ALL ARTS DISTRICT, ALL THE TIME: The Dallas Morning News jumped into its Arts District coverage in earnest over the weekend, letting David Dillon loose on the two new buildings. With that task accomplished, he then took a step back to provide us with a brief history of the District. The takeaway from both pieces, though, is: buildings are all well and good, but will a living community actually grow around them? It’ll be a while before that part of the review can be written.

ACL, CLOSER TO HOME: The Austin City Limits Festival goes down this weekend in the state capital, with Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band and Kings of Leon probably the boldest of bold names playing. But as is the case with South by Southwest, a lot of the festival’s acts will make stops in our area on their way to or from Austin. So props to Pegasus Music for compiling this handy list of who’s playing where. In related ACL news, the television version recently announced the lineup for its 35th season. Look for some local flavor on the season’s fourth episode, when St. Vincent shares a bill with Andrew Bird. You’ll of course be able to see that on Channel 13.

WEEKEND REVIEWS: It sounds like Dallas Summer Musicals scored a stellar show for the annual State Fair musical. In his review of Mary Poppins, Gregory Sullivan Isaacs writes, “It is as tight as a marine drill team and flawless in execution, and a marvel that it is able to tour with all the stage machinery.” (theaterjones.com) … The same cannot be said of Julius Caesar from Shakespeare Dallas. “A perturbing visual cacophony permeates this production,” writes Alexandra Bonifield (critical rant and rave). Digging the knife even deeper, Lawson Taitte says, “it feels like a very earnest high school rendition.” (dallasnews.com). Ouch. … The big debut of the weekend belonged to Texas Dance Theatre. Chris Shull says that the company’s first production showedpromise, but some details still need to be worked out. “The ideas driving each work peeked through, but onstage execution was lacking,” he writes. (dfw.com).