David and Amy Sedaris’ The Book of Liz is a smart, funny, shrewdly crafted piece of writing, full of sly social commentary and jam-packed with goofy double entendres. None of this is apparent in Space 55 Theatre Ensemble’s leaden production of the play, now on display in a dark corner…
Who says Phoenix doesn’t turn out winners? Not former Phoenician Judy Kaye, on whose mantel rests a Tony Award for her portrayal of Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera. Along the way, she’s appeared in the original Broadway Grease (as a replacement Rizzo) and in numerous film and stage…
1934 In her first stage performance, Ella Fitzgerald wins an Amateur Night competition at the Apollo Theater. 1936 Ella’s first recording, “Love and Kisses,” is released on Decca Records. 1938 Ella’s first Number One single is “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” a novelty number recorded for an Abbott and Costello movie in which…
The Death Bite: Hal Corley’s unfortunately named drama is not about vampirism, but rather about 18 hours in the life of Robyn Fair, an oddball who longs to launch her life from the New Jersey suburb where she lives. First, she has to untangle herself from her deceitful foster daughter,…
It isn’t difficult to believe that Tina Fabrique is the real Ella Fitzgerald while watching her perform in Ella, the musical biography of Fitzgerald that Arizona Theater Company has just remounted at Mesa Arts Center. I didn’t need to squint or try to forget what Ella should sound like; Fabrique…
She’ll empty ashtrays and even clean the lobby toilet, but don’t ask Laura Kerrigan to make your dog a star. By day, Kerrigan is Desert Stages Theatre’s marketing director; by night, she’s likely to be found reading a trashy novel, stumping for a mattress firm, or pushing her company’s latest…
Imagine being trapped in a tiny room full of people who cannot sing but insist on doing so anyway (at the top of their lungs!), and you’ll understand my discomfort while confronting Desert Stages’ Suds last month. This is one of those musical revues — and they are legion —…
42nd Street: On the avenue they’re taking you to . . . the one where the girl goes out a dancer “but comes back a star!” This popular musical has been revived countless times, but it’s still best known in its original context: as the classic Warner Bros. tuner in…
Forced to give a name to the past year in theater, I would have to call it The Year of Ron May, because while many of his compatriots struggled to act, direct, run a credible theater or even just handle publicity for one, this quadruple-threat actor/director/artistic director/publicist excelled at each…
Every New Year’s Eve, I watch my favorite movie. I used to think that everyone had a favorite film until a few years ago, when I hosted a party to which I asked each guest to bring a clip from their most-loved movie. One by one the invitees phoned to…
Travis Smith is serious about Christmas kitsch. Not only has he amassed thousands of vintage dime-store holiday ornaments, he’s also spent decades rescuing the unwanted homemade Christmas knickknacks that languish on thrift-store shelves. He’s documented both in Kitschmasland!: Christmas Decor From the 1950s to the 1970s, a new book that…
Wishes, Wassail, and Wonder: Don’t let its super-cheesy title fool you: iTheatre Collaborative’s fourth annual Christmas cabaret is in on its own joke, and may well be your best bet for kicky holiday entertainment with an edge. Shot through with caustic comic turns, this Yule-themed New York-style cabaret cobbles together…
I couldn’t tell if the holiday choir that kicked off the surprisingly dreary Sister’s Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi’s Gold was for real or not. Are they deliberately off-key, I wondered, and that’s the joke? My uncertainty grew as this overlong evening dragged on and on. How, I…
It’s finally happened. Joseph Kremer has at last appeared in a role that he’s not able to make his own. Kremer, who arrived seemingly out of nowhere a couple of seasons ago, has tackled — and excelled at! — roles as diverse as a sleazy French aristocrat in Les Liaisons…
Tuna Christmas: It’s back: that better-than-most holiday sequel to Greater Tuna, this one about Christmas in Tuna, the third smallest town in Texas. The good news is that the script for this Yuletide comedy is full of dark, cynical jabs at both the holidays and small-town life. It starts out…
Toward the end of Act One of Arizona Theatre Company’s Jitney, Chuck Patterson positions himself near the lip of center stage and recites a monologue about a dream that Fielding, the character he plays in this August Wilson play, has recently had. His recollection of climbing a golden ladder up…
Three years since Phoenix New Times ran our “Exploding Downtown” series, the wrecking ball is still taking aim all over downtown, threatening what little history the city has left to preserve. Will Phoenix wind up a cross between Disneyland and Mill Avenue? This week: Phoenix is too eager to scrape…
Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge: Originally commissioned by City Theatre in Pittsburgh and successfully presented during the 2002 holiday season, Christopher Durang’s profoundly irreverent play is a demented version of the perennial Dickens Christmas classic. This time, nasty old Ebenezer Scrooge finds that a visitation from three dead friends…
If I lie very still and focus all my attention on the tiny water stain on the ceiling above my bed, I’m able to forget the dream for minutes at a time. The dream — a nightmare, really — has been with me since this afternoon, when I awakened from…
Fat Pig: Tom is surprised to find himself falling in love with Helen, an intelligent, witty, and very overweight librarian. His friends and colleagues don’t approve, and rather than forging ahead with a post-PC “love is love, darn it” attitude, he hides his romance with Helen in Neil LaBute’s sassy,…
The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow provides proof that a talented cast can sometimes triumph over mediocre material. The good folks at Actors Theatre have pulled out all the stops in an attempt to patch the elephant-size holes in Rolin Jones’ high-concept comedy about a troubled girl who’s trying to…
Actors Theatre artistic director Matthew Wiener (who’s directing The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow) claims he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he managed to save one of our best Equity houses from an untimely death last year, so he must be bluffing. Anyone who admits to getting drunk on…
