When a pleasant Italian comedy called Mediterraneo won the 1992 Academy Award for best foreign language film, a lot of observant American moviegoers scratched their heads. Gabriele Salvatores’ fairy tale of Italian soldiers happily stranded on a gorgeous Greek island during World War II was an outright charmer, but it…
Ever-evolving, always changing, the universe nonetheless sustains many constants: Hair metal never really goes away. British women inevitably become besotted grumps. And short men always turn into intolerable control freaks. Another “true generality” holds that males of all statures develop their innate behavioral characteristics within patriarchal cultures that, while aiming…
Ask a grown man to squawk like a chicken or impersonate Michael Jackson, and you risk a knuckle sandwich. Ask Jef Rawls to make like a rooster or mimic a pop star turned would-be pedophile, and he’s off and running. “Improv is life,” according to Rawls, co-founder of the Valley’s…
5/29-5/31 Save for Randy Johnson’s perfection, baseball fans in Arizona are in need of a Diamondback Fan Suicide Hotline. But as we head toward June and the D-Backs’ apparent swoon, we have an opportunity to remind ourselves why we loved America’s national pastime in the first place. Leave the $8…
Hold tight during Act One of Alternative Theatre’s A Night in Vegas — or plan to arrive at intermission and miss it altogether. Either way, you’ll want to see “Helen and Jack,” the Act Two opener featuring Teresa Ybarra’s delightful performance as the anxious mother of a man who’s about…
The King has seen Louise’s panties, and her husband is unhappy about it. Strange men begin turning up at Louise’s door, hoping her drawers are still around her ankles. Hilarity ensues. Sound familiar? If so, you’re up on your obscure German playwrights of the early 20th century. But even those…
Thu 20 As music director for the Phoenix Symphony for the past seven years, Hermann Michael is revered as the company’s artistic savior. After more than 225 performances at the helm, Michael achieves immortality and bids farewell to the symphony with a most apropos conclusion to his career — he…
The first few minutes of Shrek 2 are cluttered with more references to the movies than David Thompson’s thick, rich history text New Historical Dictionary of Film. Watching it is like sitting next to an ADD patient with access to a remote control and a hundred premium cable channels; you…
Thu 5/20 Remember when the motorcycle was the ultimate symbol of outsider rebellion? Those who’ve grown up with a perception of the motorcycle as only slightly less threatening than the Toyota Corolla might be surprised to know that, once upon a time, bikes and those who rode them were actually…
5/21-5/22 Think “sand drags” mean a keg at the river bottom and a coupla converted Beetles? Meet Richard Holmes, a man who hasn’t forgotten his raisin’ — or his racin’. The boy who launched his buggy over the dunes now kicks up a desert storm this Friday, May 21, and…
Fri 5/21 To compensate for the swelling First Friday crowds, some downtown art venues are adding a second evening of events each month. “[First Friday has] become a big party in downtown, which is great,” says JRC, owner of The Trunk Space, “but, for serious collectors or people who are…
Sat 5/22 Carlos Urtubey, a baritone of Colombian descent, tells the story of one of the zarzuela duets (lyric Spanish theater) he’ll perform — “Canta Mendigo Errante” — on Saturday, May 22, at the Phoenix Center for the Arts. “That song is about a Gypsy who sings to try to…
Diana Taurasi stands flush with victory in the Phoenix Mercury locker room, fielding softball questions from local sports journos quizzing her on her golf game and how she’s dealing with the triple-digit temps. Finally, they pop the question that’s been dogging the six-foot phenom since she was the first pick…
Burlesque is often confused with the more simplified term “stripping.” But there’s a difference between the art of burlesque, which relies heavily on costume and mystery, and the more overt art of shakin’ one’s moneymaker. Major cities across the U.S. have figured this out, and audiences flock to burlesque shows…
Reviews by Gina Cavallo Collins and Kathleen Vanesian “Two-Person National Exhibition” at Mesa Contemporary Arts: Cotton-crotched pantyhose and Hopalong Cassidy in Mesa? Oh my. This two-woman show features artists Catharine Draper of Portland, Maine, and Heather Freeman of Lexington, Kentucky. Draper recycles family-related discards into art; she started as a…
It’s interesting to see how conventional political assumptions get turned on their heads when it comes to the case of Tibet, a nation militarily dominated by China, which claims it as Chinese territory despite the fact that China treats the Tibetan people as a lesser class. Liberal Democrats and Greens,…
Thu 13 Mindless entertainment has its place (and this summer, it drives a pink pickup cross-country with Nicole Richie), but folks looking for thoughtful theater can wrap their minds around A New Brain, which heads into its final weekend at Theater Works. William Finn’s semiautobiographical musical — enjoying its Arizona…
As a native SoCal girl with roots still sunk deep into Southern California and its crazed cultural scene, I was really looking forward to seeing “southwestNET: PHX/LA” at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Touted as a fresh look at urban life in Phoenix and Los Angeles, it was to feature…
Angel Cabrales lives and works in alternate realities. While driving through Cabrales’ neighborhood in east Mesa, you find that the cliché of suburban mass production — identical two-story floor plans inhabited by 2.something kids, canines and/or cats — ends at Cabrales’ property. Save for the unkempt lawn that hasn’t been…
It takes some brass huevos to crack on Rosa Parks. But if your name is Cedric Kyles (better known as Cedric “The Entertainer”), it’s all in a day’s work. Cedric’s lively, physical standup comedy first took mainstream audiences by storm in Spike Lee’s 2000 docu-film The Original Kings of Comedy…
Fri 5/14 As long as there are summer Olympics, there will never be a summer Olympics in Phoenix. But while the Games continue to elude the Valley, Olympic gold medalist pole vaulter Nick Hysong makes Arizona the center of his sport’s pre-Athens universe at 5 p.m. Friday, May 14, when…
Thu 5/13 Contrary to public opinion, at least one Valley charter school isn’t its students’ last-ditch effort to make a go of this whole education thing. In fact, at Metropolitan Arts Institute, the kids are literally dancing in the halls. “I didn’t come [to Metro] to get away from public…
