“Ae Men o’ Plaid” (with copious apologies to Robert Burns) See the marching souls before us! Mark their stirrin’, righteous sound. Hear the pipers ring out glorious, As the drums boom all around! The mighty Black Watch o’ song, With Highland Dancers who’ve seen nae collision. Pipes, Drums, Choir …
Brett Butler’s career could serve as a template for what passes as current-day show-business success. Humble beginnings leading to big-time popularity leading to tabloid exploits leading to a quick fall from grace. Now we come full circle to the triumphal clean-and-sober comeback tour. The former star of ABC’s Grace Under…
How cool would it be if a film lover could go back in time and experience the golden days of the silent screen? Just imagine a trip to an ornate ’20s-era movie palace to enjoy the latest Clara Bow or Buster Keaton classic on the big screen accompanied, best of…
A few years back, Billboard magazine compiled its list of the 100 top-selling albums of all time. Right up there among The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Pink Floyd and Garth Brooks was . . . Bob Newhart. Yup, that Bob Newhart. He was the only comedy artist on the entire list…
When a show is billed so grandly as to be called a “revolutionary reincarnation” of a classic musical, it’s wise to be skeptical. After all, Phoenix is the sort of theater town that every now and then plays host to bus and truck companies of huge Broadway shows like Titanic,…
It’s one of those great movie moments: Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) turns to Betsy Booth (Judy Garland) and says, “I know, let’s put on a show.” They use old Mr. Smith’s barn for their elaborate musical revue. The show is such a hit that the kids raise all the money…
It’s not like those intrepid theatergoers here in the desert don’t have plenty of chances to brush up on their Shakespeare. Season after season, they can choose from a dozen productions of timeless goodies penned by the fellow from that Gwyneth Paltrow flick, but unfortunately, it seems that local copies…
So why ain’t this guy a star? David Shepherd Grossman has been the definition of a working musician for going on 20 years now. The guy literally plays 30 shows a month; there’s hardly a night of the week you can’t catch him gigging somewhere around the Valley. His song…
There pretty much couldn’t be a cooler show-business story than the amazing tale of Wallace and Ladmo. Think about it: a cheapo local kids’ TV program that somehow lasted for a solid three and a half decades. Few, if any, similar shows ever came close to that kind of longevity…
Over the past quarter-century, the Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting has grown into one of Phoenix’s finest museums. The Hall’s extensive collection includes working fire alarms, photos, prints, paintings, patches and uniforms from across America and around the world, along with many superb specimens of wheeled firefighting apparatus. There…
The Asian-American community has never been well served by our mass media or popular culture. Japanese and Chinese images are pretty much limited to servants, “inscrutable” stereotypes, squinty-eyed evildoers or outright racist portrayals by clueless Occidental actors. The Cartwright boys had loyal ol’ Hop Sing to clean up after them…
Classical grand opera is no laughing matter. With its labyrinthine story lines, massive productions and pampered performers, it’s no wonder that opera scares away many a potential audience member. But B.J. Ward sees through the traditions and focuses on the fun and absurdity hiding just beneath the surface. Since 1990,…
Return with us now to those fabulous days of yesteryear, back to a time when America was not going to let a little thing like World War II get in the way of everyday life on the home front. The 1940s were a time when the American public got the…
When you read the reviews of MOMIX, you see every description under the celestial bodies. The members of this dance troupe have been called magicians, illusionists, surrealists and acrobats. Their performances are called supernatural, stunning, seductive, brilliant, hilarious and inspirational. Almost as an afterthought, the shows are also called an…
Fans of Jonathan Richman frequently find themselves answering the question, “Jonathan who?” It’s not a household name, after all. Some will go into an explanation of Richman’s early years when his band, the Modern Lovers, paved the way for the punk-rock explosion of the mid-’70s with angsty beauties like “Pablo…
The three virtuoso musicians who make up Trio Voronezh — that’s “Vo-RO-nesh” to the non-Russian speakers among us — have come a long way in a short time. These graduates of the Classical Conservatory in Voronezh, Russia, began their careers together playing some unusual venues. They worked in small concert…
Whatever happened to television sketch comedy? Nowadays you really only find it on late-night TV shows such as Saturday Night Live or Mad TV. But for years before the format was marginalized into the fringes of televised programming, you could enjoy examples any night of the week. From the earliest…
“Dave, it’s Arlo calling.” There was no need to ask “Arlo who?” The instantly recognizable voice on the other end of the phone has been a familiar one since 1967 when Arlo Guthrie’s first album was released. A goodly chunk of that classic work was the lengthy monologue within a…
Have you ever stood on a street corner or maybe sat on a bus and “eavesdropped” on a signed conversation? It’s a remarkable sight, watching the flying hands and fingers combined with animated facial gestures that are the defining characteristics of this language. Properly known as American Sign Language but…
They never used the name. Sinatra really hated it. Ever modest, he preferred “The Summit,” but somehow that never stuck. Back in the early ’60s, when the Chairman and a few of his best show-biz pals gathered in Las Vegas to do a movie and have a few laughs, they…
Talk about a long, strange trip. It’s now been better than 40 years that The Kingston Trio has been on the road. With guitars and banjos in hand, these veterans of the folk music wars have been making a joyful noise across every inch of this country and around the…
Way out west where the avenues are numbered in the triple digits, there sits ASU’s Sundome Center for the Performing Arts. Through the years, this massive performance space, located in the heart of the retirement community of Sun City West, has played host to any number of bus-and-truck productions of…
