Conceived by dance maven Twyla Tharp, Movin’ Out is a jukebox musical welded together with Billy Joel songs and set in ´60s-era Long Island. No, seriously. Twyla Tharp and Billy Joel and a Vietnam War story involving people named Brenda and Eddie and James and Judy — all familiar monikers…
After more than a year of scouring my wee brain to come up with a reason not to hate the never-gonna-get-here light rail, I’ve finally come up with something: This looming transit system may very well bring about the resurrection of Christown Mall, a once-important destination for those of us…
Growing up in Geneva, New York, Scott Coblio’s storybooks were all about murder. “My mother was a huge true-crime buff,” the filmmaker recalls from his home in Los Angeles, “and so Helter Skelter and biographies of Lizzie Borden and Hitler, those were my storybooks.” Coblio was especially drawn to Phoenix’s…
Welcome to Phoenix, where the sun never sets and one can typically find on local stages the same half-dozen shows (Little Shop of Horrors, Forever Plaid, West Side Story always among them) playing pretty much year-round. Sometimes, one can even find the same show playing simultaneously at two different theaters,…
He’s one of three Draculas currently flapping their capes on local stages, but future Oscar contender Shane Dean is not willing to take third place — or any crap about his use of Mop & Glo, either. I knew I wanted to be in show business when I saw Michael…
Forever Plaid: Theyre dead and they like to sing close harmonies, so whats not to love about The Plaids, a fictional guy group thats become a fixture of sorts in local theater? This time, theyre brought to you courtesy of Copperstate Dinner Theater, where theyll cover the Four Aces and…
He’s dead, so the closest you’ll get to a Freddie Mercury concert these days is one of the several Freddie-tribute shows currently trekking the globe. The most popular of them, Queen: It’s a Kinda Magic, will bring with it your favorite Queen tunes faked up real nice by sound-alikes for…
Mr. Blackwell has his annual Best Dressed List. Condé Nast Traveler has its Best Destinations List. And Phoenix, Land of a Thousand Demolitions, apparently keeps a list, too — of important buildings that are in danger of being demolished. The Most Endangered Historic Places List is compiled each year by…
Diet! The Musical: Like nose hair or the flu, it’s back to trouble us again. This mean-spirited, barely entertaining horror show of a “musical” stops just short of Elephant Annie jokes in an attempt to titillate an audience opposed to avoirdupois. Tunes include “Am I Fat?,” “Twenty Points a Day,”…
Fifteen minutes after the curtain went up on Actors Theatre’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore, two audience members ran for the exits. Ten minutes later, five others got up to go. A little while later, four more left — one of them nearly breaking my foot as she tromped out of…
Given his name (not to mention his memorably lilting speaking voice), how could Oliver Wadsworth be anything but an actor? Here, The Lieutenant of Inishmore’s star explains his connection to crack dens, Matthew Wiener, and certain root vegetables. I knew I wanted to be in show business when I was…
Mayor Gordon may have declared last November 10 “Alwun House Day,” but for locals looking for offbeat and sometimes off-putting art, it’s been Alwun Day for decades. The folks over at Alwun House — which opened in 1971 and is now in its 36th year of unveiling works old and…
People refer to Phoenix as an up-and-coming city; they call it a late-night ghost town, a sweatbox, a suburban desert. But what it looks more and more like all the time is a deserted movie set. And the film that’s just wrapped here is a cheesy sci-fi flick about an…
Internet sites like MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps help us blaze the most expedient trails through the desert, getting us quickly to where we need to be next. But if we were to dawdle, if we were to wander down dusty trails and cluttered pathways, we might see what Tom Kiefer…
Two years after its New York Theatre Workshop debut, Caryl Churchill’s A Number is remembered primarily as the play that brought actor/playwright Sam Shepard back to the stage after 30 years. And Shepard’s return may well remain what’s most memorable about this one-act drama because, even in an excellent production…
We’ve heard of stage managers, but who knows exactly what they do? Alfredo Macias does, and he — the stage manager of Stray Cat Theater’s current production of A Number — attempts to enlighten us here. And to try to convince us he hangs with genies. I knew I wanted…
Dracula: The Musical?: The question mark in this Scottsdale Desert Stages productions title screams, Careful! Hyper-clever campiness awaits you! But who can resist any show that includes a song called The Tippy, Tippy Tap of Love? Playwright Rick Abbot is taking pokes at Bram Stokers classic monster story in this…
In Caryl Churchill’s A Number, a young man discovers that he is one of a number of clones produced by his father. Despite this rather fascinating premise, the play, which debuted a few years ago in New York, is remembered chiefly for its lead performance by Sam Shepard, who hadn’t…
My housekeeper busted me again. “You know,” she said, pointing her hot-pink feather duster at me, “there are other books in the world. I’ve been cleaning for you for years, and that book about Winnie Ruth Judd is the only book you ever seem to read.” It’s not true, of…
Leigh Fords home, 510 West Lynwood Street. Next door to the Halloran family home, this is the house where Winnie Ruth lived after her arrival in Phoenix. She resided with the Fords as their live-in nanny and met neighbor Jack Halloran, a married man with whom she had a notorious…
They resemble picture postcards from the recent past: the one of the big, pink, stucco apartment house on Central Avenue; the one of that weird, circular bank that looks like a spaceship; the one of Gammage Auditorium, glowing warmly with violet light. But Michael Lundgren’s images from “Mid-Century Marvels: The…
It’s become a little embarrassing, frankly. I find myself answering the same handful of disgruntled questions, time and again, about how and why I dare to work as a theater critic. My favorite entreaties include “Why are you so mean?” (Because I can be) and “Don’t you care that theater…
