thursday october 31 Arizona State Fair: The corn-dog carnival continues daily, through Sunday, November 3, at the fairgrounds, bounded by McDowell Road and Encanto Boulevard between 17th and 19th avenues. Along with the usual attractions–midway rides and games, livestock and agricultural exhibits, etc.–this year’s fair includes “The Disney Fair” (see…
The subject of illness blips onto the cultural radar screen with regularity, but usually under the aegis of fund raising. Formal balls, dinners, 10K races–those are the public faces of disease in the Western world. Lately, however, an art/illness hybrid seems to be, if not blooming, at least growing. The…
Phoenix is lousy with Shakespeare this week. At Herberger Theater Center, Arizona Theatre Company’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona trods the boards. Macbeth is snorting and pawing the ground at Arizona State University’s Paul V. Galvin Playhouse. And over at Planet Earth Multi-Cultural Theatre, both Hamlet and Macbeth–by way of…
Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris is a musical revue that became an off-Broadway staple nearly 30 years ago. Truth be told, Jacques Brel is quite dead. If he weren’t, Todd James Smeltzer Productions’ current version of this tired homage to the late Belgian lyricist might…
During the MTV Music Awards this year, Dennis Miller cracked that a band he was introducing was “so hip and alternative that Steve Buscemi tried out for a part in it.” Buscemi is to American independent film of the ’90s what Peter Lorre was to wartime noir–the signature character actor…
Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins opens with Collins’ trusted aide Joe O’Reilly (Ian Hart) speaking of his departed leader: “He never did what anyone expected.” But, in fact, Collins (Liam Neeson) does pretty much what is expected of a movie hero: He fills the screen with noble bluster; he aches for…
purple reign Barney’s Big Surprise: Barney the Dinosaur, the king of public-television kiddy fare, is joined by his cohorts BJ and Baby Bop and special guests Mother Goose, Little Miss Muffett, Little Boy Blue and others in this musical extravaganza, produced by the man behind the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge…
thursday october 24 Arizona State Fair: The annual corn-dog carnival continues daily, through Sunday, November 3, at the fairgrounds, bounded by McDowell Road and Encanto Boulevard between 17th and 19th avenues. Along with the usual attractions–midway rides and games, livestock and agricultural exhibits, etc.–this year’s fair includes “The Disney Fair”…
German choreographer Pina Bausch came to our own Arizona desert several times looking for material for her latest work, Nur Du, whose Arizona premiere is Thursday night at Gammage Auditorium in Tempe. Translated into German from the 1955 Platters hit “Only You,” the title song, one of 34 blues, pop…
All in the Timing, a collection of six short one-acts now being staged by Actors Theatre of Phoenix, exploded off-Broadway a couple of seasons ago. It snagged a spot on Time magazine’s 1995 “Ten Best” list and made an overnight star of its author, David Ives. Critics heaped praise on…
It’s becoming more difficult to crow about live theatre in Phoenix. For a couple of years, it looked like the local theatre scene was evolving away from the sort of mask-and-wig clubs that trotted out another production of Blithe Spirit every season. Small, daring new troupes were unfolding every couple…
The Two Gentlemen of Verona is not the most amusing of William Shakespeare’s comedies. It’s clumsily constructed and makes an awkward shift into melodrama toward the end of the first act. All that makes Arizona Theatre Company’s colossal production of the 16th-century satire all the more impressive. Frankly, I’ve had…
Last year, Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium hosted a special showing of Sergei Eisenstein’s masterpiece The Battleship Potemkin, accompanied live by the Phoenix Symphony, performing a score cobbled together from various Shostakovich works. I wrote about the event, focusing mainly on Potemkin’s importance in film history, and on the validity…
Trying to decide whether the Million Man March was good or bad, heartening or depressing, can give you a headache. At the center of the ambiguity is Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the march organizer. It’s a stretch to believe that the anti-Semitism and xenophobia attributed to him in…
at the fair “The Disney Fair”: The Southwestern premiere of the nationally touring, special-effects-laden show fills up about two acres at this year’s Arizona State Fair, and features some of the studio’s biggest stars, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, Captain Hook, Aladdin, Jasmine and Ariel. Shows are scheduled…
thursday october 17 Arizona State Fair: The annual corn-dog carnival opens Thursday, October 17, and continues through Sunday, November 3, at the fairgrounds, bounded by McDowell Road and Encanto Boulevard between 17th and 19th avenues. Along with the usual attractions–midway rides and games, livestock and agricultural exhibits, etc.–this year’s fair…
It’s no mystery why Lionel Bart’s Oliver! is occasionally trotted out for another go-around. This classic British musical, adapted from Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel Oliver Twist, features some wonderfully bent characters and a magnificent score. The real puzzle is why Southwest Shakespeare Company is producing this show, which has no…
That Thing You Do! is perfectly beguiling, perfectly skilled, perfectly smart and perfectly harmless. Coming from anyone else, it might seem slick and calculated, but as the debut of Tom Hanks as a writer-director, it seems like an unusually personal piece of moviemaking. The story, which Hanks claims to have…
Corky, a parolee, gets a job fixing up a Chicago apartment next door to one occupied by Ceasar, a gangster, and Violet, his luscious moll. The moment Corky’s and Violet’s eyes meet on the elevator, the sexual tension between them is palpable. Eventually, they become lovers and hatch a daring…
hot stuff Firehouse Healthy Kids Day: Ten Valley fire stations and seven others across the state will open their doors from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, October 12, for public activities such as safety and educational demonstrations, tours and immunizations. The event is co-sponsored by the Arizona Partnership for…
thursday october 10 Ween: Nervy New Jersey alt. rockers Dean and Gene Ween traveled to enemy territory, Nashville, to record their skewering of Music City, the faux tribute album 12 Golden Country Greats (Elektra), which includes titles like “Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain” and “Piss Up a…
There are better reasons to strap on a bustle than Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Something, perhaps the popularity of the film versions, has convinced theatre producers that people want to see this play. But while both the 1988 movie based on Hampton’s dramatization and 1989’s Valmont were small masterpieces…
