STAGE TO SCREEN (AND BACK): Maybe you saw 1987’s Children of a Lesser God – the film that won Marlee Matlin an Oscar. Of course, it originated as a Broadway show, which won the Best Play Tony in 1980. That version of the the story, about a deaf girl and her devoted teacher, is currently on stage at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas. And it sounds as if the actors in those leading roles do them justice. “As James, Ashley Wood is onstage every moment, pumping out energy like the first gusher in a new oil field. He exudes enthusiasm with all the students he works with. But from the moment he first encounters Sarah, he steps it up a notch further,” Lawson Taitte writes on dallasnews.com. “Marianne Galloway is the first Sarah in my experience who is worth all this effort.” Martha Heimberg was duly impressed. “Galloway, a hearing-impaired actress, glows, glowers and totally seduces in the role of Sarah,” she writes on theaterjones.com. “Wood’s performance as James Leeds is nothing short of heroic.” Sounds like you’d better get thee to the show by July 28.

GOING LOCAL: The Dallas Museum of Art is turning its eye to the local art scene with “DallasSITES: Charting Contemporary Art, 1963 to Present.” The title of the show pretty much says it all. And you might remember, our very own Joan Davidow quite liked it. But Scott Cantrell was less than impressed. After walking us through the show piece-by-piece in his dallasnews.com review, he ends with, “This assemblage of so many bits and pieces is a serious case of overload; the undifferentiated wash of lighting isn’t flattering. The show might have been more effective if more selective and with more actual artworks from the period.”

CALLING IT QUITS: We all abandon a book now and then. But our reasons for setting them back on the shelf are varied. Sometimes they’re not what we expected; sometimes they’re just too slow. An infographic on goodreads.com collects the many reasons why readers dump their reads and also lists the top five abandoned classics. Topping the list: Catch-22. (And if we’re being honest, I’ve dumped the No. 3 book on that list, Ulysses, more than once.)