Kathleen Ellison

In the preface to a collection of his plays, author Christopher Durang fondly recalls the famous I Love Lucy episode in which Little Ricky is born. This show prompted Durang to pattern his first play, written in the second grade, after the story. Since this work isn't publicly available, it's...

A play about Antarctica seems like a good antidote for the summer heat in Phoenix. But Terra Nova, the story of the 1911 race for the South Pole, trades one hell for another. Playwright Ted Tally uses the death of one of Britain's most cherished heroes, the explorer Robert Falcon...

After seeing the latest version of Forbidden Broadway, I left Herberger Theater Center depressed. My reaction was like the one I had when a shock jock started telling jokes about the homeless. His routine was clever, all right, but wasn't the subject too sad to be funny? Forbidden Broadway 1994,...

After a successful run last season at Theater Works' small Glendale playhouse, Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's story of the razor-wielding barber who cuts throats as his part in the meat-pie business, is now in Herberger Theater Center's Center Stage. Director David Wo has brought some members of the original Glendale...

In Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Terrence McNally's 1991 play staged by Arizona Theatre Company, we're treated to the spectacle of a weekend with two upscale couples at an expensive Fire Island beach house sipping their bloody marys out on the deck while hating themselves and each other. This is not...