You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, the first musical based on Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip, is a warm-hearted, straightforward appreciation of the joys and challenges of being a regular little kid. Little kids in the audience tend to enjoy the scenes about lunchtime, Valentine’s Day, romantic crushes, struggles with…
I can’t keep saying I don’t like musicals when it turns out I enjoy myself at so many of them, so I guess I’ve processed whatever early trauma was getting in the way. Though I run into a clinker every now and then, our Valley has a lot of talented, fun, creative…
I’ve been working on a list of people or things that Katie McFadzen possibly can’t play. Here’s what I have so far: a pencil sharpener; Stalin; a venereal disease. But don’t quote me on any of these, because it’s likely that next month she’ll show up on a local stage…
Oh, these crazy contemporary English playwrights, always messing with us one way or another and making us feel like wet-behind-the-ears Colonial idiots. Prime example Howard Barker, who created a movement called Theater of Catastrophe, plunks his nasty, alienating scenarios into historical settings the U.S. public schools tend not to touch on (so for…
Shannon Whirry and Steven J. Scally play people with problems in Bug. I could see from the promo photos that iTheatre Collaborative’s production of Bug re-uses Christopher Haines’ evocative cheap-motel box set from Eat the Taste earlier this season, which is great by me. I can think of several other plays that would also look…
I like to think that Johnny Cash, the country music singer-songwriter and American institution, mellowed with age. I suspect that late in life, he’d left far behind him the hard-edged life of a bitter former yokel who cheated on his wife and became addicted to “every drug there was to…
Kansas City-based Theater League presents in just seven U.S. cities, so it’s always felt kind of like Phoenix’s own little Shubert Organization. Although TL does produce shows itself, its Passport to Broadway series snags national road companies of hot musicals from the tour producers (for example, the sparkling Mamma Mia!…
First off, I want to make sure you know that Black Theatre Troupe replaced their originally scheduled season closer, Three Sistahs, with a second run of Revenge of a King, which you really ought to catch if you haven’t already (it plays through Sunday, May 10). (Read Robrt L. Pela’s…
Okay, seriously: I’m too old and too uncool and, frankly, too white to have enjoyed Black Theatre Troupe’s Revenge of a King. Herb Newsome’s freaked-out retelling of Hamlet was, in a word, annoying. Yo. The only thing I dislike more than Shakespeare is contemporized Shakespeare, and the only thing I…
Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” would be a cool little fable even if it were only about exposing pretension and exploding the myths of class and taste. But it’s also about a ruler who’s so obsessed with style and glamor that his empire’s real needs are unattended to.Eric…
A theater experience always includes, at a minimum, you and a performer. Ideally, you both emerge transformed. It doesn’t get much more perfectly bare-bones than Dodging Bullets, a one-man show by ASU prof and local theater artist David Barker. In 65 minutes on a nearly empty stage, this apparently average…
When I got home from the theater the other night, I immediately updated my Facebook page. I typed a note to the virtual community that read, “Two things: 1. Go see columbinus at Stray Cat Theatre; 2. Ron May is a genius.” This is a theater review, not a trendy…
A friend of mine swears that she read somewhere that David Mamet is really a chick. More widespread and credible, but much less fascinating, is the rumor that reclusive, pseudonymous Pulitzer-nominated playwright Jane Martin is actually director Jon Jory. In any case, MartinJory have collaborated successfully many times, and ever…
I used to assume that there simply is no men’s dressing room at downtown Scottsdale’s Theater 4301 — it’s the stomping ground of such perennials as Menopause The Musical and Sister’s Christmas Catechism, as well as a cozy 2008 visit from Carrie Fisher and the upcoming Girls Night: The Musical. (So, not…
Since 2002, the Herberger’s Lunch Time Theater program has been a place for emerging companies and artists to stretch their wings and give downtowners a mental mini-break in the work week. Every season, several quite different troupes present a short play for two or three weeks each. Writers, in particular,…
Over the years, I’ve seen several excellent productions by Arizona Jewish Theatre Company. Their current show, a world première called Parted Waters, is not very good, and, sadly, it’s a bad time to hit audiences with a mediocre play. Like many other arts entities, AJTC is struggling with the effects…
I kept thinking about John Lennon as I watched Actors Theatre of Phoenix’s Rabbit Hole the other night. Specifically, about how Paul McCartney was widely quoted as having said simply, “What a drag!” upon learning that his friend and former collaborator had died. I was mindful of this because that…
It’s not an inherently bad thing to have a comfort zone. If every stimulus you took in, every day, were a novel and fascinating first-time experience, you’d probably keel over from exhaustion before lunch. But I feel for the artists who, originally, had to create a stage show just exactly like everyone’s favorite…
Tim Trumble, courtesy of ASU Herberger College School of Theatre and Film Lee Margaret Hanson plays the title role in Eurydice. In case you haven’t heard, playwright Sarah Ruhl is très hip, kind of the Albee/Wasserstein/Mamet mashup of this decade. When Paula Vogel was her teacher, Vogel claimed she learned things from Ruhl…
Lillie Richardson is not 11 years old. I had to keep reminding myself of this during her performance in Black Theatre Troupe’s production of The Bluest Eye. Richardson plays a child so winningly in this translation of Toni Morrison’s acclaimed novel about a poor black girl who wishes she were…
courtesy of GAPT Oh, wheel of fortune: The king and the miller’s daughter meet cute in Rumpelstiltskin. Something’s terribly wrong when some of our own local professionals, the puppeteers of Great Arizona Puppet Theater, get passed over every year at Oscar time. What’s that? They aren’t in films? Well, okay…
Tempe Little Theatre was founded nearly 40 years ago (full disclosure: I’ve worked with them in three of those four decades, as a performer, an elected officer, a director who was paid a small stipend, and one who wasn’t). Their bylaws-mandated preference to eschew a traditional community-based fundraising board of…
