Smart Guy

Joshua Foer probably never forgets is that he is, as writers tend to describe him, novelist Jonathan Safran Foer’s younger brother. But big friggin’ deal, really — the elder Foer probably wishes he had Josh’s mad skills, which he developed to win the 2006 U.S. Memory Championships and describes in…

PHX:fringe Starts Friday — Get Schedule, Updates, Previews

We’re getting all jiggly with excitement for the unknown quantities that are the performances of PHX:fringe. Since sharing this preview, we’ve made plans to see and review a whole bunch of shows. And because we can’t be everywhere at once, we’re stopping by again to share what else we bet…

Theatre Artists Studio’s The Unexpected Man Is Early, “Fun” Reza

Don’t worry — the characters in The Unexpected Man are still both relatable and ridiculous. The two people are still trapped together for a finite period by social convention, driven like pack mules by their pride and insecurity. But it’s just enough gentler, warmer, less pessimistic than playwright Yasmina Reza’s…

Boarder Crossing

If you mourn the departure of RandomCon from the Valley’s strategic gaming scene — and really, who doesn’t? — cheer up at the debut Phoenix Vul-Con 2012. Aficionados of stuff like Dystopian Wars, Munchkin Zombies, cosplay, and world-creation in general will find not just merch, supplies (like terrain and cases…

ASU Gammage Holds Lottery For Cheap Wicked Tickets

No one gets stoned to death, and you only have to pay if you win — doesn’t get much better than that. Tickets for the Broadway tour of Wicked, which started its current Tempe run on Wednesday, are scarce and/or spendy. To make your last-minute, fingers-crossed bottom-feeding more potentially productive,…

Dead or Alive

Dramatist, poet, and composer Federico García Lorca — a classically educated Spaniard who was best known for writing about Gypsies and country people, in revered works like Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba — was quite the bundle of passionate contradictions. The exact circumstances of his death during…

Punch Drunk Love

A few highlights of Arizona Cocktail Week: -“Whiskey School: Bourbon,” 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, February 19, $25 admission. Crazy learning, tastings and nibbles, and the chance to win dining credit if you ace the quiz. -Monday’s Old Town Bols Genever Punch Crawl, celebrating gin’s powerful precursor. -Tuesday’s Last Slinger…

PHX:fringe Starts March 2 — It’s Almost Time to Get Some Strange

For 11 days in March, we’ll get to revel in off-the-beaten-path (ideally) performances — 23 different ones, in 88 time slots at five locations — in the fifth annual Phoenix Fringe Festival. Local alt-Christian glam-rock-opera dude Paisley Yankolovich is back on the schedule (we missed him last year!), and some new…

Weird Sisters

Had we, like the heroines of Wicked, attended Shiz University, we’d be a powerful sorceress now. (Woulda been handy when we learned that our witchy roommate had burned through a Benjamin of our long-distance service.) Real life remains less thrilling, though, so it’s off to ASU Gammage (via Metro, not…

Joy of Cooking

Chocolate and peanut butter pot pie with grape jelly sauce and malted milk ice cream! When an event features star pastry chef Tracy Dempsey, this stuff just writes itself. But that’s only the dessert course of Dempsey’s visit to Phoenix Public Market’s Winter Chef Series on Tuesday, February 7, co-sponsored…

9 Circles at iTheatre Collaborative Showcases a Very Good Actor

This month has been a whirlwind of great performances in relatively unfamiliar plays. And this weekend’s your last chance to catch iTheatre Collaborative’s 9 Circles, an example of just such a production. This small company, playwright Bill Cain, and local director/designer Steven J. Scally all have fine pedigrees, and the…

Across The Sea

Would a sequel to Madama Butterfly bring in the NCIS investigators? After all, the tragedy falls right in the lap of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Pinkerton. And it makes sense that the top-rated TV drama would cross over to the most beloved of operas. Butterfly’s a primetime-ready tearjerker about an innocent…

Tail of Cool Kitties

We think our own alley cats are smarter than Samantha Martin’s Amazing Acro-Cats, because ours manage to snag premium deli snacks without doing circus tricks or playing in a three-piece band. On the other hand, Phoenix’s Evelyn, Raja, Violet, Bella, Clyde, Clementine, and Pants don’t tour to sold-out houses while…