Angels in America Angels in America is one of the best plays ever. Nearly Naked Theatre is a knockout theater company. We could just say, “Go,” and leave room for more ads on this page. But, for a constellation of reasons we’ll leave unexplored for now, we’ll divulge some more…
Blackesque Vixen Noir is a multihyphenate artist so multi that she’s based out of both San Francisco and Los Angeles. The singer, songwriter, recording artist, erotic performance artist, producer, and director is dropping a megaton bomb of black queer sensuality in downtown with Blackesque on Monday, June 8. The mix…
“LAYERS” Go ahead and shake off the shame of being called out for tracing drawings in your elementary school days. There are plenty of pros who use stencils to create works of art, and two of them just so happen to have pieces on display at MonOrchid’s Shade Gallery this…
Phoenix Comicon 2015 The best thing about Phoenix Comicon, the mammoth gathering of comic book, gaming, and entertainment aficianados, is how everyone from cautiously curious folks to hardcore geeks keep an eye out for Wookiees, Klingons, and gender-swapped superheroes to stamp in their games of mental Comicon bingo. Keep your…
Unmotherly Insights (Into Modern Mothering) Debra Rich Gettleman is a writer, an artist, an actress and, as so many of us must be these days, many other things. But what she is every minute of every day is a mom, and she shares the highs and lows of that honorable…
“Momentum” Desert landscapes, posable wooden mannequins, and a PT Cruiser. These are some of the subjects you’ll find in Heather J. Kirk’s multimedia pieces shown within the Herberger Theater Art Gallery. Kirk’s “Momentum” features a range of photographic art from straight prints to prints on aluminum with 3D elements added…
Federico Fellini’s 1957 film Nights of Cabiria was about a happy-go-lucky prostitute. Sweet Charity, the Broadway musical that was based on the film’s screenplay? It’s about a young woman named Charity Hope Valentine who’s employed as a, uh, dance hall hostess. Through the ups and downs of her adventures and…
Black Theatre Troupe’s closer for the 2014-15 theater season is Ain’t She Brave, a choreopoem (a performance that features dance, poetry, and song) by Erika and Ntare Ali Gault, continuing through Sunday, April 26. The show follows, celebrates, and reflects on the female African-American experience throughout American history — including…
Susan Lowell’s The Three Little Javelinas has been a popular kids’ book since its 1992 debut. The story transplants the original little pig characters to the North American Southwest, introduces legendary trickster Coyote as the villain, and throws in some gender diversity.Now it’s a musical play, The Three Javelinas, for…
Eric Coble’s play The Velocity of Autumn, which ran in Washington, DC, and on Broadway last year, is about an elderly painter who refuses to leave her Manhattan home when her children decide it’s time for her to move somewhere more suitable to her physical and mental state. The Molotov…
If you know that Clive Barker’s written a play, you suspect it’s the kind of play that would be produced by Phoenix’s Nearly Naked Theatre. The author/director/visual artist has written a truckload of distinctive short stories, but you have to admit his visions have really spread through popular culture via…
When familiarizing yourself with a culture, literature is one of your best ways in. This is über-true of Ireland, where virtually everyone, from toddling bairn to tottering crone, is driven by the gift of gab to become a fanciful storyteller or silver-tongued versifier at the bare minimum. Then there are…
You think you have a handle on where playwrights get their ideas, and then you learn that Buyer & Cellar author Jonathan Tolins drew inspiration from an interior-design book by Barbra Streisand, and you just throw your hands in the air. Apparently, a barn-size basement at Streisand’s home contains her…
If you’re creating original musical performances, as 16 Bars Productions has for several Herberger Lunch Time Theater productions, why mess with good songs sung by nobodies? Uptown Girls, 16 Bars’ latest confection continuing through Thursday, April 9, delves into the diva – that larger-than-life lady who’s filled with more emotions…
Once upon a time, Kirk Douglas starred in the Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for a less-than-impressive 82 performances. The breathtaking part of the story is that Douglas wound up with the film rights to Ken Kesey’s novel and kept turning down deals until he was…
Few festivals offer more surprises than the Hormel Festival of New Plays and Musicals — because all the plays are new! The roster for opening night, Friday, March 20, showcases Y York and Amanda Jacobs’ musical The Up Side of Down, which reimagines Pollyanna, and Donna Hoke’s Christmas 2.0, in…
Late night events have that frisky, spontaneous, verboten feeling: Who will be there? What’s gonna happen? Will someone show up with doughnuts? And so it’s even more fun to anticipate a relatively new happening, as the unpredictability quotient climbs satisfyingly. The latest late show at Space 55 is Out the…
Cuteness and fuzziness abound in Great Arizona Puppet Theater’s Peter Rabbit. Based on Beatrix Potter’s original charming story and illustrations, the production features a watercolor-y palette and instrumental accompaniment – with no dialogue, so it’s perfect for small children and non-English speakers, along with the rest of you. And no…
Dan Hull runs around the Valley making storytelling happen. Surely he does other things, but the mere fact that he hosts Yarnball, a weekly storyfest at Lawn Gnome Publishing (as well as the monthly Storyline at Space 55), demonstrates his commitment of time, energy, and expertise. This week, Hull will…
Hit musical Les Misérables has single-handedly (single-playedly?) taught two French words and a smidgen of French history to generations of audiences since its 1985 première on London’s West End, where it’s still running. This being not-London, we get to take in only two or three productions of it per season.Old…
Shakespeare frequently wrote about dancing and music, but that Renaissance-y capering isn’t the stuff of Center Dance Ensemble’s Shakespeare at the Herberger, featuring “The Fateful Loves of Hamlet” and new dances inspired by The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the play with the…
Reality inspired the imagination of MFA playwriting candidate Kirt Shineman when he created Germs and Viruses: Or The Syrian Spring. In the midst of violent conflict in the Levant, social media steps up as a key player. Blogger Seban becomes a viral rallying point as her country struggles to choose…
