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…
While everyone in town is wetting their pants over the new Mesa Arts Center, the truly exciting news in local theater this week is taking place in a much less glamorous location. Wedged into the rehearsal space behind the main stage at the Herberger Theater Center, iTheatre Collaborative’s production of…
I was baffled when Nearly Naked Theatre announced earlier this year that it planned to open its season with Scott McPherson’s Marvin’s Room. McPherson’s dramedy tells a story that, despite some gallows humor and a better-than-competent script, isn’t more challenging than your average Lifetime Movie of the Week. The play’s…
One can only guess at what the new theater season holds. And because speculating about theater, at least in Phoenix, is often more entertaining than actually looking at it, here’s a list of facts and likely figures about where we’re at and what’s to come. Number of producing theater companies…
It will take the average reader about three minutes to read this newspaper column in which I, a person who is paid to share my opinion, will reveal the ways in which Black, White and Read All Over is a play totally lacking in substance and utterly devoid of entertainment…
Before I tell you why and how very much I hated Theater League’s The Wonder Bread Years, allow me to explain that this is a show I was born to love. I am the audience for this nostalgic gander at life as a boomer-era kid, one of those poor saps…
Plenty of things piss me off. Bad grammar. Ugly architecture. Friends who let their dog hump my leg. Weather. People. But the item at the very top of the list of Things That Make Me Want to Kill Myself With an Ax is a simple phrase, one that everyone in…
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is exactly the kind of entertainment I deplore: a corporate-inspired translation of a cutie-pie musical cartoon adapted from classic literature. It’s peopled by actors dressed in character costumes that all but swallow their performances, which are anyway built on attempts to ape the motion picture…
We’re a town lousy with theater awards: the ariZonis, the Scotties, the Milties and the Tilties. Chris Page at the Tribune has his Spotlight Awards, and even Mark Turvin hands out something called The Fishy Awards, which sounds sort of — well, you can finish that thought yourself, can’t you?…
I won’t add my voice to the cacophony of complaints about the gratuitous nudity forever on display at Nearly Naked Theatre, in part because I don’t care, but also because it’s bad form to bitch that the players are undraped when we’ve been warned ahead of time. The name of…
High on the list of life’s great mysteries, way up near “Why do we wait until a pig is dead to cure it?” and “Why do women sometimes shave off their eyebrows and then draw them back on?” is this one: “Why does dinner theater always suck so bad?” On…
