I had a friendly e-mail from Wes Martin the other day. Normally, theater people only write to tell me that I’m profoundly fucked up and need to be fired, but Wes, who’s the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre, was writing to tell me how much he admires theater critics…
The nice folks at the Shakespeare Theatre have had the courage and temerity to attempt playwright Peter Weiss’ 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 is, as you might imagine from…
The world is bursting with people who would just as soon jack off as get laid, so it’s no surprise that, for some folks, pretend awards programs are just as valuable as those that actually honor talent and achievement. For people who’ve spent their whole lives fantasizing about giving a…
What good is sitting alone in your room when you can go watch the folks at Phoenix Theatre flog another famous musical to death? Cabaret is PT’s latest awkward attempt to look like a professional theater company without offering anything inventive or genuine. Art usually loses out over artifice at…
October 31, 1977: Tonight was extremely strange. Janette and I went to the Sombrero Theater (which is way down on Seventh Street and Camelback, kind of a scary part of town) to see Phantom of the Paradise. Janette has seen Phantom 37 times! I’ve never known anyone who has seen…
Picture me, just this once, wearing a shiny turban anchored with a big paste jewel. I’m sitting before a tiny, round, velvet-covered table, gazing into a crystal ball. The ball is filled with all kinds of swirling pastel lights and a bunch of purple glitter that occasionally morphs into shapes…
Chauvinism is funny. Misogyny is a laugh riot. And Robert Dubac, author and star of The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron?, is pretty darn amusing, too. The show, which ran for months in Chicago, Cleveland and Boston, and has occupied the Herberger Stage West for most of the summer, recounts the…
Grease is definitely the word, even if I don’t entirely understand why. I have nothing against fab ’50s musicals or playwrights Warren Casey and Jim Jacobs, who co-authored Grease back in the ’70s. Their score is among the best of its kind, because it mimics the sound and sentiment of…
I admit that I ended up more interested in the audience that came to see The Pirates of Penzance than I was in the show itself. That’s not because there’s nothing to like about this latest Hale Centre Theatre production, which contains some beautiful singing and several nice performances. But…
Richard Warren abandoned a career in advertising and rewrote himself as a playwright. But when the cost of a staged reading of one of his plays proved prohibitive, Warren convinced Phoenix Theatre to present the piece as part of a new plays festival. Today, the monthlong Phoenix Theatre New Works…
As written, Late Night Catechism II isn’t much more than an excuse to charge us twice for the same shtick. It’s told in the same spirit as its predecessor, Late Night Catechism, which has been running for years at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. This sequel stars Patti Hannon…
The very best thing about Menopause: The Musical is that it eventually ends. Although not soon enough. After what seems like days, the off-key warbling and flatfooted dance numbers — and therefore the misery of any discerning audience member — finally stumble to a close. But not before we endure…
When iTheatre Collaborative debuted last season, it did so with a pledge to produce unconventional, seldom-seen plays. The company kept that promise, at first, with estimable productions of Underneath the Lintel, Bee-Luther-Hatchee, and a holiday pageant that was both hip and festive. But iTheatre seems to have already forgotten its…
David Mamet’s love of the rhythms of American speech is the hallmark of his work. His people speak in a repetitive, rat-a-tat cadence, always overlapping and usually taking two conversational steps backward for each step forward. Mamet’s is a language filled with expletives — there are reportedly more than a…
Summer is almost here, and theater companies are winding down their seasons, mostly with fluffy nonsense meant to lure us out of our air-conditioned caves. As ever, Nearly Naked Theatre is giving the finger to the notion that it’s too hot to think; thus, its production of Gilgamesh, an ancient…
You can dress a bunch of actors in grease-stained coveralls and make them sing a lot of songs about women they’d like to bed, but give them synchronized dance moves to do and they’ll always look like a line of chorus girls. Proof of this is expertly and rather loudly…
Hold tight during Act One of Alternative Theatre’s A Night in Vegas — or plan to arrive at intermission and miss it altogether. Either way, you’ll want to see “Helen and Jack,” the Act Two opener featuring Teresa Ybarra’s delightful performance as the anxious mother of a man who’s about…
The King has seen Louise’s panties, and her husband is unhappy about it. Strange men begin turning up at Louise’s door, hoping her drawers are still around her ankles. Hilarity ensues. Sound familiar? If so, you’re up on your obscure German playwrights of the early 20th century. But even those…
All season long, Actors Theatre has been threatening us with its production of Tapestry: A Musical Revue Based on the Music of Carole King. Earlier this month, this usually clever troupe delivered on that threat. The good news is that the horror will end shortly — Tapestry closes on Sunday…
There was a time, not so long ago, when “edgy” theater produced by young thespians in tiny black boxes was a hit-or-miss proposition, often involving tunics and more than a little angry posturing. Today, local companies keen on selling oddball stories are riding high, and Stray Cat Theatre is ahead…
What a shame that most stage fans will probably miss Hale Center Theatre’s Over the River and Through the Woods rather than drive the dozens of miles to this shiny new playhouse in (gasp!) far-off Gilbert. Joe DiPietro’s bittersweet, sometimes witty comedy is enlivened by a topnotch cast that reads…
Nestled onto Gregory Jaye’s magnificent set for Morning’s at Seven is a relatively quiet, old-fashioned play that shines like a bright beacon. Set in the joined yard of two massive bungalows, this is a comic, almost musical tale of forbidden love among the neurotic and the infirm. Its more-than-slightly fusty…
