productions (Ft. Worth-Shutdown)
Flower Mound Performing Arts Theatre
Fort Worth Theatre
Frisco Area Children’s Theater
Frisco Community Theatre
Garland Civic Theatre
Garland Summer Musicals
Greater Lewisville Community Theatre
Hip Pocket Theatre
Inevitable Theatre Company
Irving Community Theater
Jubilee Theatre
Junior Players
Kitchen Dog Theater
Labyrinth Theatre
Lakeside Community Theatre
Lyric Stage
Main Street Theatre
Mark-Brian Sonna Productions
Martice Enterprises
McKinney Repertory Theatre
McKinney Summer Musicals
McKinney Youth Theatre
Mesquite Community Theatre
Momentum Productions
Music Theatre of Denton
ONSTAGE in Bedford
Pantagleize Theatre Company
Pegasus Theatre
Plano Children's Theatre
Pocket Sandwich Theatre
Project X
Quad C Theatre
Repertory Company Theatre
Richardson Theatre Centre
Richland College Theatre Department
Risk Theater Initiative
Rockwall Community Playhouse
Rotunda Theatre
Rover Dramawerks
Runway Theatre
Second Thought Theatre
Shakespeare Dallas
Shane-Arts Theatrical Ensemble Rep
Slappy's Puppet Playhouse
SMU Division of Theatre
Stage West
Stars Theater Company
Stolen Shakespeare Guild
Stone Street Theatre
TCC Northeast Playhouse
TCC South Drama
TCC Southeast Campus Drama Program
TCC Theatre Northwest
TCU Department of Theatre
Teatro Dallas
Teatro de la Rosa
Teatro delle Muse
TeCo Theatrical Productions
Texas Radio Theatre Company
Texas Wesleyan University Theatre Department
Texas Woman's University Theatre Department
The Actors Conservatory Theatre
Theater Fusion
Theatre Arlington
Theatre Britain
Theatre Brookhaven
Theatre Coppell
Theatre Quorum
Theatre Three
The Butterfly Connection
The J Players
UD University Theater
Undermain Theatre
UNT Dance & Theatre Department
Uptown Players
UTA Department of Theatre Arts
UTD Theatre Production Ensemble
VOX
WaterTower Theatre
WingSpan Theatre Company
Word of Mouth Productions

I like how you list all the College Theater departments as Theater Companies. You should re-read my post, where I mentioned them already. You also listed a couple of Acting schools. You even went so far as to mention Ft. Worth divisions when the conversation has been on Dallas the whole time. But I guess you need those to boost the numbers to try and make me look wrong. Also, Cautionary Tale, is the same as Pocket Sandwich Theater, same place, same address, oh, same venue. Several are like that. They do one show a year at a venue I already named. Mainly because the group putting on the production is nothing more than a group of amateurs doing so in a their spare time. You wouldn't know that because you probably pulled that list from some tourists site. Which would explain why several in your list shut down long ago. I started to shred this list but seeing how I was able to find so many worthless listings I stopped less than halfway through. I think I made my point.

[khfar]

Originally Posted by Ankhharu

I like how you list all the College Theater departments as Theater Companies. You should re-read my post, where I mentioned them already. You also listed a couple of Acting schools. You even went so far as to mention Ft. Worth divisions when the conversation has been on Dallas the whole time. But I guess you need those to boost the numbers to try and make me look wrong. Also, Cautionary Tale, is the same as Pocket Sandwich Theater, same place, same address, oh, same venue. Several are like that. They do one show a year at a venue I already named. Mainly because the group putting on the production is nothing more than a group of amateurs doing so in a their spare time. You wouldn't know that because you probably pulled that list from some tourists site. Which would explain why several in your list shut down long ago. I started to shred this list but seeing how I was able to find so many worthless listings I stopped less than halfway through. I think I made my point.

Can you not find anything positive? Anything? Trust me, I know what it's like to live somewhere you do NOT want to be. I was born and raised in Dallas (and happen to love it) and my husband recently got promoted to metro Detroit. Do you think I want to live here? NO. But I know it isn't permanent, so I can either ****** and moan on a daily basis, or I can try to find SOME positives about living here. Which is what I've been doing since we got here. Seriously, there are a LOT of places to live that are much worse than Dallas. I wonder why so many northerners are moving to Dallas? It can't be because it's the crappiest city in the world, can it?

[lpepping]

Some ppl are pessimistic and always find something to hate in life.

[strumpeace]

I have always enjoyed visiting Dallas and have always had plenty to do. Lovely people, lovely city.