Alex Koll is a comedian who bridges the gap between alternative and mainstream comedy. A market for the comic’s jokes was there, but the venue wasn’t, so he and a couple of buddies started a weekly comedy show called The Business in San Francisco, and as he would put it:…
Desert Stages Theatre’s production of Rent never stops moving. The relentless, often abrasive energy that fuels Jonathan Larson’s musical also holds it aloft in this umpteenth restaging, which may be the brightest adult entertainment July has to offer. Yet in spite of all this frenetic motion, Rent — co-directed by…
In case you hadn’t heard the news, Octomom invaded the Valley of the Sun yesterday. Don’t worry, little harm was done to either person or property. Nadya Suleman, the notorious attention seeker baby factory Orange County mom who birthed a brood of eight children back in 2008, traveled to Phoenix…
RPM Orchestra makes nontraditional and way hypnotic sounds (they’ve called themselves a “proto-industrial Americana” band) that are even more compelling live, because their performances are evocative, multidisciplinary, and of a piece with the very breath and sweat of the toiling musicians. Audio recording can’t quite capture the headlong immersion that…
You have one more week to see one of the best productions of a musical you’ll ever see anywhere, ever. Briefly, in case you’re unfamiliar with it, Spring Awakening is an adaptation of an early 20th-century German proto-Expressionist play about what happens when adolescents don’t have anyone to talk to…
A nice independent community theater that’s stuck together for a few years in Flagstaff and the Valley has signed a lease on their own venue in historic downtown Glendale. Brelby Theatre Company, which is named for its founders, NAU grads Brian and Shelby Maticic, will open Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (one…
As usual, the summer theater season here is a vast, parched desert. Tried-and-true retreads are again the June and July standard: Hale Centre Theatre is doing To Kill a Mockingbird; Desert Stages is trotting out And Then There Were None. A Herberger remount of Ben Tyler’s charming The Wallace and…
With festival, conference, and “palooza” season at an end, we’re looking for new ways to fill our precious hours of free time. The next few months will be all about indoor activities, but that’s no excuse to avoid breaking a sweat. With the rest of the pop culture — Dancing…
There are more challenges to having five robots on stage in a production of Elizabeth Meriwether’s Heddatron than you might initially think. For a lot of theater people, the most obvious and common issue is affording five robot actors and finding someone who will provide you with them. Then there’s…
Podcasts are a cool alternative to hearing the latest classic from Nickleback or another rant from Limbaugh on the radio. They’re free, available on smartphones and MP3 players, and there are enough good ones to last anyone an entire week. Comedians picked up on the fad a couple of years…
The simplest things are the most difficult. When your options are limited, when there are only so many choices to make, one misstep is a glaring note of dissonance. Little mistakes are comparatively easy to hide in an epic extravaganza. In something like a plain roast chicken or an ikebana…
Social media and podcasts have given rise to a burgeoning post-80s comedy scene. And after the longstanding Tempe Improv announced it was closing its doors in June, it’s good to see comedy is still finding a comfortable home in Phoenix. Los Angeles comics Matt Ingebretson, Dave Ross, and Jake Weisman will…
At first, I wasn’t sure that Th [sic] Sense: No Class! has any sort of seasonal theme (not that I need my sketch comedy compilation shows to have a theme of any kind). But I couldn’t discern anything about the weather being crappy or school being out (or bad blockbuster…
Twenty five years of experience pays off when an hour of comedy leaves audience members incapable of maintaining a consistent level of raucous laughter because they’re simply out of breath. Todd Barry’s stout, self-satisfied grin makes it seem effortless. The crowd was laid back, almost morose during an impressive opening…
A lot of experimental theater is quite sociopolitical in its messages, be they overt or subtle. Chris Danowski, whose plays are mostly on the not-your-father’s-Oldsmobile side, has indeed written plays like that, which are critical and thought-provoking, while still funny and entertaining (FrogWoman, for instance, which despite everything is the…
The Color of Stars at Tempe Center for the Arts doesn’t shy away from adult themes. The play, by Tempe Children’s Theatre playwright in residence Dwayne Hartford, is set in rural America during World War II. Acting, directing, and set design all combine to create a beautiful production, writes New…
With his new play, The Color of Stars, Dwayne Hartford offers fulfilling, adult entertainment that doesn’t pander to kids. Much as I did with Hartford’s gorgeous adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities a few years ago, I found myself wondering whether children would even much like this…
Because a few shots of tequila take at least 15 minutes and a power hour takes, well an hour, allow David Edwards, a French American scientist, to introduce his latest spray innovation — an alcoholic spray that’ll instantly make you drunk. Each dose of WA|HH Quantum Sensations comes with 0.075…
I know I’ve lost an arm-wrestling match with a classic piece of literature if I can easily follow a story from beginning to end and don’t feel confused, yet just can’t shake that feeling of not knowing what the big effing deal was. But you know you’ve been lucky enough…
Lisa Starry has made a name for herself in the Phoenix metro dance scene with her highly sought-after choreography, her annual cult classic production of A Vampire Tale, and of course, her long running Scorpius Dance Theater. This month, Starry and her dance team will premiere the much-anticipated performance Kick-A. The…
It’s a piece of cake for the organizers of the 11th Annual Phoenix Improv Festival to pack a lot into a little — that’s kind of a holy principle of comedy. So yes, the entire event fests your ass off between now and Sunday afternoon, April 29, and it doesn’t…
Oy, where to start? Well, first, for the sake of clarity, Soul Invictus’ The Golden Gays is not presented by our beloved AZ Gender Outlaws — so, for example, it’s neither the same show nor the same performers as this word-for-word drag re-enactment of an episode of The Golden Girls…
