Last weekend will remain in my memory as one of those rare weekends when each of the plays I attended was what people here rather regrettably refer to as “Broadway caliber.” On Friday, I saw an Actors Theatre production of The Pillowman so magnificently acted and so deeply disturbing that…
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Phew. It looked for a second there as if theater audiences were actually going to make it through an entire season without one troupe or another dusting off this mammoth musical warhorse. But, thanks to the efforts of Arizona Broadway…
The folks over at North Valley Playhouse had better hope that the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation doesn’t get wind of the offensive gay stereotypes they’re promoting in their new, original, so-mean-you-won’t believe-it show, Diet! The Musical! For that matter, they’d better hope that anyone with half a brain…
The Pillowman: Child abuse and child murder are all the rage in theater these days. There’s John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, about a group of boys still scarred from their abuse by a pedophilic priest. And Frozen, the British import about a serial killer that was so nicely done here by…
I greeted the announcement of Stray Cat Theatre’s Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy with great glee, thinking, “At last! Someone has noticed the similarities between gory Hollywood revenge films and the texts of ancient Greek tragedies!” And I headed for opening night of this particular production with a similarly giddy…
Well: Lisa Krons autobiographical play, set in the Lansing, Michigan, neighborhood where she grew up, delves into her familys medical history and addresses issues of health and sickness via her chronically ill mother and the community that this woman once saved from decline after its racial integration. Krons main conceit…
On paper, Richard Dresser’s Augusta sounds a whole lot more dreary than it turns out to be. Thanks to some fine acting and smooth direction, this comedy about the travails of the lower-income working class not only entertains, but reveals subtleties about the diminished power of blue-collar workers in Dresser’s…
I suppose it could happen to anyone: You spend a good chunk of your professional life getting paid to pretend you’re Christ, and after awhile you start believing you can part the Red Sea. At least that’s what I’m hoping is behind the Christ complex implied in Ted Neeley’s “Interview…
Previews and reviews by Robrt L. Pela Frozen: Bryony Laverys dark, thoughtful drama about a pedophile serial killer won Londons prestigious Barclay Award for Best New Play of 1998, then went on to pile up accolades in New York the following year. Lavery is so skilled a scriptwriter, she manages…
To get an idea of why I was so deeply frustrated by Black Theatre Troupe’s excellent production of Fabulation or the Re-Education of Undine, try this: Put a DVD of your favorite movie on, turn the volume way up, then go out onto your front porch and watch the film…
Fortunately for the folks in the audience at Phoenix Theatre, Black Theatre Troupe executive director David Hemphill is appearing in PT’s current production of Guys and Dolls. That’s bad luck for the rest of us, because it means Hemphill wasn’t there to give his usual charming curtain speech on opening…
My Fair Lady: The rain in Spain will, these next several weeks, be falling mainly on the theatrical plain of Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre, which brings us this famed Lerner-Loewe musical through mid-April. Based on George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion, My Fair Lady contains more classic tunes in its first act…
Betty Comden: As one half of the legendary musical duo of Comden and Green, Betty Comden produced six decades’ worth of Hollywood and Broadway hits. The duo penned screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, including Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon, and On the…
About halfway through the second act of Christopher Durang’s wildly funny Betty’s Summer Vacation, a couple of electric saws appear out of nowhere and hack a giant hole into the back wall of the stage set. From that jagged fissure shoots a huge slide, down which come tumbling a trio…
My Fair Lady: The rain in Spain will, these next several weeks, be falling mainly on the theatrical plain of Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre, which brings us this famed Lerner-Loewe musical through mid-April. Based on George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion, My Fair Lady contains more classic tunes in its first act…
David and Amy Sedaris’ The Book of Liz is a smart, funny, shrewdly crafted piece of writing, full of sly social commentary and jam-packed with goofy double entendres. None of this is apparent in Space 55 Theatre Ensemble’s leaden production of the play, now on display in a dark corner…
Munched: This workshop reading of local actor/author Kim Porter’s new play features Ken Love in a story about Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a psychiatric disorder in which mothers poison their kids in order to get attention for themselves. Here, we meet Marybeth, who’s spent 25 years in prison after killing…
It isn’t difficult to believe that Tina Fabrique is the real Ella Fitzgerald while watching her perform in Ella, the musical biography of Fitzgerald that Arizona Theater Company has just remounted at Mesa Arts Center. I didn’t need to squint or try to forget what Ella should sound like; Fabrique…
The Death Bite: Hal Corley’s unfortunately named drama is not about vampirism, but rather about 18 hours in the life of Robyn Fair, an oddball who longs to launch her life from the New Jersey suburb where she lives. First, she has to untangle herself from her deceitful foster daughter,…
1934 In her first stage performance, Ella Fitzgerald wins an Amateur Night competition at the Apollo Theater. 1936 Ella’s first recording, “Love and Kisses,” is released on Decca Records. 1938 Ella’s first Number One single is “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” a novelty number recorded for an Abbott and Costello movie in which…
Imagine being trapped in a tiny room full of people who cannot sing but insist on doing so anyway (at the top of their lungs!), and you’ll understand my discomfort while confronting Desert Stages’ Suds last month. This is one of those musical revues — and they are legion —…
Forced to give a name to the past year in theater, I would have to call it The Year of Ron May, because while many of his compatriots struggled to act, direct, run a credible theater or even just handle publicity for one, this quadruple-threat actor/director/artistic director/publicist excelled at each…
