BIRMINGHAM TO DALLAS TO CHICAGO TO LA: Which sounds like a lyric from ‘Route 66.” Actually, it’s the path of Tracy Scott Wilson’s drama, The Good Negro, which premiered at the Dallas Theater Center in 2008. Next, the drama about a Martin Luther King-like character leading civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama, played the Public Theatre in Manhattan and the Goodman in Chicago. It now has opened at the Stella Adler Theatre in LA. The LATimes calls Wilson’s playwriting “schematic” but her “storytelling has scope and wit.”

REMEMBER THE ANIMEFEST! Last weekend it was Dallas Comic Con (DMN video: comic books are “like a soap opera for guys — it’s awesome”). This weekend, we get a little more specialized. It’s the Japanese soap operas for guys, although to be fair, one of the refreshing hallmarks of Japanese manga books and anime films has been the complete involvement of young female characters and readers — a trait that slowly has influenced the American industry. Anywayzies, anybody with their own AstroBoy costume should gather Friday at the Hyatt Regency for AnimeFest.

YOU MEAN, WE DON’T HAVE UNTIL NOVEMBER?? In June, Fort Worth’s Pantagleize Theatre announced it will be the first tenant at 1115 Rio Grande, a space next to the trad-rad-and-renovated Fort Worth Public Market. The company will open with an eight-show season this fall. dfw.com catches up with how the construction of the 102-seat black-box theater is going — because it’s getting a grand-opening gala Sept. 16.

AND SOMEBODY SAVED MARCEL PROUST’S OVERCOAT. An Italian journalist has written a book about it.