strings attached “Musical Marionettes”: Clotilde Otranto conducts Phoenix Symphony in this meshing of orchestral works and puppetry, the final entry in the ensemble’s Family Concert Series. Puppeteers Bob and Judy Brown put string beings through their paces in sequences titled “Clown Alley,” “Petting Zoo,” “Fright Night” and “Future Tense,” which…
Jose Benavides spent almost a year begging or buying the 500 license plates that he has since pounded into a gigantic depiction of the Virgin Mary attached to the chassis of a 1979 Datsun pickup truck. Benavides’ “Madonna” is a 17-foot-tall, fully drivable shrine to Our Lady of Grace–a sort…
If Peter Quince were alive today and living in Arizona, he might well be the artistic director of Southwest Shakespeare Company. Quince is, of course, that amateur entrepreneur of ancient Athens who organized a group of tradesmen to perform “the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and…
Although Phoenix-area bigwigs frequently claim that they’d like the Valley to become more of a player in the entertainment industry, the soil here has proved harsh and infertile when it comes to efforts to grow a serious film festival–the mark of most major show-biz towns. Funding here is sparse, sponsors…
Like Dead Man Walking, Last Dance is about a bond that forms between a death-row inmate and a concerned outsider. This time around, however, the genders are switched: The prisoner (Sharon Stone) is a woman and her visitor is a man (Rob Morrow). Proximity to the release of Dead Man…
at the fair Kid Stuff at Maricopa County Fair: The fair continues through Sunday, May 5, and includes daily fun like midway rides and games, livestock and agriculture competitions and exhibitions, farm tours featuring a “maternity ward” of animal newborns, and vegetable-bowling and pickle-eating contests. For general information, see Pic…
thursday may 2 Saguaro Film Festival 3: Arizona Film Society’s annual showcase of independent works opens with a reception for the filmmakers at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 2, at Planet Hollywood, located at Biltmore Fashion Park, 24th Street and Camelback. A screening of director Carmen Santa Maria’s farce I Crave…
Delicate rectangles of light dapple a translucent scrim that masks the proscenium at Herberger Theater’s Center Stage. The tinkle of tiny cymbals begins to twang; our eyes penetrate the veil to behold a jewel-encrusted creature enthroned. With tawny skin spangled with golden dust, an ample human body is crowned with…
The Comedy of Errors and The Boys From Syracuse are twins, but they’re fraternal–not identical. The former is Shakespeare’s shortest play–and possibly his first. It is a tale of twins, separated at birth, who are driven to distraction when their respective acquaintances mistake them for each other. The latter is…
The Hat Squad, a legendary quartet of LAPD robbery detectives during the ’50s, was the inspiration for Mulholland Falls, a period mystery vaguely in the Chinatown/Devil in a Blue Dress vein. In the first scene, the boys (Nick Nolte, Chazz Palminteri, Chris Penn and Michael Madsen) throw a new-in-town gangster…
The Last Supper is about liberal rage, so, by nature, it’s a comedy. Directed by Stacy Title, the film takes off from a classic hypothetical parlor-game question: What if, as a time traveler, you met Hitler as a young man, innocent of his future crimes–do you murder him to prevent…
thursday april 25 Maricopa County Fair: The 21st annual event–a cozier, countrier version of Arizona State Fair–opens Thursday, April 25, and continues daily, through Sunday, May 5, at the fairgrounds, 19th Avenue and McDowell. Highlights include carnival rides and games on the midway; a musical tribute to the Beatles and…
at the fair Kid Stuff at Maricopa County Fair: On Monday, April 29; Tuesday, April 30; and Wednesday, May 1, kids can buy magic tickets to this year’s fair, which starts Thursday, April 25, and continues through Sunday, May 5. Called “Pay-One-Price” passes and priced at $19.95, they’re good for…
‘The sign posted on the door of Tempe Arts Center warns that the center’s current ceramics exhibit, “Master’s Touch: Akio Takamori,” contains images of adult themes. What it doesn’t tell you, however, is that the work within is a poetic paean to the myth and magic that have always surrounded…
Lorraine Hansberry’s powerful drama A Raisin in the Sun is to the black experience what Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is to that of middle-class Jews. It serves as the bench mark of excellence for all subsequent theatrical productions related to black life. For sheer dramatic energy and satisfying…
In a brief prologue, a pale young woman fixes her eyes on the black void that is the past: “I’m seeing him. He’s huge. The biggest man in the world.” Fade to black. The young woman awakens to find herself on a beach. Her name is Maria, and she vaguely…
Roald Dahl was one of those writers–Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) another–who seem to have kept a direct line open between adulthood and the childhood id. Dahl’s 1961 children’s book James and the Giant Peach was about exactly that–a boy who uses a giant peach as an airship…
Nick Broomfield’s BBC documentary Heidi Fleiss Hollywood Madam runs well over two hours. Think about that for a minute. Compare it to other documentaries about prominent contemporary women–it’s much longer than the Maya Lin movie, and only a hair shorter than the one about Leni Riefenstahl. And perhaps what’s most…
thursday april 18 Dinofest International: This saurian showcase includes dino skeletons and fossils from all seven continents. Highlights include numerous pieces from the “Great Dinosaurs of China” collections of the Beijing and Inner Mongolia museums of natural history; the remains of a duckbill from the Los Angeles County Museum; robotic…
world party EarthFest ’96: Valley Forward Association sponsors this free, hands-on environmental expo for kids of all ages, featuring interactive and educational exhibits illustrating the importance of conservation efforts and practical ways to implement them. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, April 19; and 11 a.m. to 4…
The most erotic image I have seen on the stages of Phoenix can be ogled at Playwright’s Workshop Theatre on Seventh Street. The time is the present; the place is a federal prison. The setting is a spare, clean prison cell illuminated by a single industrial lamp that hangs over…
If the uselessly titled new Richard Gere vehicle Primal Fear were a paperback novel bought in haste in an airport terminal, it would probably pass the time it takes to fly over the Midwest agreeably enough. Based on a William Diehl novel that has, no doubt, made that very trip…
