Sun 4/25 Don’t laugh, baldy. Hair styling is an art form. Just ask Stephanie Blaze. The connoisseur of creative coiffures, and a stylist at Scottsdale’s Rumors Salon, is set to compete in this weekend’s Supreme Salon Tour at The Venue of Scottsdale. “Some of the hair styles [on display] take…
Fri 4/23 “I don’t want the audience to blink,” says Hodgie Jo, artistic director for Imation Dance Company, “not even once, throughout my show.” It’s a stiff mandate, but one he just might pull off. The debut performance of his modern jazz dance company, Footsteps, is an amalgam of Cirque…
Nestled onto Gregory Jaye’s magnificent set for Morning’s at Seven is a relatively quiet, old-fashioned play that shines like a bright beacon. Set in the joined yard of two massive bungalows, this is a comic, almost musical tale of forbidden love among the neurotic and the infirm. Its more-than-slightly fusty…
I am going to give 13 Going on 30 too much credit, though it’s hardly worth the effort; Lord knows the filmmakers didn’t put much into it. It’s a shame, as far as these things go, because what could have been an engaging, maybe even enlightening story about the unfairly…
If you were a college-aged East Berliner in October of 1989, chances are that your time was occupied by one of several things. Protesting comes to mind, as does hacking at long-reviled concrete. Perhaps you caroused, or lit fireworks, or sang with joy as you coursed through the newly open…
Why is a Tucson cop standing at Tom Miller’s door? “I . . . I don’t know,” says Miller, a veteran of the 1960s underground press known for agitating the powers that be (or were) via the printed word. Turns out, the Five-O is on the steps outside Miller’s domicile…
4/22-4/24 Don’t expect Jose Gonzalez to dismiss the unflattering perception of young improvisers like himself — that is, those melodramatic, overly extroverted speech and debate geeks whom Broadway will never acknowledge. “Oh, we’re all that and more!” proclaims Gonzalez, a 26-year-old member of local improv troupe Galapagos. “I sympathize with…
4/23-4/25 Mad hops and beer hops join forces when the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour serves up the Tempe Open from Friday, April 23, through Sunday, April 25, at Tempe Beach Park. Think the Town Lake is a sorry substitute for Manhattan Beach? Not so, according to two-time Olympian Holly…
“Landscapes in the Fireplace: The Paintings of Pedro Alvarez”: This exhibition is a bittersweet experience for those familiar with this well-loved young Cuban artist and his irony-laced work. A collection of Alvarez’s most recent paintings, ASU’s exhibition unwittingly stands as a final tribute to the irreverent spirit that infuses his…
Thursday, April 15 Funny thing about Kevin Pollak: His dramatic films (The Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men) have met with serious success. Yet — while he’s among the most successful standups on the circuit — his comedies (The Wedding Planner, Juwanna Mann) tend to be, well, laughable. Pollak gets…
At first glance, Ellen Wagener’s works look like photographs. Crisp lines of crops splay out in agricultural landscapes set below dreamy skies, looking like snapshots out the window of a car as you pass through the endless Midwestern prairies. But these are pastel drawings. Pastel — the grown-up version of…
Just a quick scan of the home-based studio of installation artist Heidi Hesse confirms that this native German has a serious thing for the Statue of Liberty, among other classic American icons. The 42-year-old artist, who grew up in the rural outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, and a small…
Tenth-grade driver’s ed was never like this: professional pit crews, engines packing 600 ponies, and fevered orders to hit the gas. Sure, fashion takes a back seat — participants zip themselves into baggy blue jumpsuits — but, for speed freaks, The Richard Petty Driving Experience is a tailpipe dream come…
Todd Taylor, welcome to the wonderful world of good hygiene. “I’m used to hanging out with people that don’t shower and don’t shave,” says Taylor, author of the punk rock homage Born to Rock, and the featured reader at the DIY (“doing it yourself”) Punk Rock Reading Monday, April 19,…
4/17-4/18 “We have all the answers now in terms of technology, clean water, clean air, transportation, building, education [and] social issues,” argues SolFest organizer Belle Starr. “We have those answers, and it’s just a question of accessing them.” It’s also a matter of disseminating them to a sometimes environmentally heretical…
Sat 4/17 Phoenix artists Stephanie Carrico and JRC officially unpack their bags on Saturday, April 17, as Grand Avenue’s newest art venue, The Trunk Space, celebrates its grand reopening. Carrico and JRC — who previously worked The Paper Heart’s java cart (aptly called “The Paper Cup”) and ran open mike…
Last year, Playboy proclaimed Arizona State University “America’s biggest party school.” This year, students can study the anatomy of the university’s own Jaime Hammer, who graces the cover of the magazine’s annual College Girls issue on newsstands now. Inside, the comely co-ed displays her school spirit in sharp stilettos and…
The six-month intermission is over; those of you left in the lobby, wondering if Uma Thurman ever did kill Bill, may now return to your seats and unbuckle your belts and resume your gorging. Rest assured that Kill Bill Vol. 2, the final half of Quentin Tarantino’s fifth movie, offers…
Here’s a subject with which no one should ever have to grapple: Is this new version of The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane as the comic-book assassin, better than the 1989 adaptation with Dolph Lundgren? They both offer slight variations on a tale first told in a 1974 Spider-Man comic, where…
Sat 4/17 Let’s face it: Boston harbors the big ships, and we’re not exactly known for our nautical prowess. But you can help change that by embarking on a day of fun this Saturday, April 17. Cheer for your favorite mariners in what may someday be known as “Arizona’s Cup”…
Wed 4/21 “I prefer to write plays that fuck with the audience’s mind on the drive home afterwards,” says Chris Danowski, writer of ApoCalypso, Theater in My Basement’s latest surrealistic production. “I know when I see a play, I like to be bombarded with a lot of ideas, emotions and…
Thursday, April 8 Thanks to a big phat deal with rapper Bubba Sparxxx, the Yonder Mountain String Band is reaching an entirely new audience. Sparxxx’s track “Comin Round” sends a shout out to the Colorado jamgrass band, sampling its 2001 tune “To See You Coming ’round the Bend.” YMSB comes…
