Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” would be a cool little fable even if it were only about exposing pretension and exploding the myths of class and taste. But it’s also about a ruler who’s so obsessed with style and glamor that his empire’s real needs are unattended to.Eric…
Turnips are usually prepared in potato-like ways — boiled and mashed, creamed, roasted whole, gratinée — but these small, red-on-the-outside “salad turnips,” currently wrapping up their local season, are tender enough to enjoy uncooked, with a mild bite similar to a cabbage heart. Peeled and sliced, the white interior features…
When you wanna prowl a Real City, it’s heartening to encounter a neighborhood that’s nailed its identity — Little Vietnam, say, or Gay Bar Intersection, or Block of Funky Indie Cafes. And when cultural fragments reach critical accumulation, the forecast calls for a festival, like the “first annual” Love MannaFestation…
A theater experience always includes, at a minimum, you and a performer. Ideally, you both emerge transformed. It doesn’t get much more perfectly bare-bones than Dodging Bullets, a one-man show by ASU prof and local theater artist David Barker. In 65 minutes on a nearly empty stage, this apparently average…
Update on last week’s post about summer market closings: Next month, the market at the Trilogy Golf Course at Power Ranch in Gilbert will move indoors to the ballroom, switch to first and third Wednesdays, and hang in there through June (which means April 22 outside, and May 6 and…
Are you sitting down? Good. Are you sitting at the bridge of the Starship Enterprise? You can at “Star Trek: The Exhibition.” Boldly go through 12,500 square feet and explore actual sets, costumes, and props from all five Star Trek TV series and all 10 films. Purchase cool souvenir photos…
Sure, girls want to have fun, but with all the ennui and Weltschmerz and stuff nowadays, we’re more prone to be prone, or at best curled up in an idly spectating position. Get a little nudge from Girls Night: The Musical, an evening of fearless ordinary women belting out empowering…
Nineteen-year-old Aline Sibomana was a toddler when her family fled their Burundi home for a refugee camp in Tanzania, but says, “I remember pretty much everything. You grow up fast there.” Sibomana is one of the castaways featured in the “Refugee Status at School: Photographs by Eliza Gregory” exhibit, developed…
As we move into the season of relentless, broiling sunlight, several of our local farmers’ markets very sensibly take a break until people start wanting to hang around outdoors again. (It’s also a challenge to keep human beings — let alone produce, dairy, or meat — fresh in a little…
Imagine you’re famous for being an insensitive, lazy, exploitive jerk. Some contemporary artists find themselves in that very position — their works earn favor because of talent and insight, but critics yap about “offense” and “misogyny” and “crappy technique,” forgetting that every great artist was once a rule-breaker, dissed in…
A friend of mine swears that she read somewhere that David Mamet is really a chick. More widespread and credible, but much less fascinating, is the rumor that reclusive, pseudonymous Pulitzer-nominated playwright Jane Martin is actually director Jon Jory. In any case, MartinJory have collaborated successfully many times, and ever…
I used to assume that there simply is no men’s dressing room at downtown Scottsdale’s Theater 4301 — it’s the stomping ground of such perennials as Menopause The Musical and Sister’s Christmas Catechism, as well as a cozy 2008 visit from Carrie Fisher and the upcoming Girls Night: The Musical. (So, not…
Spring weather hereabouts is famously capricious, and no one knows that better than produce growers and their fans. Right now, we’re sitting smack in the season of dependable year-round crops like tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, and citrus. Some farmers have other items at the moment, and some don’t, and it changes…
We Phoenicians aren’t used to making tough choices where our nightlife is concerned, but this year’s amped-up Phoenix Fringe Festival offers an embarrassment of alt-theatrical riches. What to do as the fest moves in to week two? Here are some suggestions: Try the one-stop op by catching two or three…
The hot trend of featured chefs at farmers’ markets just keeps gathering momentum. Beginning this Saturday, March 28, Tapino Kitchen & Wine Bar’s award-winning James Porter will appear at the brand-new Seacat Gardens stall at Scottsdale’s Old Town Farmers’ Market, preparing a dish based on seasonal produce for shoppers to…
Since 2002, the Herberger’s Lunch Time Theater program has been a place for emerging companies and artists to stretch their wings and give downtowners a mental mini-break in the work week. Every season, several quite different troupes present a short play for two or three weeks each. Writers, in particular,…
Ever since grocery-store tomatoes got as costly as meat, we’ve been garnishing our routine sandwiches with other things. If the love apple is a luxury anyway, might as well hold out for the ripeness, taste, and texture of a locally grown, recently harvested ‘mater like the ones currently available from…
Over the years, I’ve seen several excellent productions by Arizona Jewish Theatre Company. Their current show, a world première called Parted Waters, is not very good, and, sadly, it’s a bad time to hit audiences with a mediocre play. Like many other arts entities, AJTC is struggling with the effects…
Wife-and-husband Chandler farmers Sri and Richard know how to make their fresh produce a hot commodity: Control access. You can’t find Sri’s Fruits and Vegetables anywhere, any time, except at the Ahwatukee Farmers’ Market each Sunday morning. (Okay, it’s a small family business, and it’s not as though they’re sitting…
It’s not an inherently bad thing to have a comfort zone. If every stimulus you took in, every day, were a novel and fascinating first-time experience, you’d probably keel over from exhaustion before lunch. But I feel for the artists who, originally, had to create a stage show just exactly like everyone’s favorite…
The Mesa Community Farmers’ Market takes place every Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 260 North Center Street, just north of downtown Mesa. John Scott of One Windmill Farm, one of the market’s produce vendors, says he’s been getting a lot of love for his cucumbers. Get your…
Unless you prepare a lot of fish tacos (or old-school relish trays like the one served at Durant’s), it’s a good bet the humble, easy-to-grow radish doesn’t regularly make it onto your shopping list. This is a crying shame, especially in our neck of the woods, where spicy is a…
