How ’bout that snow, eh? How ’bout that SXSW? How ’bout that healthcare reform? Big weekend. But it’s Monday, right, so to start you off right —

A REAL BEAUT OF LaBUTE: Saw both The Shape of Things and Fat Pig over the weekend, parts 1 and 2 of the Dallas Theater Center‘s three “Beauty Plays” by Neil LaBute. If Part 3, reasons to be pretty, plays the same way, the trilogy may be the strongest work the Theater Center has done in two years. The shows are rotating in repertory, so you still can see all three, once reasons opens April 2. The Shape of Things already received universal acclaim; here’s Lawson Taitte’s rave for Fat Pig, which opened Friday. Here’s FrontRow’s less-than-rave by Lindsey Wilson.

LEXUS BROADWAY SERIES: In a remarkable coincidence, the Lexas Broadway Series got advance word of its 2010-2011 season into the Dallas Morning News, the same outlet that ran a full-page ad for it Sunday. In case you didn’t see either ad or story: The big news is that Billy Elliot is coming to town but we’ll have to wait  until next year, June 8-July 3. Otherwise, it’s Blue Man Group (Sept. 14-26), Young Frankenstein (Jan. 3-23) and the ’80s jukebox-arena-rock musical, Rock of Ages (May 17-29).  Plus, there’s a non-subscription, holiday special, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Dec. 7-12). They’re all playing at the AT&T PAC’s Winspear Opera House.

SPEAKING OF BROADWAY: Three weeks ago, we mentioned that a one-woman show about the late Molly Ivins starring Kathleen Turner was going to open in Philly, and that it was pretty much a dead-cert Broadway tryout. The NYTimes reported Sunday how Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins has led a “charmed” life because it’s taken only seven months for the play to go from first reading to Philly premiere. The secret, in part, is a liberal conspiracy: Former Texas Governor Ann Richards, a longtime Ivins friend, lived for a while in New York in the same building as Turner, and she introduced the two. That connection helped when the twin-sister playwrights, Margaret and Allison Engel, went looking for their dream choice to star.

AND JUST SO IT’S NOT ALL THEATER THIS MORNING: Anne Bass — ex-wife of Fort Worth billionaire Sid Bass — has spent some of her money making a film, Dancing Across Borders, about a young Cambodian dancer named Sokvannara Sar, whom she discovered and helped turn into an American ballet star. The movie played last November at the  Lone Star Film Festival; now the NYTimes has profiled Bass because the documentary is opening in Manhattan, prior to “barnstorming to a dozen cities.”