According to the Internet site TV Tome, more people between the ages of 6 and 30 have heard of Gilligan, that eternal television castaway, than Theodore Roosevelt, John Glenn, or Mary Magdalene. More people have seen an episode of Gilligan’s Island than watched the first astronaut landing on the moon…
There was a time when Disney knew its place. That time has long since passed. Once content to deliver clever cartoons and the occasional film comedy starring Kurt Russell, Disney has begun reading its own press clippings and, puffed up about being “The Happiest Place on Earth!”, wants to rub…
Your inner child need never go hungry again. Thanks to local entrepreneur David Roth, who with pal Rick Bacher launched the Tempe-based cereal bar known as Cereality, the fourth grader in you can feast right out in public on Frankenberry sopped with chocolate milk; can mix Sugar Smacks with Fruity…
It finally happened. After nearly a decade of trying — of awakening at the crack of dawn, crouching in my chilly, parked car for hours on end, and enduring the steely glares of a crush of bitter book collectors — last February I was first in line at the Volunteer…
Lawrence McLaughlin, 48, painter, sculptor, part-time resident of France, and relentlessly cheerful former Minnesotan, has plenty to be happy about. His paintings and concrete monumental sculptures (his “babies”) are featured in galleries and private collections the world over, but are created in his “compound,” a vast hunk of rambling desert…
When the Valley’s own Jonathan Kaye returns to the FBR Open this week to defend his title against Vijay Singh, he might be swinging with BlueBalls. And it’s entirely possible that, when local favorites Phil Mickelson and Mark Calcavecchia grab their shafts this week, there’ll be a naked lady there…
Actors Theatre has struck pay dirt with Nickel and Dimed, playwright Joan Holden’s comic adaptation of Barbara Ehrenreich’s nonfiction best seller Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, in which noted author and activist Ehrenreich went undercover as a minimum-wage earner to write about how the working poor…
We’ve lost another one. Last month, the folks at TheatreScape announced that they’re pulling the plug on the rest of their season and on the troupe itself. Small companies like TheatreScape come and go all the time, but the ones that put together shows as worthy as this company’s often…
It’s been three weeks since your New Year’s resolutions should have kicked in, and you’re still working your way through that box of peppermint bark in the freezer. You’ve decided that the minute you run out of eggnog, you’ll really get going on eating right. And why waste a good…
Even the briefest essay about Rosanne Cash requires a list of her reckonable accomplishments: the 11 number one singles, the Grammy award, and always, always her royal musical lineage. But if being Johnny Cash’s daughter got her foot in Music City’s door, and while all those hits kept her on…
Fans of lightweight post-dinner entertainment will appreciate Always . . . Patsy Cline, a slightly better than average amusement that’s playing at Theater 4301. The venue, one of Scottsdale Center for the Arts’ satellite theaters, isn’t particularly easy to find; parking is a small-scale nightmare; and a single, sluggish elevator…
Rebecca Hardcastle isn’t from outer space. But she might be from a different dimension, one that transcends time and space and most college curriculums. We can thank our lucky stars that Hardcastle has landed at Scottsdale Community College, which now offers her Extraterrestrial Reality course as part of its Continuing…
I welcomed in the new year with a shudder and a sigh, because 2005 is the year that Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park will return to Broadway. As if that weren’t enough, we have, right now in lovely Phoenix, two productions of this hoary old comedy playing concurrently, which…
When I arrive at her office at the Arizona House of Representatives, termed-out Republican Representative Karen Johnson is Scotch-taping the hem of her skirt, which has come unraveled and which she’s rolled up into her lap for a quick repair. She laughs when I offer to help, and waves me…
He speaks from the murky shadows of Booth #55, a man in navy pinstripes with a voice like gravel frying in brown butter. “You wanna know about Jack Durant? I’ve got stories you won’t believe.” His hands are neatly manicured; his tie expertly dimpled; there’s a felt hat on the…
I’ve been thinking about making some New Year’s resolutions. Normally I don’t bother; it’s too easy to give in to the bad habits I’ve honed to perfection, and let’s face it: Ice cream will always taste better than salad, and since I work at home and my spouse is gone…
He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake. And if that doesn’t completely freak you out, how about this: He spends all his time with elves, has access to an army of men who look exactly like him, and he can bend time and space to suit…
It’s been a very long time since I’ve reviewed Actors Theatre’s annual production of A Christmas Carol. I see it every year, but I haven’t troubled anyone outside of my home with an opinion about it for quite a while. I must have written something when, a half-dozen years or…
Last Wednesday, while Phoenix City Council members considered an ordinance that would allow police to evict transients from city parks, Kurt Brewer was relaxing at home. While lawmakers debated whether people with no fixed address should be allowed to hang out in the park, Brewer kicked off his shoes and…
Okay. Let’s say that Jesus Christ is real, and that he was born to a virgin mother and is the son of an all-powerful but invisible being who offered up his only offspring in payment for our sins. Does this guy — this savior, this product of an immaculate conception…
Robrt Pela interviews Emma Stone (then known as Emily) over Partridge Family records.
Has anyone but me noticed that Arizona Jewish Theatre Company never produces plays or musicals that depict Jews as whiny cheapskates? And that the Black Theatre Troupe never presents shows in which people of color are portrayed as lazy, shiftless field hands? Fortunately for fans of pitiless stereotyping, there’s the…
