good character Ronald McDonald: The burger-chain spokesjester clowns around with his public on Thursday, July 11, at Ocotillo Branch Library, 102 West Southern (call 262-6694); on Monday, July 15, at Glendale City Council Chambers, 5850 West Glendale Avenue (930-3437); and on Tuesday, July 16, at Yucca Branch Library, 5648 North...
thursday july 4 Fabulous Phoenix Fourth featuring the Mavericks, and Junior Brown: Two healthy doses of fine, neotraditionalist country--Raul Malo's Florida-based Mavs and Texas' bodacious Brown--are on tap at this 11th annual blowout on the grounds of the Arizona State Capitol, 17th Avenue and Washington. Mandy Barnett shares the main...
thursday march 28 An Inspector Calls: Critic Harvey S.Karsten described Royal National Theatre's touring production of J.B. Priestley's thriller as "Mad Max meets Masterpiece Theatre." The Tony Award winner, a noir-inspired mystery set in Edwardian England, centers on a snobbish British family and itsmembers' indirect complicity in the suicide of...
So I'm in Eastside Records a few days back looking for old Devo albums (don't ask why), and I spot this stack of small, black handbills someone has placed at the bottom of the racks amid a smattering of other fliers for rock shows and raves. The bills in question...
Her name was Holly Golightly--not the Audrey Hepburn character in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but the Hollywood hooker who lived at the same hotel as the Beat Angels last October, when the Phoenix fivesome was in L.A. to finish recording its debut album, Unhappy Hour. "The Sunset Palms is a cheesy,...
thursday may 2 Saguaro Film Festival 3: Arizona Film Society's annual showcase of independent works opens with a reception for the filmmakers at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 2, at Planet Hollywood, located at Biltmore Fashion Park, 24th Street and Camelback. A screening of director Carmen Santa Maria's farce I Crave...
thursday april 25 Maricopa County Fair: The 21st annual event--a cozier, countrier version of Arizona State Fair--opens Thursday, April 25, and continues daily, through Sunday, May 5, at the fairgrounds, 19th Avenue and McDowell. Highlights include carnival rides and games on the midway; a musical tribute to the Beatles and...
thursday april 18 Dinofest International: This saurian showcase includes dino skeletons and fossils from all seven continents. Highlights include numerous pieces from the "Great Dinosaurs of China" collections of the Beijing and Inner Mongolia museums of natural history; the remains of a duckbill from the Los Angeles County Museum; robotic...
Best Alternative Rock Beat Angels They may look and play like it, but the Beat Angels aren't really under the illusion that it's still 1979. They just don't think rock 'n' roll has gotten any better since then. "The way we look at it, there's this certain spirit that was...
thursday may 23 Six Women With Brain Death or Expiring Minds Want to Know: Theater League presents a special tenth-anniversary revival of the oft-revived all-woman musical inspired by soap operas, supermarket tabloids and other unfortunate by-products of pop culture's ascension. Bob Sorenson directed this Six Women reincarnation, which stars Debby...
thursday may 9 Phoenix Symphony: Outgoing maestro James Sedares takes his final bows with the orchestra on Thursday, May 9; Friday, May 10; and Saturday, May 11, at Symphony Hall, 225 East Adams. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday and 8 p.m. Friday, guest violinist Corey Cerovsek joins the ensemble for a...
It's a balmy night in June 1995. Petty felon Thomas Glen Campbell slouches in the cab of a borrowed pickup truck north of Casa Grande. As he puffs on a cigarette, a helicopter drones low overhead. He gets spooked. He has no driver's license, there's a warrant out for his...
Four girls and four boys are lined up on either side of a short table, their gazes fixed on a projection screen in a classroom at Sutton Elementary in Phoenix's Isaac School District. The drawing projected there depicts the everyday life, a dinner scene maybe, of people indigenous to Mexico...
thursday june 27 Lysistrata: Mike Fenlason's Mercury Theater, dedicated to producing classic works with a contemporary spin, takes a vaudevillian approach to one of the all-time classics, Aristophanes' wonderful antiwar comedy. Written more than two millenniums ago, and rarely matched for pure wit in the ensuing span, Lysistrata is about...
Chester, who says he once killed someone but can't remember why, has requested peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. The owner and operator of the Rainbow Valley Boarding Home honors Chester's request. Eighty-one-year-old Izora Hill, probably the state's oldest active proprietor of a fully licensed supervisory care home for...
Since 1979, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres have lived in the dark heart of the South Bronx, collaborating on the making and painting of plaster life casts of the habitus of the inner-city neighborhood once described by writer Jane Kramer as "arguably one of [New York's] poorest, saddest, shabbiest, most...
Since 1979, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres have lived in the dark heart of the South Bronx, collaborating on the making and painting of plaster life casts of the habitus of the inner-city neighborhood once described by writer Jane Kramer as "arguably one of [New York's] poorest, saddest, shabbiest, most...
It's easy to dislike Frank Ellena. He is loud and argumentative, with a boorish and aggressive manner that is instantly alienating. A large, hulking figure, he has a plump, oval face surrounding two eyes that bulge and burn with righteous anger whenever his views or logic are even gingerly questioned...
For her ride, the quinceaera has chosen the bed of a 1978 Chevy El Camino with a lipstick-colored, scooped-out interior. She floats in her velvety hot tub on wheels like a cloud, swaddled in sequins as the driver pilots the car toward the aging church on 17th Avenue just south...
Guided by moonlight, we easily slide through a seam in the chain-link fence surrounding the property and head for the back door of the grand old house. Built by Tempe's only mayor of Hispanic descent in 1883, the now-battered brick-and-adobe home has become a tombstone marking the death of Tempe's...
All right. Before we dive into the always controversial and titillating world of local reviews, let me tell you this: I went to see rockabilly shouter Robert Gordon at the fine establishment that is the Rockin' Horse the other night. Some of you were there, too, a handful of Gordon...
When the flames from the arson fire were put out last month, investigators discovered human remains in the upstairs bedroom. While dental records were the only way to identify the charred body of 24-year-old Michael Despain, there was one piece of physical evidence the fire did not destroy: The male...
