The two recently paroled heroes of Jon Klein’s play T Bone N Weasel hit the roads of rural South Carolina in pursuit of their future — gainful employment or whatever else presents itself — and confront discrimination, people who take advantage of them, bizarre temptations, and picaresque mayhem aplenty. What…
The setup: Local writer Charlie Steak’s short play Woman and Girl follows its two characters through a stressful period of accepting change and learning to live together. (It’s quite different from Steak’s popular short, I’m Voting Republican.) The première production is at Phoenix’s Space 55. See also: – “Where’s the…
The key to staycation days is going deep, not broad, for that quirky untold story about your own town. One of Tempe History Museum’s current exhibits, “From House Calls to Hospitals,” continuing through Saturday, August 25, is a real conversation-starter.Since the late 19th century, being treated for illness or injury…
UrbanAZ’s Celebrity Theatre programming features the funk, soul, rap, and old school we all need, and it’s also crazy fun, positive and uplifting in vibe, and sooooo sexy. (The periodic visits by glistening, chiseled male dancers never get old.) These promoters are the coolest at mixing up tasty performance combos…
The setup: If it isn’t enough for you to know that the roman à clef that inspired the film Legally Blonde was written by ASU grad Amanda Brown (based on her Stanford experiences) or that the film, in case you’re unfamiliar with it, is an oddly fluffy odyssey of female…
The setup: Orange Theatre Group, not unlike the ASU Herberger College grad cohort that more or less begat it, Interrobang, and its other offshoot, festina lente, is committed to pushing the envelope of new drama, developing performance that connects with varying degrees of tenacity to the existing texts it’s often…
Not long after Sunset Boulevard showed how dangerous it is to orbit a declining film diva, Tennessee Williams wrote Sweet Bird of Youth, a play about another gigolo type, Chance Wayne, hitching his wagon to a fading star in pursuit of his old girlfriend, Heavenly Finley. Very Gatsby-esque, as well…
Classical music fans often care who’s conducting the orchestra. This is why Phoenix Symphony’s current season featured Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald on baton for our national anthem just that one time.Generally, over the past eight years, the stick-man (and Virginia G. Piper Music Director) has been Michael Christie,…
Patti Hannon, a fine actress who’s ruled for years in the Late Night Catechism series, does not always play a bossy old Polish-American nun. Currently, Hannon stars in Woman and Girl, “a show about what life in Phoenix can be like, once you get past . . . the main…
The setup: Like pretty much every other theater with “Shakespeare” in its name, Mesa’s Southwest Shakespeare Company peppers each season with plays written by other people. They’re usually referred to as “classical.” Some companies also present newer shows that are Shakespeare-related or -inspired, and SSC has been doing quite a…
MarioCo.Dance, founded a few years back by Tracy Marion, is a supremely athletic jazz-dance troupe, but its principals can’t keep their hands (and feet) out of other folks’ genres, frequently collaborating with fellow Valley artists and dipping into the forms of contemporary ballet, modern, and even burlesque.Their new spring show,…
Just about the favoritest 20th-century children’s book (meaning it’s really for the most savvy of adults, as well), Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is held fiercely in the hearts of its fans. Since those devotees approve of John Glore’s recent stage version, you can safely truck on over to…
Sure, some of us treat every human soul with equal respect and regard. But when it comes to floating the romantic boat, all bets are off — the, shall we say, “heart” wants what it wants. And should one exploit that knowledge to spark attraction?Maybe your integrity balks at posing…
Though we miss Planet Earth Theatre, we derive comfort from Stray Cat Theatre’s mounting of PET’s 1997-98 hit, Chicks with Dicks, through Saturday, May 11. The gals of Satan’s Cherries biker gang deliver violence, leather, radiation-spawned appendages, violence, nostalgic B-movieness, lots of skin, cuties named Vespa DeAmour, Varla, Chantalle, and…
Garrison Keillor knows about all the cool stuff way before the rest of us do — we were in Tucson a couple of weeks ago, innocently catching a show at Plush that featured old friends of whom we’re huge fans, and it turned out to be the release show for…
The setup: Neil Simon is still a massively popular American playwright — able to sell tickets on name alone when some shows can scarcely sell tickets at all — and his success gets in his way, critically speaking. You have to look at a theater company’s choice to do one…
Arizona State University’s Lyric Opera Theatre knows that you hanker for a contemporary-yet-classic American musical that showcases five women. The perfect storm on your horizon is 2005’s Little Women, based on Louisa May Alcott’s popular book about a young woman who eventually succeeds in writing a popular book about a…
Our city’s one of just a handful to host National Theatre Live, a film series of current hot tickets from the London stage institution. Next up is People, a new play from Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George). How English is this ish? Dorothy, an aging noblewoman (because that’s…
The Scottsdale Culinary Festival’s now old enough to run for president. Its powerhouse six-day campaign kicks off Tuesday, April 9, with the Shaken and Stirred party at Searsucker, 6900 East Camelback Road. For $40 admission, guests get three samples of très chic throwback cocktails, like the Sazerac and Violette, and…
Departing from canon’s a time-honored practice. Pierre Beaumarchais’ 1778 non-musical The Marriage of Figaro was banned in Vienna for licentiousness, so Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto for Mozart’s opera version amped up the emotional content of the sexytimes and also threw in a diatribe against cheating wives. (Oh, patriarchy! How can…
The setup: Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya takes guts to produce and mad brains and talent to produce tolerably. Don’t go to that link and read it; besides its morose nature, it’s full of those Russians with multiple nicknames and pretty hard to follow on the page (frustration bonus!). It’s two…
The end of 2007, just before the closure of the Paper Heart gallery, performance space, and beer and wine bar, was the approximate heyday of the Grand Avenue alt-arts scene, at least so far. Not that it isn’t still fun and diverting and full of promise for the future, but we’ll get to…
