Early in the year, I wrote that I wondered whether I’d see a scene all season that was as astonishing to me as the one I saw in Space 55 Theater Ensemble’s Book of Liz, where actress Shawna Franks attacked a tray full of flatware with such gusto that forks…
If there’s a criticism to be leveled at Black Theatre Troupe for presenting Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change, it’s that attempting such a challenging piece of theater seems imprudent of any company that has failed in the past with musicals only half as complicated. But artistic director David J. Hemphill…
Anything Goes: Not to be confused with the super-cheesy ’70s game show of the same name (Remember? Pie fights and challenge rounds featuring The DeFranco Family?), this popular book musical is among the better composer-centric homages. Sing-along standards from Cole Porter like “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re…
I’d been looking forward to Nearly Naked Theatre’s production of Metamorphoses ever since they announced it as part of their lineup two seasons ago. Back then, the folks at Nearly Naked wisely postponed the show once they realized that its elaborate set, which involves a full-size swimming pool right on…
Seussical: This cheerful tuner based on the much-loved books of Dr. Seuss screams to be seen by — dare we say it? — kids of all ages, even those who haven’t yet met Horton (who heard a Who) or visited the Jungle of Nool. Childsplay’s version, which has become its…
As a kid, I dreaded Sundays. Sunday meant also-ran cartoons (all the crappy animated shows that had failed the previous season seemed to end up on Sunday mornings; no child in 1971 wanted to watch The Bugaloos or The Curiosity Shop on any day — trust me) followed by the…
Dog Sees God: Subtitled Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, this irreverent, unsanctioned spoof of the Peanuts comic strip is this season’s surprise breakout. Originally slated to close last week, this turncoat cartoon has proved so popular that Stray Cat has extended the show’s run with two extra performances on the…
Altar Boyz is musical theater for people who don’t really like musical theater, although Phoenix Theatre’s excellent production, currently on display on the company’s main stage, might change some anti-musical-theater minds. The vaguely irreverent one-act is staged as a concert from fictional Catholic boy band The Altar Boyz, so its…
Phillip Fazio, a youngish local stage director and artist in residence at Phoenix Theatre, e-mailed me recently to tell me, in effect, it isn’t fair that I’ve given up on the smaller East Valley theaters because I think they do only tired old shows everyone’s seen a hundred times. I…
Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical: Artists Theatre Project launches its fifth season with a reprise of the company’s popular 2004 staging of this campy tuner about a whorish teen with her eyes on the big prize. This adaptation of the classic 1978 skin flick was already old news when @Pro…
Dracula: The Musical?: The question mark in this Scottsdale Desert Stages productions title screams Careful! Hyper-clever campiness awaits you! But who can resist any show that includes a song called The Tippy, Tippy Tap of Love? Playwright Rick Abbot is taking pokes at Bram Stokers classic monster story in this…
One takes a mighty risk when one attempts Arthur Kopit’s Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad, a frantic farce that mocks the Theater of the Absurd even as it honors that form’s peculiar rhythms and deeply weird possibilities. Fortunately for local…
Forever Plaid: Theyre dead and they like to sing close harmonies, so whats not to love about The Plaids, a fictional guy group thats become a fixture of sorts in local theater? This time, theyre brought to you courtesy of Copperstate Dinner Theater, where theyll cover the Four Aces and…
Welcome to Phoenix, where the sun never sets and one can typically find on local stages the same half-dozen shows (Little Shop of Horrors, Forever Plaid, West Side Story always among them) playing pretty much year-round. Sometimes, one can even find the same show playing simultaneously at two different theaters,…
Fifteen minutes after the curtain went up on Actors Theatre’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore, two audience members ran for the exits. Ten minutes later, five others got up to go. A little while later, four more left — one of them nearly breaking my foot as she tromped out of…
Diet! The Musical: Like nose hair or the flu, it’s back to trouble us again. This mean-spirited, barely entertaining horror show of a “musical” stops just short of Elephant Annie jokes in an attempt to titillate an audience opposed to avoirdupois. Tunes include “Am I Fat?,” “Twenty Points a Day,”…
Dracula: The Musical?: The question mark in this Scottsdale Desert Stages productions title screams, Careful! Hyper-clever campiness awaits you! But who can resist any show that includes a song called The Tippy, Tippy Tap of Love? Playwright Rick Abbot is taking pokes at Bram Stokers classic monster story in this…
Two years after its New York Theatre Workshop debut, Caryl Churchill’s A Number is remembered primarily as the play that brought actor/playwright Sam Shepard back to the stage after 30 years. And Shepard’s return may well remain what’s most memorable about this one-act drama because, even in an excellent production…
Snake in Fridge: Dubbed a gothic horror story for the 21st century and The Amityville Horror meets Boogie Nights, this relatively unknown Brad Fraser drama raised eyebrows when it premièred not long ago at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England. Fraser, one of Canadas better young playwrights, is best…
It’s become a little embarrassing, frankly. I find myself answering the same handful of disgruntled questions, time and again, about how and why I dare to work as a theater critic. My favorite entreaties include “Why are you so mean?” (Because I can be) and “Don’t you care that theater…
Has it really been three years since I last saw a production of The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade? It seems like only yesterday I was trying to stay awake during…
Pump Boys and Dinettes: It sounds like the name of an orgiastic furniture store, but Pump Boys and Dinettes is a musical tribute to life by the roadside — along Highway 57, to be exact — somewhere between fictional Frog Level and the town of Smyrna. Original rock- and country-flavored…
