Email Author Robrt L. Pela

2008 Stories by Robrt L. Pela

• Circles Records Is Still Selling Music to the Masses from Its Central Avenue Flagship

  published December 25, 2008

  About a hundred years ago, when I was just out of short pants, I worked for a company called Associated Distributors. It's a Phoenix-based... More >>

• A Trolley Car Named Desire

  published December 25, 2008

  It’s finally happened: At the cost of a measly billion bucks and change, Phoenix has grown-up, state-of-the-art public transportation... More >>

• A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant Is a True Gift

  published December 18, 2008

  About three minutes into Stray Cat Theatre's newest production, I found myself thinking: This can't be really happening. When you go to see it... More >>

• New York State of Mind

  published December 18, 2008

  It’s about time someone made something of the fact that many of the best-known Christmas songs were written by Jewish composers, and no... More >>

• One More Shopping Day 'Til Christmas

  published December 18, 2008

  Christmas is two days away, and you’ve yet to track down that special thingamabob for your arty friend -- the one with the paintings and... More >>

• Blaine Drake’s Curvilinear Scoville House Is Gone, and So Is a Little of Phoenix’s Architectural History

  published December 11, 2008

  We can add Blaine Drake's glorious, curvilinear Scoville House to that long list of Beautiful Buildings That Have Been Obliterated from the Local... More >>

• Trolley Jolly Christmas

  published December 11, 2008

  There’s hope for Yule fans who are too cool for A Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker, and the other holiday-centric fare that fills every... More >>

• Malls of Shame

  published December 11, 2008

  What if you could do anything you wanted to with a local strip mall -- the ugliest one, that nasty pile of brick and macadam that blights your... More >>

• O Holy Crap

  published December 4, 2008

  Call off the Christmas competition. The heck with mistletoe and holly. Kyle Jarrow’s impertinent, improbable A Very Merry Unauthorized... More >>

• Homes for the Holidays

  published December 4, 2008

  Find out why all those folks who live in old homes in downtown Phoenix are so dang house-proud at this weekend’s 24th annual F.Q. Story... More >>

• Strangers on a Train

  published November 27, 2008

  Just before the curtain goes up on The Sunset Limited, Cormac McCarthy’s “Novel in Dramatic Form,” a man attempts to kill... More >>

• Loose Canon

  published November 27, 2008

  If it’s December and Patti Hannon is wearing a habit and cracking wise about frankincense and little altar boys, you know you’re... More >>

• Ann Landers’ Backstory is Glossed Over in The Lady with All the Answers at Herberger Theater

  published November 20, 2008

  The Lady with All the Answers is an agreeably entertaining character study in search of a story. Its direction by Samantha K. Wyer is... More >>

• Transculture Club

  published November 20, 2008

  There’s nowhere quite like the Southwest, or Phoenix, so where better than the PHX and its namesake art gallery (PHiX) for a two-day... More >>

• Theater of the Absurdist

  published November 13, 2008

  Talk about nostalgia! Ubu Roi, which takes bows at Space 55 Theatre, was first produced in 1896. Championed by theater fans as... More >>

• View of the Harbor at Herberger Theater Is Saved by Its Cast

  published November 6, 2008

  In the whiny author's notes printed in the program for Richard Dresser's A View of the Harbor, the playwright carps about how hard it is to... More >>

• iTheatre of the Absurd

  published October 30, 2008

  People have been whispering about actor Greg Lutz’s upcoming directorial debut. Seems Lutz has cast fellow actor Neil Cohen, who’s... More >>

• Haste Makes Wasteland

  published October 30, 2008

  Phoenix may be overrun with strip malls, but we didn’t invent them. In fact, Los Angeles is considered the real home of the mini-mall, a... More >>

• Anna Deavere Smith’s The Arizona Project Spotlights Sandra Day O’Connor and a Generation of Overlooked Women

  published October 30, 2008

  Sheriff Joe Arpaio appears in Anna Deavere Smith's new play, but don't ask her to tell you how he comes off. "He's in there, that's all... More >>

• SMoCA’S Flip a Strip Design Competition Has No Foundation

  published October 30, 2008

  I made an unfortunate assumption when I recently wrote about Flip a Strip, a design competition sponsored by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary... More >>

• Words of Honor

  published October 30, 2008

  “I'm still amazed by all the vileness and stupidity I’ve witnessed in my life,” former U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic once... More >>

• Marriage Play Spices Up a Worn-Out Relationship with Battle Sequences and Admissions of Infidelity

  published October 23, 2008

  Like most real-life marriages, Theater Artists Studio's Marriage Play is lopsided. The company's production of Edward Albee's comic drama... More >>

• My Favorite Marcia

  published October 23, 2008

  Let’s get this straight: Maureen McCormick was never a regular on the daytime soap The Edge of Night. That was Leah Ayres, who... More >>

• Former Mesa Director Sean Anders Doles Out More Teenage Kicks in Sex Drive

  published October 16, 2008

  The management of the movie house confiscated my cell phone at a screening of Sex Drive last week. "But I'm with the press," I... More >>

• Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum Was There for Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, the NBA, and This Year's State Fair

  published October 16, 2008

  To anyone who didn't grow up here, the Coliseum probably looks like another of Phoenix's outdated, oddly shaped architectural mishaps. A stack... More >>