10/10-10/12 Joe Rogan thinks he’s funny, though you may not know it from his poker-faced persona as host of NBC’s Fear Factor. Rogan, who formerly appeared in the sitcom NewsRadio alongside Phil Hartman and Andy Dick, and is now a rookie host of The Man Show on Comedy Central, professes…
If your name ends in a vowel and your people came over in steerage a hundred years ago, you will almost certainly find yourself in the kitchen these days, wooden spoon in hand, plum tomatoes draining in the colander, thoughts drifting between sweet nostalgia and the malaise of indefinable loss…
Founded in 1993 by Venezuelan dancer Maria Eugenia Barrios and Israeli dancer Offer Zaks, the Ballet Contemporaneo de Caracas is becoming one of the most innovative dance companies in South America. And it’s not surprising, considering both of its founders have worked with dancers such as Alvin Ailey and Anna…
Thursday, October 2 Steve Martin’s first full-length play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, debuted off-Broadway to critical acclaim in 1995. Set in 1904 in a Parisian cafe, the humorous play tells the story of a hypothetical meeting between two 20th-century geniuses, Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein, when they were both…
Afros and dreadlocks and conks and weaves, relaxer and straightener and perm endpapers and picks, cornrows and braids and beads . . . all of these styles, products and elements of African-American hair are examined and analyzed through the prism of art in the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s latest…
Sun 10/5 “I think there’s somewhat of a hunger for things to do downtown,” says Don Hamill, event coordinator for the Rainbows Festival, downtown’s gay and lesbian street fair. As proof, Hamill cites the turnout for last year’s celebration, the first time Rainbows Festival was held. “The reality is, you…
Sat 10/4 What is it, girl? Barktoberfest? Go fetch your costume! This Saturday, October 4, Friends for Life Animal Sanctuary presents its annual canine carnival and dog wash from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Cooley Park in Mesa. Gilbert police demonstrate how K-9 officers catch the bad guys, and…
Fri 10/3 Downtown’s First Friday art tour gets another stop this weekend, which showcases the work of local photographer Marilyn Szabo. Sponsored by Szabo’s regular gallery, Victoria Boyce Gallery of Scottsdale’s Main Street, Szabo’s latest will be shown in her personal studio space. Szabo, known for her stunning work in…
Tue 10/7 While percussion plays a supporting role in almost all of Western music, it is an art form and musical genre all its own in other parts of the world. Nowhere is this truer than in West Africa, where drum ensembles are revered for the spirituality and tribal force…
Marcia Rowlette’s life was full of pain and suffering. At age 2, a case of spinal meningitis left her mostly crippled. She lived her adult life in assisted-care facilities in her hometown of Prescott, where years of physical therapy were hindered by Marcia’s other medical conditions, which included psoriasis, arthritis…
It’s a safe bet that one of the very first performances of the season will almost certainly live on as the best of the season, because it’s hard to imagine any other actor outshining Benjamin Stewart’s Big Daddy in Actors Theatre’s production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Stewart’s…
Out of Time, in which we’re to believe 48-year-old Denzel Washington and 32-year-old Sanaa Lathan were high school sweethearts, demands its audience ignore all manner of implausibilities. Chief among them is the behavior of Washington’s Matt Whitlock, chief of police in a tiny coastal town just outside of Miami, who…
D irector Richard Linklater’s School of Rock imagines, sort of, what might have become of voluble rock snob Barry the morning after his grand finale in Stephen Frears’ adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity — after his Marvin Gaye impersonation had faded and been forgotten in the daylight hours, after…
10/6-10/12 Its drunken 16th hole notwithstanding, the Phoenix Open has little, if anything, on the Valley’s other great PGA event, the Gila River Golf Classic, Monday, October 6, through October 12 at Whirlwind Golf Club in Chandler. Securing the game’s greatest players is feat enough, but throw in a week’s…
Maybe she read Charlotte’s Web one too many times as a kid. Maybe she got a bad slice of veal shank. Whatever the reason, Kari Nienstedt is devoted to saving cute little farm animals (and big, ugly farm animals) from being mistreated on their way to slaughter. Kari’s the Arizona…
The publicity materials sent in advance of the at-long-last release of The Kids Are Alright on DVD suggest that the maker of the 1979 documentary about The Who has been on the lam–in the rock-and-roll witness relocation program, perhaps, far from the long windmilling arm of justice. A “recluse” is…
Paula Vogel is some kind of a genius for having written a play about pedophilia that’s both amusing and provocative. While ASU’s mainstage production of How I Learned to Drive doesn’t entirely do Vogel’s work justice, it’s just sturdy enough to evoke the rage and ardor of the playwright’s bold,…
The script for The Rundown has lingered for more than a decade and was originally a Patrick Swayze vehicle, well before those wheels fell off. Universal Studios revived it because the studio knows what it has in Dwayne Johnson: a gold mine made of bulging biceps, a man who was…
The dumbed-down movie version of Frances Mayes’ best-selling travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun is a virtual case study of Hollywood’s irrepressible urge to lower the bar in the hopes of upping the take. Mayes’ 1996 book is a nicely written, carefully observed meditation on buying a decrepit Italian villa…
Somewhere in the deepest mists of Eastern Europe lies an urban hell shrouded in shadowy azure, where darkly enchanted, black-leather-clad denizens leap about to thudding techno, blurting outrageously melodramatic proclamations in randomly accented English. It’s The Crow meets The Matrix, it’s goth-core tricked out with wire stunts, and, most important,…
Contemporary dance can inspire confusion and panic in the average viewer. But now it’s time for us all to get over it, and Rayn Hookala is here to help. A graduate student in Arizona State University’s department of dance, Hookala works overtime with her own dance company, Rayn Dance Theatre…
Thursday, September 25 The Phoenix Symphony toasts its new season on Thursday, September 25, with champagne, a gala atmosphere and a rare appearance by the legendary pianist Van Cliburn, who hasn’t visited the Valley in nearly 30 years. Among other works, he performs Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, the piece…
