PLOTTING AND SCHEMING: Just the title of Kitchen Dog Theater’s current show, Ponzi, tells you it’s timely. In the show, a rich woman shows a younger woman the social ropes in an effort to land her husband. But the younger couple may have plans of their own. The show was commissioned by KDT as part of its New Play Festival. And judging from the reviews, this new play still needs some work. Or, as David Novinski says in his theaterjones.com review, “This potboiler still needs some salt.” Alexandra Bonifield was non-plussed as well. “Watching turtles fight over sunning spots on a White Rock Lake log offers better dramatic truth. Eventually, someone falls in the water with a splash,” she writes on criticalrant.com. The last word goes to Lawson Taitte, who shares his fellow critics’ opinions. “Neither the plotting nor the character development is all that compelling,” he writes on dallasnews.com.

FW ON FILM: If there’s a don of Fort Worth filmmaking, it’s James Johnson. That’s because everyone who is involved in the film business there is connected to him in one way or the other. The owner of the Spiral Diner has already directed his own scripts, made videos for bands and produced films for others, including David Lowery’s last two efforts. And up next, he’s planning to open an art house theater in Fort Worth. “We’re just going with our gut on this,” he tells Fort Worth Weekly. “No one thought vegan food would work in Fort Worth. I just think a city that can support the art museums and theater troupes that we have here can support art films too. You have to give the audience a chance to show up.”

THE GRAND TOUR: Last night I saw Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, and it has me wanting to go back to the City of Lights. Too bad I’m not a member of the Dallas Museum of Art’s Donor Circle. A group of 18 members recently got an “insider’s tour” of the city with DMA Interim Director Olivier Meslay, who came to Dallas from the Louvre. On the DMA’s Uncrated blog, you can see pictures from the trip and sigh longingly over the fact that you weren’t there.