1740 The first version of Beauty and the Beast, by Madame Gabrielle de Villeneuve, appears. Villeneuve’s version doesn’t end with the transformation of the Prince, who remains ugly — and grumpy about it, too. 1756 A newer, more cautionary (and much more sexist) version of the tale by Madame Le…
West Side Story: This deeply sincere take on Arthur Laurents’ landmark musical thankfully never tries to impersonate the movie version, which is what audiences who attend West Side Story often want. Instead, Desert Stages’ Sharks and Jets dance like kids actually might if they were trapped in Hell’s Kitchen and…
One produces or appears in West Side Story at one’s own risk, and not only because it’s trotted out with the frequency of a Seattle rain shower. Most folks coming to see the Arthur Laurents/Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim classic are fans of the famous film, and illogically expect to be taken…
Any second now, the nice folks over at the ariZoni Awards will start handing out bowling trophies to anyone who’s come within three feet of a theater stage this season. Therefore, welcome to the Second Annual Robbie Awards, which celebrate actual accomplishments — and acknowledge some really low points —…
Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: These adapted adventures feature music and lyrics by Roger Miller and a book by William Hauptman, but retain Mark Twain’s deeply moral depictions of the 19th-century social tapestry. Twain scholars probably don’t head for dinner theaters often, but those who do in this…
Before I tell you why and how quickly you should go to see Nearly Naked Theater’s nearly perfect (and almost entirely clad!) production of The Who’s Tommy, I had better come clean: I don’t like modern dance. All that flailing and hopping and mimicking of shape and form; all that…
June 1969 Tommy, a double-album rock opera by The Who, is released. At first banned by the BBC and certain U.S. radio stations (probably because of the child abuse that features so prominently in its story), it eventually reaches #4 on the U.S. Billboard album charts and #2 in the…
Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: These adapted adventures feature music and lyrics by Roger Miller and a book by William Hauptman, but retain Mark Twain’s deeply moral depictions of the 19th-century social tapestry. Twain scholars probably don’t head for dinner theaters often, but those who do in this…
First, the accolades: Arizona Theatre Company’s production of Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie is nearly perfect. Its actors turn in superb performances; its stage design is magnificent; its director, Samantha K. Wyer, brings subtleties to its simple, sad, two-character story. Which all leads to Morrie’s working so beautifully on the…
Trainspotting: The heck with rehab. Anyone wanting to kick narcotics addiction should just go see this gloriously ugly production of Harry Gibson’s meditation on addiction’s dark night. The play, based on the Irvine Welsh novel and best known from director Danny Boyle’s popular 1996 film adaptation, is really just a…
The heck with rehab. Anyone wanting to kick narcotics addiction should just go see Stray Cat Theatre’s gloriously ugly production of Harry Gibson’s Trainspotting. Crammed to capacity with pitch-perfect performances and almost unbearably realistic scenes of degradation, this stroll through addiction’s dark night is enough to scare anyone off junk…
It was a book and a play before it was a film, but, as ever, folks will still want Trainspotting, the play, to mirror the movie. It doesn’t. Here’s how. Character: Spud, the beloved spaz Fate in book and movie: Goofy speed fanatic who hates working. Fate in play: Nonexistence…
Woodsman: Is What It Is Theatre all but vanished last year, but resurfaces this month with an original adaptation (and world première) of the 2004 film that starred Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. The story follows Walter, who’s just been released from a 12-year prison sentence for committing a horrible…
Despite what you may have heard, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is not a play about bestiality. The subject hovers over the story, but goat-fucking is more an allegory than a theme. Playwright Edward Albee is concerned here with the boundaries for “decent” human behavior; about how we decide…
Epic Proportions: This comedy by playwrights Larry Coen and David Crane came about after the pair noticed an extra in a biblical epic they were watching on television being crushed by a falling column. Coen and Crane (who’s best known as co-creator and executive producer of TV’s Friends) began to…
I suppose I arrived at Phoenix Theatre last weekend with expectations too high. But considering the talented cast that director D. Scott Withers — no slouch himself — assembled for the company’s update of Clare Boothe Luce’s famously funny The Women, I couldn’t have guessed at the mess I’d find…
My friend Neil e-mailed me the other day. “I can’t take another day of this,” he wrote. “If I hear about one more ‘Junior’ production being staged in Phoenix, I’m going to throw myself under the wheels of a bus.” Like me, Neil is a theater critic who’s troubled by…
Epic Proportions: This comedy by playwrights Larry Coen and David Crane came about after the pair noticed an extra in a biblical epic they were watching on television being crushed by a falling column. Coen and Crane (who’s best known as co-creator and executive producer of TV’s Friends) began to…
There might be something that David Ira Goldstein loves more than theater: Perhaps his wife; possibly his cats; maybe a good game of golf. But you’d never know it watching Arizona Theatre Company’s world première of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, which ATC artistic director Goldstein has helmed. This sublime…
Jesus Christ Superstar: Who in the world does He think He is? He’ll tell you — in song! — if you’ll get yourself down to Desert Stages Theatre. Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famed musical is here again, resurrected just in time for Easter. And Passover! Lloyd Webber’s tuneful…
It’s a humid summer day in 1976, and my sister and her kids and I are going someplace in her big blue Plymouth. I’m up front with Sis; the kids are in the back, and all three of them are singing something called “The Very Strange Medley” at the tops…
Broadway Palm Dinner Theater: Part of the Prather Family of dinner theaters, this local branch is now in its fifth season. The chain tends to share shows, which means we get to see out-of-towners hoofing the stage. Typical surf-and-turf menu. Current show: Funny Girl, through April 16. 5247 East Brown…
