Email Author Robrt L. Pela

2002 Stories by Robrt L. Pela

• Maternity Weird

  published December 26, 2002

  Lee Blumberg swears that the way we're brought into the world can affect every minute of the rest of our lives. That's why she's crusading for... More >>

• Dinah Might

  published December 26, 2002

  As Black Theatre Troupe deserts its longtime home, the dilapidated downtown Helen K. Mason Center, for the polished Herberger Stage West, the... More >>

• Jingle Belle

  published December 19, 2002

  May Showers won't set foot in Sportsman's Fine Wines. "I'm not goin' in there," May tells me, "if there's smoking and spirits." I try to tell... More >>

• Gin Crummy

  published December 19, 2002

  Fonsia Dorsey and Weller Martin are old. They have, like so many elderly people, been abandoned to the American health-care system and have landed... More >>

• Nice Guys Finish First

  published December 12, 2002

  Chris Powell is a nice guy. A really, really nice guy. So nice that his friends call him Senator Powell, because he's always shaking hands and... More >>

• Death by Cop

  published December 5, 2002

  Tammie Hanson-Ferguson doesn't cry until after I turn off my tape recorder. For more than an hour, she sits with me at Christopher's Fermier and... More >>

• Bummer of '69

  published December 5, 2002

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• A Man's Home

  published November 28, 2002

  You can talk to Taggart Barron about sex, just don't show him -- or his kids -- any photographs of it. Barron has become a tireless anti-porn... More >>

• Black Bourgie Blues

  published November 28, 2002

  With Blue, playwright Charles Randolph-Wright set out to tell a story about African-Americans that isn't about race relations; a black... More >>

• Unstable

  published November 21, 2002

  Equus was first produced in the early '70s and quickly became a modern classic. Peter Shaffer's morality play just as quickly became... More >>

• A Big Brain on Bad Sex

  published November 21, 2002

  The wine list at Chili's Grill & Bar is pretty lame, but my subject is too young to appreciate a good Pinot Grigio anyway. Fourteen-year-old Chris... More >>

• The Human Fire Ladder

  published November 14, 2002

  Steve Dart is an hour late for our meeting at Coach's, a west-side bar that tonight, coincidentally, is hosting a dart tournament. He's late... More >>

• To Di For

  published November 14, 2002

  Deep in the dark, scary heart of downtown's warehouse district, the fledgling Stray Cat Theatre has scored another success. With The... More >>

• Eat Me!

  published November 7, 2002

  Avery Wiseman has never eaten anyone. But he's written about it, in The Next Taboo: Curing Cancer Through Cannibalism. Wiseman's newest... More >>

• Simply Awful

  published November 7, 2002

  There was a hearse in the parking lot on opening night of Desert Foothills Theater's Simply Sammy, perhaps waiting to cart off audience... More >>

• In This Corner...

  published October 31, 2002

  David Hans Schmidt won't drink with me. The infamous media flack is determined to be a model parolee, so he talks me into leaving Devil's Martini... More >>

• Simon Says 'Stay Home'

  published October 31, 2002

  My favorite characters in Neil Simon's Rumors are Charlie and Myra, because they never once take the stage. They are only ever talked... More >>

• Courting Success

  published October 24, 2002

  From the stage of Phoenix College's John Paul Theatre, the Black Theatre Troupe has scored another triumph. The Trial of One Short-Sighted... More >>

• Barbara Harris Knew Bill Clinton Was White Trash

  published October 24, 2002

  Thespians, take note: Barbara Harris has moved to town, and she's hung up her teaching shingle. Local acting students could do worse; Harris'... More >>

• Artful Dodger

  published October 17, 2002

  A year ago, architect Bill Tonnesen launched a career in modern art. His 12-month goal: to create 100 significant pieces, and to land a one-man... More >>

• Feng Shui Ennui

  published October 10, 2002

  His business card reads "Gil Gordon-Hall, Intuitive," but the one-time restaurateur is better known these days for finessing the spiritual energy... More >>

• Bleak Magic

  published October 10, 2002

  Bell, Book and Candle is a fusty perennial of high school drama clubs and community playhouses, a '50s parlor comedy that's not... More >>

• New Woman

  published October 3, 2002

  I figured I wouldn't like Nova Gyna. I confess to being creeped out by the whole he/she thing, which Nova Gyna (pronounced "no vagina," and Latin... More >>

• Heaven Sent

  published October 3, 2002

  I've begun to wonder how it would be to see a mediocre production of Angels in America. Somehow, I've only seen resplendent, near-perfect... More >>

• Touching Triumph

  published September 26, 2002

  In a dark bar, two men are conversing. One of them, a politician, is telling the other, his campaign manager, about a recent rendezvous with a... More >>