There’s no particular reason that Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone has to be colorful, silly, upbeat, or life-affirming. Actors Theatre’s Matthew Wiener could have directed it as a relatively serious play with a few very funny lines. It starts like this: Gordon, a self-centered man in a very questionable…
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is an interesting, sometimes moving, sometimes funny play, well-staged by Stray Cat Theatre, and you can sit and enjoy it with or without believing in God (or, apparently, in Judas Iscariot, which is a separate thing, according to an acquaintance who remarked to me…
We’re getting all jiggly with excitement for the unknown quantities that are the performances of PHX:fringe. Since sharing this preview, we’ve made plans to see and review a whole bunch of shows. And because we can’t be everywhere at once, we’re stopping by again to share what else we bet…
Before you hit the dance floor, you might want to take a few pointers from the pros. And this weekend, members of Scorpius Dance Theatre are dishing out some serious moves. On Saturday, March 3, the local contemporary dance company is hosting Dance Marathon 3, a day-long series of classes open…
One of the cool things about Teatro Bravo! is that you can’t predict what kind of Latino theater they’re going to give you. It might be a socially conscious tale of contemporary people, with echoes of older myths; it might be a biography of a public figure, bringing light to…
Don’t worry — the characters in The Unexpected Man are still both relatable and ridiculous. The two people are still trapped together for a finite period by social convention, driven like pack mules by their pride and insecurity. But it’s just enough gentler, warmer, less pessimistic than playwright Yasmina Reza’s…
Desert Stages Theatre artistic director Terry Helland clearly is mad. Onto the tiny black box stage of his Actor’s Café, he continues to wedge dark, offbeat plays that no doubt strike terror in the hearts of the mainstream theatergoers who turn up in droves for the more bland fare on…
No one gets stoned to death, and you only have to pay if you win — doesn’t get much better than that. Tickets for the Broadway tour of Wicked, which started its current Tempe run on Wednesday, are scarce and/or spendy. To make your last-minute, fingers-crossed bottom-feeding more potentially productive,…
Yikes. It’s always a risk to set yourself up in your production’s title or tagline, such as the one in the headline above, for ASU Tempe’s centennial show Untold Stories/Unsung Heroes — another trap that suggests the snarky “There’s a reason these were untold before now.” But I winced even…
It’s just polished and adorable silliness from beginning to end. That’s most of what there is to say about the Tony-winning lunacy of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, in a fine production transplanted from Minnesota’s Guthrie Theater by Arizona Theatre Company. Director Joel Sass has the four performers (one of…
History is written by the winners, they say. Memoir is even more selective, having generally been preserved by people who are not just literate, but literate in a language the victors understand (which weeds out quite a few), and often by those who think interesting things have happened to them…
For 11 days in March, we’ll get to revel in off-the-beaten-path (ideally) performances — 23 different ones, in 88 time slots at five locations — in the fifth annual Phoenix Fringe Festival. Local alt-Christian glam-rock-opera dude Paisley Yankolovich is back on the schedule (we missed him last year!), and some new…
Have you ever been in so far above your depth that you could barely function? Of course you have; and those are great learning experiences, but you still pity the other people who had to watch. It’s no fun to tell you that’s what it appears to be like to…
Some dudes are more than eager to fork over $24.95 a month to see local porn starlets Priya Rai and Taryn Thomas either on DVD or via the Internet. Valley party promoter Chuck Huus, however, is hoping they’ll be eager to spend that same amount for the opportunity to meet…
By Sunday, you might be plopped on the couch and ankle-deep in nacho sauce and crappy beer. But if you’re looking for a more, um, active approach to the year’s biggest football event, Pink Fitness is here to help. The Peoria club hosts its annual Super Pole Sunday “as way…
This month has been a whirlwind of great performances in relatively unfamiliar plays. And this weekend’s your last chance to catch iTheatre Collaborative’s 9 Circles, an example of just such a production. This small company, playwright Bill Cain, and local director/designer Steven J. Scally all have fine pedigrees, and the…
On January 28, the Musical Instrument Museum is partnering with the American Chinese Arts and Culture Exchange Association to celebrate the Chinese New Year. According to Courtney Tjaden, Events and Volunteer Manager at the museum, there will be a number of events and performances that pay tribute to 2012, the year…
Playwrights have to make several decisions in the course of their work (unless they’re lucky enough to be able to make great drama flying by the seats of their pants). One of the trickiest chores is what to do with your Big Idea, if you know what it is at…
A good friend of mine used to manage a bookstore. (A lot of people used to manage a bookstore.) In their proud, intellectual geekiness, her employees tended to look just terrible. It wasn’t that anyone expected them to spend money on clothes; if they’d just made the effort to be…
Theater fans are anticipating Nearly Naked Theatre’s upcoming production of Spring Awakening, but I’ll venture that nothing else the company does this year will surpass its remount of Shakespeare’s R & J, playing now at Phoenix Theatre. The bare bones of Romeo and Juliet (interspersed with other Shakespearean verse) provide…
Hearing Actors Theatre managing director Erica McKibben Black tell Sunday’s matinee audience that the rest of this season is on was a lovely way to greet the new year. Though they fell just a smidge short of what they needed to raise by December 31, the company’s planning and restructuring…
The Phoenix Suns announced yesterday that they would welcome a group of “high energy” youngsters to their entertainment crew, and today they announced their double whammy — seniors. Dance Fusion, a group of 15 women ages 42 to 73 (who are self-described seniors), will also perform for Suns fans on Friday…
