John Henry Redwood’s people have unusual names like Lou Bessie and Bucket and Husband, and they hail from places with even stranger names, like Frogmore. In Redwood’s beautifully written The Old Settler, these people all end up in Harlem, where they change their names and attempt to alter their identities…
Bob Sorenson, left, and R. Hamilton Wright in The Mystery of Irma Vep.Those who have encountered playwright Charles Ludlam’s work know that it is juvenile and silly and displays a fond appreciation for theatrical classicism. Those who haven’t are in for a delightful baptism in farce at Arizona Theatre Company’s…
During my pre-matinee nap last Sunday afternoon, my Jewish playwright friend left me a voice mail message: “Hey, I’m in town, let’s get together for lunch. But don’t try to drag me to the theater, I saw The California Kid yesterday and I’m still recovering. What a bag of crap…
Among my more annoying flaws, friends tell me, is an unnatural affection for Christmas. I’m one of those fellows who spends the day after Thanksgiving searching for the perfect spruce pine. My holiday shopping is completed long before Halloween, and I begin playing my huge collection of Christmas records sometime…
In a performance space as intimate as PlayWright’s Theatre, you can name the moment when a play has grabbed its audience. That moment came during opening night of Theatre Maxim’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, when actor April Umbrianna blurted out her character’s horrible secret. The smallish audience froze…
I took more pleasure in telling people I was going to a play called Shopping and Fucking than I did from the play itself. But Planet Earth Theatre’s production of this persuasively creepy little drama — which was a huge hit in London’s West End several years ago — isn’t…
A pair of famous dead singers was resuscitated here last week. Mahalia Jackson and Maria Callas are each pacing local stages — Jackson in Black Theatre Troupe’s Mahalia; Callas in Arizona Theatre Company’s Master Class — talking directly to capacity audiences about their very different lives. The productions that present…
Question: What do you get when you combine a lot of talented actors with a couple of lousy scripts? Answer: Shows like those currently on display at Phoenix Theatre and Arizona Jewish Theatre Company. These programs — PT’s Twigs and AJTC’s The Gift Horse — sag under the weight of…
Would that some of our more established theater companies could harness the energy bursting from the makeshift stage at Planet Earth Theatre these days. In the best “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” tradition, a group of young amateurs has pooled its talents and its affection for campy old…
What a relief finally to see a perfect production of The Baltimore Waltz. I’ve witnessed four near-miss interpretations of this difficult play by other companies, but the Actors Theatre of Phoenix production currently at the Herberger is so well-realized that I discovered elements I didn’t realize I was missing when…
If you aren’t wowed by Black Theatre Troupe’s production of Willie and Esther, don’t blame the actors. The pair of talented performers who traverse Thom Gilseth’s vivid set give us their all, but ultimately they can’t overcome flabby writing and misguided direction. Willie and Esther is a comedy with a…
Even without the impressive singing and dancing that make Play On! a gratifying evening of theater, its princely pedigree is enough to sell some tickets. A musical tribute to jazz legend Duke Ellington with a book based in Shakespeare, Play On! is Arizona Theatre Company’s most ambitious, most enjoyable production…
Occasionally, while watching a particularly tedious play, I’ll find myself wishing that the characters — who up to that point have probably been standing around mouthing inanities — would break into a line dance or maybe begin shouting obscenities or braying like animals. This sort of nonsense happens often, much…
All signs pointed to a potentially disastrous evening of theater: a stifling playhouse; jarringly loud pre-show music; a pretentious Author’s Note in the program, warning us that “this play is about my own journey to learn how to feel deeply, truly and immediately . . .”; a curtain that was…
End-of-the-century themes are big this year, and Phoenix Theatre has begun its 79th season with an unfortunately mawkish one. “The Way We Were” allows the company a new excuse to haul out the war-horses and to stage — for the third time in eight years — a ’50s musical revue…
For the past decade or so, our local theater season has kicked off with a musical comedy rerun, courtesy of Phoenix Theatre Company. This year, upstart Ensemble Theatre has upstaged PT’s tradition by launching its first full season with a swell production of a crafty Craig Lucas comedy. Reckless, which…
You’ve No Business Near Show Business continues through Sunday, September 5, at On the Spot Theater, 4700 North Central.
Ever since he was a boy, Richard Warren has been haunted by Buffalo Bill. In an attempt to exorcise his Wild West demon, Warren ditched a career in public relations and, in late middle age, wrote a play about the late, great cowboy. That play, How I Came to Be…
I know the scarcity of local summer stock has gotten to me when I find myself driving to Peoria to watch one of our most amateurish amateur companies take a stab at a sophisticated British farce. Not having seen any theater at all in several weeks, I risked Theater Works’…
Footloose is coming to town, and–for the duration, at least–I am leaving. Certainly no one who has made his living turning lousy musical films into equally terrible stage productions will miss me. This frightening trend–which I’ve carped about in these pages before–has seen the recent translation to the stage (if…
It was inevitable that the trend in tribute albums honoring contemporary singer/songwriters–which kicked into high gear more than a decade ago with Famous Blue Raincoat, Jennifer Warnes’ remarkable Leonard Cohen homage–would begin to spill over into the musical theater arena. A new generation of stage directors seems to want to…
I am plagued by amateur playwrights. This season, there were twice as many apprentice authors produced on local stages as the season before. Every year, another theater troupe adds a “new works” festival to its schedule, featuring works by anyone who can clutch a pen or deliver a French scene…
