The setup: Ironically, it was the almost-entirely-sold-outness of another popular holiday show (iTheatre’s perennially popular Back Home for the Holidays cabaret) that led Curtains to check out this offering in Mesa, which is in its second year. Tonight is actually your best chance to see Southwest Shakespeare Company’s A Christmas…
The setup: For several years, New Carpa has presented an annual holiday pastorela in the Valley. Following a centuries-old tradition, the play incorporates iconoclastic, topical political humor into the story of shepherds traveling to visit the Christ Child, culminating in a battle between Satan and the Archangel Gabriel (because most…
For a show that’s only a couple of years old, ‘S Wonderful boasts beaucoup familiar songs, courtesy of George and Ira Gershwin, who jazzed up Broadway and pop starting in the 1920s. If you can’t hear Rhapsody in Blue, “The Man I Love,” “I’ve Got Rhythm,” and “Our Love Is…
If you’re accustomed to adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales, you might not be aware how dark and frightening the originals can be — but they also drip with remote, exotic beauty, from the Little Mermaid’s underwaterscape to the glittery, lifeless domain of the Snow Queen. The latter tale has…
If you have a solid holiday show that people love and buy tickets to, obviously you have to do it at least once more. Or 18 more times. Or whatever. So here we go — this season’s reruns, with links to the original Curtains reviews. 1. Childsplay’s Junie B. in…
As with department store commercials (especially that “Light the Lights” one — shoot us now), sometimes the promise that you’ve never seen a play before is sufficient. Add the fact that it’s presented by Stray Cat Theatre, one of the Valley’s perennial champions of the new, weird, and sexy, and…
Over the years, besides looking for baby Jesus, New Carpa Theater Company’s American Pastorela has searched far and wide for intelligent life in Arizona. Makes sense that this year, the troupe’s branching out with Arizona Pastorela: Mission to Mars. Usually, the more-or-less devout Hernandez family of Sonora, Mexico, faces temptations…
Women’s rights, mass communications, the Pill, and other glitches in midcentury culture pushed us into a maelstrom of openness, curiosity, and experimentation: the Sexual Revolution. It was fresh, fun, and psychedelically shocking, a pinnacle of permissiveness that will never be entirely eroded. The Last of the Red-Hot Lovers is not…
The setup: In 1991, standup comedian Rob Becker developed his observations about men and women into a full-length one-man show, Defending the Caveman. Its premise that the differences between the sexes are age-old, inherent, and the source of our strength must have something to it, because the show is still…
We’ve now been able to screen Lourdes Lee Vasquez’ The Immigration Paradox, which premièred in Phoenix in September. Though lengthy and sometimes a bit eye-glazy with legitimate sociohistorical info, the film’s thought-provoking and beautifully shot. Whether it leaves you in hope or despair about the human tendency to exploit one…
The setup: Part of the mission of Space 55 is to foster the development of new writers and performers (through their classes and workshops) and help artists like those share their work with audiences. Recurring free-for-alls/showcases such as the 7 Minutes . . . and A Bitch in Time series…
Shakespeare’s larger-than-life characters and predicaments beg to be set as operas — grand, moving songs and gobs of spectacle. Romeo and Juliet’s a special case, though: ordinary people reacting way out of proportion to an inconsequential, everyday situation. Teenagers in love? We know better, but pull the right heartstrings and…
It’s that monstery season. If you aren’t already mutated, deformed, or more machine than human, and you can’t wait for the post-apocalyptic hellscape to get you there, the leadup to Halloween is when you get to transform or, at least, appreciate those who have. Think of the five short comedies…
The setup: Gregory S. Moss’ Punkplay takes us back to the spiky, neon-tinged ’80s to make some points about the cyclical nature of cultural rebellion and the timelessness of adolescent turmoil. It’s kind of a (mostly) non-musical Spring Awakening with what some of you might see as a happier ending…
“We want to get it out to as many folks as we can before the elections take place,” says Bryan Vasquez of The Immigration Paradox, a new full-length documentary by Lourdes Lee Vasquez. Speaking of paradoxes, that explains why a film you’ve probably never heard of is having its world…
The setup: John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck) has also penned many’s the popular stage play. His 2005 Tony- and Pulitzer-winning Doubt: A Parable became a film as well, and all four leads were nominated for Academy Awards. With its small cast, simple production requirements, and thought-provoking story, it’s become popular among…
It’s been another year of sloooow economic recovery, and those of us who are not yet down to (or still down to) living in an unregistered Oldsmobile making ketchup-packet soup have many opportunities to help support the arts organizations who help make life worth living. Space 55 Theatre Ensemble is…
Contributions to our vocabulary by Monty Python’s Flying Circus (“And now for something completely different,” “Nudge nudge, wink wink,” and lower-case spam itself) would be in vaguely anonymous Shakespearean or Biblical territory by now if the original gems hadn’t been preserved on film and tape. And as 1975 films go,…
Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is slated to attempt something out of the ordinary in public on Thursday, September 20, and you can join him without painting your chest. Phoenix Symphony’s new season kicks off, and ol’ Sticky Fingers will lead the orchestra in our national anthem at Symphony Hall,…
The setup: Last season, Childsplay premièred a new musical, Rock the Presidents, with book and lyrics by the company’s playwright in residence, Dwayne Hartford. It’s back for some local performances and a second nationwide tour to kick off election season. The execution: As you may recall from the South Park…
Minus a brief whirlwind of being Marilyn Monroe’s spouse and not naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee, Arthur Miller’s personal life was mostly his own. Writing for 68 of his 89 years, he produced something rare and precious in American drama: serious, interesting plays about mature people. Theatre…
Yes, we’ve avoided some plays just because they’re crazy popular, or massive, spectacular musicals, or both. But it turns out that Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s Les Misérables is a gritty, visceral, and appropriate setting of Victor Hugo’s populist novel of pre-Revolutionary France. As emotionally manipulative as E.T., as action-packed…
