Jacqueline Gaston arrives early in act two of Is What It Is Theatre’s production of Critic’s Choice, and her presence is like a breath of fresh air in a stifling room. Which is precisely where this play, a dated comedy by author Ira Levin, happens to take place. But I…
Black Theatre Troupe has scored another hit with its all-around pleasant production of Blues in the Night at the Herberger Theater Center. While the company has turned out several engaging dramas these past few seasons, its attempts to sell a decent musical have been less notable. This one, though, is…
A couple of hours before the curtain went up on opening night of Parade, a publicist from Theater Works phoned to say that that evening’s performance had been rescheduled as a final dress rehearsal. In Theater land, this is never a good sign. It usually means that the show is…
Anyone doubting that Latino theater has proven itself a worthy subgenre need look no further than last month’s Pulitzers. Nilo Cruz, Cuban-American author of Anna in the Tropics, the play about Tampa cigar-makers set in the Spanish-Cuban community of Ybor City, received this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama — the…
Spinning Into Butter is an Important Play, one of those that are lauded practically from their first curtain call for being brave and smart and honest in their depiction of difficult subjects. Rebecca Gilman’s work probes hidden racism and political correctness, and is based on an incident that occurred at…
Those of us who haven’t endured small-town life or anyone who believes that hate crimes aren’t high on the list of human failings will want to see The Laramie Project, an invigorating examination of hatred and backward thinking. And fans of first-rate theater won’t want to miss what Stray Cat…
I attended high school with some terrifically horrible people. Imagine my dismay at discovering several of them on ASU’s main stage last week — and my delight in discovering how expertly they’ve been drawn by playwright Jeff Hatcher and brought superbly to life by a group of talented theater students…
Amadeus is a smartly written, clever character piece that spins the life of Mozart into a demented bedtime story as told by the great composer’s rival, Antonio Salieri. And, as told by Phoenix Theatre, Amadeus is the longest, dreariest production I’ve witnessed all season. Blame it on sluggish direction, or…
There’s theater, and there’s great theater, and Dirty Blonde though enlivened by excellent performances and Arizona Theatre Company’s clever staging is just theater. Not even the best work of our biggest and brightest can make more of this pleasant trifle, a sort-of biography of screen star Mae West. Dirty Blonde…
If there’s a flaw in August Wilson’s Jitney, it’s that it bends the rule that says there are no easy resolutions in modern drama. Wilson, in his desire to present proactive plays about black solidarity, ties up too neatly the heartbreak and calamity in the lives of the cab drivers…
I’ve often admired playwright Michael Grady’s work, and Nearly Naked Theatre has staged some of the best theater I’ve seen in the last couple of years. Imagine my surprise and disappointment to discover a subpar production of Grady’s Baylin’s Monster at Nearly Naked last weekend. It seemed like a perfect…
About 45 minutes into Phoenix Theatre’s Cole, members of the cast fall into a superb jazz ballet that elevates the production from what it had been up to that moment: a pleasant near-miss. Cole is jammed with such showstoppers, which makes for an entertainment that’s both exhilarating and exhausting. Not…
No one can accuse Kenneth Lonergan of romanticizing the dilemmas of deluded, self-destructive rich kids. His This Is Our Youth is a gritty, moving, sometimes funny examination of the advantaged that perfectly captures the youthful horrors of the Me Generation. Lonergan’s 1996 play was nominated for a Drama Desk award,…
The Yellow Boat is the true story of a young boy who’s dying, and about how love and art can transform tragedy. It’s a much-produced children’s play that succeeds on several levels: as an educational tool, as a morality tale, and as entertainment for kids and grown-ups. Mostly, though, The…
The heck with Tent City. Sheriff Joe should start sending miscreants to Stagebrush Theatre, where the Scottsdale Community Players have been doling out punishments galore these past several months. The company’s latest catastrophe, a bastardization of Rodgers and Hart’s Babes in Arms, has all the charm of a day spent…
There’s an unusual and relatively new trend in theater that finds actors performing monologues written by and specifically for other performers. The latest evidence of this trend is Actors Theatre’s production of Gray’s Anatomy, one of Spalding Gray’s better-known monologues now being read by Phoenix actor Jon Gentry at the…
The Producers is more than theater. It is, like a handful of other shows, an event. Mel Brooks’ record-breaking Tony-winner is one of those programs attended by people who never set foot inside a theater unless it’s to witness a road company of a show that’s received so much press…
I don’t find married couples particularly amusing, but I do enjoy watching Bob Sorenson and Debby Rosenthal perform. Good thing, too, because these two local institutions are the only reason to sit through I Do! I Do!, the passé paean to matrimony with which Phoenix Theatre is currently torturing unsuspecting…
I deplore The Fantasticks. Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s hyper-popular, record-breaking chamber musical is on my short list of shows I wish had never been written — just below Cats and a few notches up from anything adapted from a Disney cartoon. I’ve endured this show numerous times over the…
As Black Theatre Troupe deserts its longtime home, the dilapidated downtown Helen K. Mason Center, for the polished Herberger Stage West, the 33-year-old company has found a marketing niche. Dinah Was, Oliver Goldstick’s biography of blues singer Dinah Washington, is the latest in a string of tune-filled profiles of ill-fated…
Fonsia Dorsey and Weller Martin are old. They have, like so many elderly people, been abandoned to the American health-care system and have landed in an old folks’ home where they meet one Sunday afternoon. He’s a crotchety codger, she’s a peevish fuddy-duddy, and, for two hours plus intermission, they…
