5/8-5/31 With boldly colored canvases recently hung on the pristine white walls, David White, owner and director of downtown’s New Urban Art, beams with satisfaction at the work in his new exhibition. “This is optimistic art,” he says.Indeed, the work from Berlin-based Jean Milu Truesdale, Italian-born Marco Casentini, and prominent…

Sat 4/26 “…My father had a foot in each country, where the mud on each boot caked the same, and the dirt sifted the same through each hand. And the earth had but one scent, and as far as he could see . . . the vista was unbroken.”So begins…

4/184/20 Happily ever after happens in Ballet Arizona’s season finale, Tales in Motion, which revisits Sleeping Beauty and the Prodigal Son. You remember: Princess Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle, and the castle sleeps for 100 years. Meanwhile, the Prodigal Son debauches himself in the moral equivalent of freshman…

4/114/27 Children’s theater will disregard the social injustices of post-Napoleonic France no longer. Greasepaint Youtheatre’s all-student cast is tackling one of musical theater’s most beloved – and most sophisticated – sagas. Adapted for school-age actors, Les Misérables, School Edition retains the original production’s plot and songs, including “Castle on a…

4/4-5/31 Every picture tells a story, and Valley music lovers are about to get an earful. Phoenix is the single Southwestern stop on the North American tour of “Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era,” an exhibition showcasing 51 candid shots of the decade’s most prominent personalities. Including images of…