It was known for the past half-century as “the Marilyn Monroe hotel,” because Monroe, in town to shoot scenes for the 1956 film Bus Stop, stayed in its penthouse for a few weeks. Today, the Sahara Motor Hotel at First and Polk Streets is a pile of rubble on its…
There are people, one supposes, who wait all year to see Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Once on This Island, that cool-as-an-ocean-breeze tuner that turns up each summer like sunburns and triple-digit temperatures. This time out, the duo’s tropical love story — a multiple Tony nominee and the 1991 Olivier…
The debate raging through John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God concerns the veracity of miracles and the possibility of virgin birth. In a series of monologues and flashbacks, it tells a story that’s often ambiguous and deliberately vague. But in its Desert Stages production, one thing is very clear: The young…
It’s another sweltering Phoenix night — the millionth one of the summer. One hundred forty-seven 20-somethings are gathered in this dank, smelly warehouse, perspiring and writhing in unison to deafening rock music. One young woman in a miniskirt made entirely of paper clips thrashes wildly beside a guy in a…
Critics who’ve seen Peter I. Chang’s newest film, Tokyo is Dreaming, are calling it a love letter to Japan’s “Eastern Capital.” Like Chang’s earlier films, this one uses the camera as an invisible eye, observing the ways in which the quiet solitude of the city intersects with its bustling business…
Life would be more difficult if you had an old hi-fi, a Polaroid Swinger, or a twelve-inch color television for a head. You’d probably bump into things a lot. And people would stare. But, if you were lucky enough to be depicted in a groovy acrylic, wood, and resin photo…
Her paintings draw on art history and what she calls “all things formal.” Each line she’s drawn or brushstroke she’s made, she says, is completely subconscious. She wants, as she wrote in a recent artist’s statement, “to remember things without language and explore their primal sensory essence.” But in her…
There are a lot of them, and they’re all quite short. But it’s neither the quantity nor the size that makes special the movies in the Phoenix Film Festival’s Best of Arizona Short Films event. It’s the quality. Six-and-a-half-hours of Arizona’s most popular short films of the past decade constitute…
Life would be more difficult if you had an old hi-fi, a Brownie Swinger, or a twelve-inch color television for a head. You’d probably bump into things a lot. And people would stare. But, if you were lucky enough to be depicted in a groovy acrylic, wood, and resin photo…
The timing, of course, couldn’t be better. A show that spoofs the profundities of Arizona’s many weaknesses — our weather sucks for about half the year, our sheriff is a jag-off, our budget is in the toilet — has premiered so soon after our latest national disgrace that there was…
Ballerinas as broccoli? Dancers as dessert? Ib Andersen isn’t talking about victuals when he describes his new ballet, Play, as “a seven-course meal.” The courses in question showcase not leafy green vegetables, but emotions — happy, sensual, morose. The performance, a new work by Andersen, who is Ballet Arizona’s artistic…
Impersonating famous women is high on the list of Kelly Carpenter’s acting skills. She has, for the past four years, played Mrs. Claus in Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular, and can occasionally be found pretending to be Patsy Cline in Ted Swindley’s jukebox musical about the late, great country…
It seems likely that Andy Warhol wouldn’t have loved being on a double bill with another artist. But one can imagine that he’d at least mutter appreciatively about having his art displayed alongside the work of the late Fritz Scholder, one of the most renowned Native American artists of the…
The heck with pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The infamous duo of Penn & Teller has reinvented the traditional magic show by grafting on comedy and more than a little Vegas schtick. As one pundit once wagered, “If Penn & Teller could figure out a way to get…
Audience members who attend Stray Cat Theatre’s current show can buy $5 ponchos before entering the playhouse. The ponchos are meant to protect the clothing of those sitting in the first few rows from being spattered with the fake gore that is the real star of this worthless one-act. Unfortunately,…
After he reads some of his more recent essays from the podium of what’s being touted as “the new Virginia G. Piper Theater” (what happened to the old one?), and before he sits down to sign copies of his many bestselling books, author David Sedaris will conduct a question-and-answer session…
Pine City, Minnesota is so peaceful; so serene. Everyone who lives a life there is a model American citizen — they never miss church, pay their taxes early, and bake their own bread. The kind of people found on the Hallmark channel or perhaps in a 1940s film about the…
My friend Dan phoned the other day. “You have got to drive by this house in Paradise Valley!” he exclaimed. “It’s got a plastic deer in the yard! It’s so dumb! You could write about it for that thing you do in the paper!” I called Dan back. “That thing…
Folks who fear ill-behaved teenagers (and those who don’t fancy struggle-hope-and-laughter dramas that rehash the plot line from To Sir, with Love and Up the Down Staircase) might consider staying away from the Herberger Theater’s Stage West for the next few weeks. Everyone else — especially those who like critically…
He’s been nominated for Grammys and logged hits on Billboard’s dance charts. He’s headlined at the Hollywood Bowl and closed the South Africa Freedom Day Concert honoring Nelson Mandela in London’s Trafalgar Square. So how come you’ve never heard of Baaba Maal? Probably because you live in America, where “Morning…
When I was 13 years old, I had very long hair and braces. I was skinny and effeminate and favored garish clothing. My brother David, who was forever trying to wean me off the bubblegum music I preferred, took me to see the new movie version of The Who’s rock…
There’s no concession stand; no coming attractions trailers. You won’t be made to listen to cheesy pop music before the movie commences, nor is it likely you’ll wind up next to a gaggle of teens who text and chatter straight through the entertainment. The only talking you’ll hear at the…
