Reviews and previews of what’s on Valley stages now

To Kill a Mockingbird: The impossible has occurred: There is, at the Herberger, a professional production in which the entire (and rather long) first act is held merrily aloft by three child actors. Although one of them, Daria LeGrand, appears at first glance to be a young woman in an…

For Bitter or Worse

Fans of the Mike Nichols film Closer may be disappointed with the superior stage version on which it’s based, now playing at ChyroArts Venue. The 2004 movie, which starred Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman, featured a watered-down ending with no twist, and its key plot differences…

High Infidelity

What do Oscar-winning screenwriters do between films? They make little plays, apparently. One such diminutive dramedy is John Patrick Shanley’s The Dreamer Examines His Pillow, an oddball skewering of infidelity, spousal abuse, and the vagaries of love. Shanley, who won an Academy Award for his Moonstruck script in 1987, pits…

Reviews and previews of what’s on Valley stages now

Tom, Dick, and Harry: Members of the Peter Hill fan club, rejoice! Your fave dog track director is not only at the helm of this Arizona première; he’s the star! Ray Cooney’s latest British farce has something to do with a better-than-middle-aged couple who’ve adopted a baby. The dame from…

First-Person Plural

The stage, during a performance of 9 Parts of Desire, is crowded with Heather Raffo. She’s alone up there, but the American/Iraqi actress is surrounded by the many women she’s created in this one-woman show. Raffo’s characters, all Iraqi women whose lives have been impacted in different ways by the…

Tracing the roots of the Yum Yum Tree

I learned to ride a bicycle when I was 34 years old. I don’t recall now why I refused to learn as a child, although my father remembers that I thought bike-riding was “childish,” which sounds like something I might have said when I was 5 or 6; I was…

9 Parts of Desire: a story of Iraqi women searching for freedom

It’s impossible, watching Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire, not to be overcome by our powerlessness over the war in Iraq. I felt lazy, disconnected, oafish as Raffo’s remarkable one-woman show unfolded before me, moved not only by the depth of emotion she brought to each of her nine characters…

Reviews and previews of what’s on Valley stages now

The Sweetest Swing in Baseball: Rebecca Gilman’s comedy/drama is turning up just in time for spring training with a study of the cult of celebrity and how it can screw up both idols and fans. Gilman places baseball bad boy Darryl Strawberry at the center of her story, but this…

A suburbanite-friendly guide to downtown Phoenix

It’s that time of year again. People who normally never travel south of Camelback will be heading downtown for Art Detour, where they’ll ogle art and artists in a tour of galleries and work studios; a subdivision-free milieu that many suburbanites consider with some small amount of fear. Folks visiting…

Reality Bytes

It may have been inspired by Euripides’ ancient commentaries on masks and false identities, but Carlos Murillo’s dark play or stories for boys is as contemporary as the Internet. In fact, Murillo’s story is about the Internet, or at least set there, in a creepy drama inspired by the true…

Location, Location, Location

Poor Melvyn. His daily walk, which usually doesn’t amount to much more than waving at or chatting up his neighbors, is today filled with crises and mayhem. Plus, it’s really hot out, since Melvyn lives in Phoenix. The PG-13 film Melvyn’s Clock is the work of Tennessee-based husband-and-wife filmmakers Jon…

Robrt L. Pela has a ball at Phoenix Theatre’s The Full Monty

The premise of The Full Monty is pretty simple: Six broke, unemployed Buffalo steelworkers decide to stage a one-night-only striptease act after noting the sell-out crowds drawn by a local Chippendales act. These guys are sick of being penniless and their leader, Jerry Lukowski, is worried that his son, who…

Reviews and previews of what’s on Valley stages now

Kissing: Here’s proof that tiny Theatre Artists Studio is a force to be reckoned with: Their latest production stars Bob Sorenson, one of the few New York stage “stars” Phoenix can claim. Sorenson, fresh from his run in Arizona Theatre Company’s The Pajama Game, is joined by Christian Miller, Maureen…

Fury Duty

Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men was already a loud, furious play, adapted from the author’s 1950s television script, before director Scott Ellis got hold of it. In Ellis’ production, which began life four years ago at Manhattan’s Roundabout Theatre, the director turns up the volume on what is essentially an…

The kids are just alright

About halfway through Act One of Stray Cat Theatre’s super-fashionable Kate Crackernuts, my middle-aged companion leaned over and whispered in my ear, “It’s always nice to see what the youngsters are up to these days.” I’m not sure I agree with him. Because while I found Kate energetically acted and…