Natives: Arizona Jewish Theatre Company artistic director Janet Arnold stars in Janet Neipris’s contemporary comedy as Viola, a middle-aged divorcée trying to get on with her life after her three grown daughters are gone. When they come for a visit, it’s just in time to interrupt Viola’s romantic summer trip…
Deathtrap: Theater Works is trotting out this frankly done-to-death perennial, one that’s better remembered for the excellent film version starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Regardless of who’s playing it (and this production features mostly local unknowns), Deathtrap really only works if you don’t know the windup huzzah. Which is…
Michael Frayn’s better plays tend to be overshadowed by his best-known work: the superlative backstage farce Noises Off, or any of his several clever novels (most notably Headlong, a Booker Prize contender). Frayn’s Benefactors, which won the Olivier Award in 1984 and was later revived in London, is one of…
Nicolas Glaser was one among a handful of A-list stage actors who called Phoenix home in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Like most of the rest of them, Glaser lit out for the Great White Way, where he’s made a success playing good guys, gangsters, and everything in between…
Okay, so you never miss an episode of The Golden Girls. It’s telecast pretty much constantly — the Lifetime network airs about a dozen episodes of the popular ’80s sitcom every day — and you never miss the show about four grumpy old bags who sit around their Florida condo…
Kimberly Akimbo: David Lindsay Abaire’s cautionary tale about a teenager with a rare condition that causes her body to age faster than it should was a runaway smash when it debuted in Manhattan a few years ago. The author of Wonder of the World, an early hit for Stray Cat…
The swanky brownstone interior that Black Theatre Troupe scenic designer Michael Jones has created for Knock Me a Kiss is some kind of triumph. Jones’ set — filled with overstuffed furniture; pounds of dark, shiny wood; even an imposing crystal chandelier — is glamorous but not ostentatious, and telegraphs a…
Little Mary Sunshine: As ever, Theater Works is courting its Sun City audience with this less-than-hip chestnut that spoofs musical theater. Set in the Rocky Mountains in the early 20th century, this one has villains twisting the ends of their pointy mustaches, and rugged, upright heroes rescuing damsels in distress…
Kiss of the Spider Woman: Richard Trujillo gives a thrilling performance as Valentin, a puffed-up political prisoner trapped in the tenets of Marxism who, at the start of Manuel Puig’s dreamily claustrophobic play, is harshly intolerant of his cellmate, Molina, whom he sees as less of a man because he…
Richard Trujillo may one day give a more thrilling performance than the one I witnessed on opening night of Actors Theatre’s production of Kiss of the Spider Woman. If he does, I hope I’m present to see it. I usually find Trujillo’s performances stamped too strongly with his own personality,…
Underneath the Lintel: Try though they might, neither actor Christopher Haines, who appears in Glen Berger’s one-man one-act, nor Charles St. Clair, its director, can save this sinking ship of a show. Lintel is an exploration of faith that comments on man’s place in the universe; one that’s couched in…
Try though they might, neither actor Christopher Haines, who appears in Glen Berger’s one-man, one-act Underneath the Lintel, nor Charles St. Clair, its director, can save this sinking ship of a show. Lintel is an exploration of faith that comments on man’s place in the universe — one that’s couched…
Okay, so I saw a bunch of crap this past year. But I also saw some amazing stuff on local stages — things that made me hopeful that local theater is not destined to repeat the same four musicals (another production of Cabaret, anyone?) and three Neil Simon comedies (my…
At last, a means of upstaging actor Jon Gentry — whose huge presence swipes every scene in every play he’s ever appeared in — has been discovered: Surround him, as has been done in Childsplay’s Seussical, with wildly costumed, maniacally energetic players, a frantic and noisy score, custom choreography, and…
1. Begin, from your earliest days, to greet each moment as if it were an opportunity for a graceful expression formed by your limbs as a gift to the world. Then learn to tap dance. Steal the show in your nursery school recital as the first-ever student to perform a…
I usually wind up on the sofa every night, watching those badly dubbed episodes of Sex and the City that are breeding like rabbits all over late-night cable stations. Probably you’ve seen them, squeezed between carpet-cleaning commercials and sanitized to the point of absurdity, all the “twats” and “fuckers” re-looped…
You don’t have to know who the mad King Ludwig II is (he ruled Bavaria in the mid-19th century) to enjoy the naughty comedy of Paul Rudnick’s remarkably funny Valhalla. You don’t even need to know who Rudnick is (for my money, one of the most talented comic writers of…
Christopher, who may be insane, believes that the oranges in the bowl in the psychiatric hospital are a bright, luminous blue. His doctor, Bruce Flaherty, believes that this is evidence that Christopher is still mentally ill and shouldn’t be sent home today, his intended day of release. Thus begins the…
1. Start out as an overly solemn and often pretentious child with a more-than-passing interest in Gilbert and Sullivan. Worry your parents with constant criticisms of their clothing, their taste in furnishings, and their favorite television shows. Ask Santa for an IBM Selectric and a velvet-lined cape. Brood. Be sent…
It helps to love good acting and the writing of Jane Austen in order to really appreciate Arizona Theatre Company’s lush, immaculate production of Pride and Prejudice. This practically flawless adaptation, crammed as it is with wonderful acting and gorgeous technical design, should come with a snooze warning for anyone…
There are so many reasons Desert Stages Theatre’s production of A Man of No Importance shouldn’t work: the cramped quarters of the company’s Actor’s Café space, into which this odd musical has been squeezed; the mostly amateur cast; an unusual, time-bending script; the curse that blights most all stage musicals…
1. Start out as a more-than-slightly neurotic child, perhaps with a nervous tic or a speech impediment — or at least as a kid whose parents are divorcing. Having an emotionally distant father and/or alcoholic mother is helpful, too. Homosexuality is a definite plus. Start small: Reenact toothpaste commercials in…
