Email Author Robrt L. Pela

2010 Stories by Robrt L. Pela

• Made in the Shade

  published July 15, 2010

  Last August, I bought a car with a sun roof. No big deal for most people, but for someone like me, who loathes the sun and hates nothing more than... More >>

• As Bohemians Go

  published July 15, 2010

  The heck with Toy Story 3. Some of us know what an IMAX theater is really good for: Opera. And so, we’re flocking to AMC Desert... More >>

• Tinkling the Ivories

  published July 15, 2010

  My husband is a piano teacher. Ninety percent of his students are children, and while I trust that playwright Rod Hayward has created a sincere... More >>

• The Knipe House and Other Phoenix Buildings Are Going Up in Smoke

  published July 8, 2010

  I've obviously seen too many gangster movies. Either that, or I've lived in Phoenix too long. Because when the Knipe House burst into flames a... More >>

• Cruel Cruel Art

  published July 8, 2010

  Art as violence. Not a very pretty picture. But Bela Fidel wasn’t aspiring to beauty in the pieces that make up her new el Pedregal show,... More >>

• The Luhrs Building, Featured in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Has Been Spared -- For Now

  published July 1, 2010

  Architecture fans, Phoenix historians, and horror movie enthusiasts are resting easier these days: The Luhrs block has been spared. Built... More >>

• Evildoers

  published July 1, 2010

  There’s a song in George Reinblatt’s Evil Dead: The Musical called “What the Fuck Was That?” that captures perfectly the... More >>

• Evil Dead: The Musical Lays on the Camp at Nearly Naked Theatre

  published June 24, 2010

  The zombies in Evil Dead: The Musical never die, and neither, it seems, will the subgenre to which this campfest belongs. But if the... More >>

• Gimme Fleck

  published June 24, 2010

  Ever since the ‘70s, Béla Fleck has been obsessed with the banjo. (He introduced its twangy sound into jazz, pop, classical, and... More >>

• How We Almost Lost Pioneer Living History Museum

  published June 17, 2010

  My memory of Pioneer Living History Museum is that it smelled like horse poop. But when I visited recently, it smelled like summer in the desert:... More >>

• Hole in One

  published June 17, 2010

  Nighthawks, that famous Edward Hopper painting depicting a mostly empty, big city street-corner diner, has inspired songs, short... More >>

• Height Night

  published June 17, 2010

  If Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights is remembered more for the giant box of awards it’s amassed, it’s not because its... More >>

• Space 55's Seven Minutes in Heaven Just Doesn't Make Out

  published June 10, 2010

  A naked septuagenarian stuffs a boiled egg into his left armpit. A woman wearing plastic butterfly wings reads a dour poem, then torches a... More >>

• Tony, Tony, Tony

  published June 10, 2010

  There’s good news for those of us who can’t bear to wait to find out who won Best Lighting Design of a Musical or Best Scenic Design... More >>

• Will Folding in the Historic Preservation Commission with the Downtown Development Office Spell Architectural Doom for Phoenix?

  published June 3, 2010

  It was known for the past half-century as "the Marilyn Monroe hotel," because Monroe, in town to shoot scenes for the 1956 film Bus Stop,... More >>

• Slush Life

  published June 3, 2010

  I've been dining at this cheesy Italian cafe a lot lately. The service is slow and the lasagna is runny and the placemats are paper, but I've... More >>

• Beachy Keen

  published June 3, 2010

  There are people, one supposes, who wait all year to see Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Once on This Island, that... More >>

• Killer Pussy: Old-School Phoenix Punk Parodists Gather For 30th Anniversary Reunion

  published May 27, 2010

  It's another sweltering Phoenix night — the millionth one of the summer. One hundred forty-seven 20-somethings are gathered in this dank,... More >>

• Agnes of God at Desert Stages Gives Birth to a Great Performance

  published May 27, 2010

  The debate raging through John Pielmeier's Agnes of God concerns the veracity of miracles and the possibility of virgin birth. In a series... More >>

• Plaid and Subtract

  published May 27, 2010

  Life would be more difficult if you had an old hi-fi, a Polaroid Swinger, or a twelve-inch color television for a head. You’d probably... More >>

• Perchance to Dream

  published May 27, 2010

  Critics who’ve seen Peter I. Chang’s newest film, Tokyo is Dreaming, are calling it a love letter to Japan’s... More >>

• Plaid and Subtract

  published May 20, 2010

  Life would be more difficult if you had an old hi-fi, a Brownie Swinger, or a twelve-inch color television for a head. You’d probably bump... More >>

• Short but Sweet

  published May 20, 2010

  There are a lot of them, and they’re all quite short. But it’s neither the quantity nor the size that makes special the movies in the... More >>

• I Spy

  published May 20, 2010

  Her paintings draw on art history and what she calls “all things formal.” Each line she’s drawn or brushstroke she’s made,... More >>

• The Second City Does Arizona, Or Close But No Saguaro Proves There's Plenty of AZ to Poke Fun at Outside of SB 1070

  published May 13, 2010

  The timing, of course, couldn't be better. A show that spoofs the profundities of Arizona's many weaknesses — our weather sucks for about... More >>