I was too old for Sesame Street. When it debuted in November 1969, I was in the second grade, and this oddball educational show wasn’t yet a groundbreaking, game-changing cultural touchstone. It was a brand-new public TV kiddy program aimed at 3- to 5-year-olds just learning their ABCs. I already…
Shout!FactoryThe cast of Fridays Whether you love it or hate it these days, it’s still tough to compete against Saturday Night Live. Although the show certainly has seen much better and much funnier days, you still can’t knock it off its perch after all these years. The powers that be…
Two of Saturday Night Live’s freshest cast members will bring a slice of the show to Tempe Improv in August. Aidy Bryant, who’s from Phoenix, and Tim Robinson will co-headline three nights at the Valley club…
Know how to shake your groove thang and pump up a crowd? Well, then you might be a fit for the Phoenix Suns Dancers. Auditions for the 2013-14 season are less than a month away, and if you want a good shot at taking your show to the big stage,…
During the summer, between seeing musicals, drinking, and napping, we eagerly anticipate local theater companies’ announcements of their upcoming seasons. Shows to which performance rights have recently become available are politely competed for, actors look at their schedules and wonder what roles might suit them, and audiences keep their fingers…
I’m standing out front of the Torch Theatre — an improv space in downtown Phoenix — on a recent Saturday night, asking the performers how improv has impacted their lives. I feel like I’m getting two shows for the price of one. The first was the one I just watched…
For comedian Anthony Jeselnik, offensive is the name of the game. Literally. His hit Comedy Central show is called The Jeselnik Offensive, and on it he riffs on tragic news and pop culture and says generally terrible (and hilarious) things. This fall, he’s taking his show on the road, stopping…
The setup: Whether you embrace or avoid contemporary musical theater, you’ve heard of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, he of the dancing, spandex-clad kittycats and singing choo-choo trains on roller skates, the man who (with the able assistance of iconic source material and talented collaborators) gave us the desire to have…
I’m standing out front of the Torch Theatre — an improv space in downtown Phoenix — on a recent Saturday night, asking the performers how improv has impacted their lives. I feel like I’m getting two shows for the price of one. The first was the one I just watched…
Phoenix is in for something of a lunar landing. This week, Chicago-based pan-Latina theater troupe Teatro Luna will deliver a double dose of culturally driven performances, presented by Performance in the Borderlands, that explore Latina sexuality through two plays…
Oy vey. Interviewing comedian Richard Lewis is like being inside one of his monologues. The only difference is that rather than a one-sided conversation operating on a stream of consciousness level, there are breaks where questions are inserted — though those are only brief bumps in Lewis’ full-throttle comedic autobahn…
The setup: Agatha Christie may not have been the first mystery writer to maroon a bunch of strangers in a house together, tell them one of them is a murderer and some of the rest of them are potential victims, and then just let the secrets and paranoia do all…
Getting a PhD in English from Yale is not like eventually completing a stint in rehab. You don’t have to do it in order to remain insurable in the eyes of film producers who decide whether you can work on a project that involves paying hundreds of people pulling down…
There’s a rather presidential-sounding voice that answers Tommy Davidson’s cell if the comedian doesn’t happen to pick up in time. In fact, it’s a dead ringer for the current commander-in-chief: “Hi, I’m Barack Obama and you just called Tommy Davidson’s phone.” It ain’t the actual POTUS on the comic’s outgoing…
Since 1994, Flam Chen has been perfecting the art of circus fire performance in Arizona and around the Southwest. It’s one of the country’s premier circus arts and fire performance troupes, best known for its participation in the Tucson All Souls Procession, the city’s annual public ceremony for which a…
The setup: The 1992 film Sister Act was the perfect storm of Motown girl-group revival, a dream cast including Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, and Kathy Najimy, and a feel-good story that made Catholics and the sketchy denizens of Reno, Nevada, both seem a bit nicer than they probably are. It…
Geeky standup Dan Mintz is awkward as all get out, and that’s not a detriment in the slightest. In fact, the comedian and humorist’s ill-at-ease stage presence, deer-in-the-headlights gaze, and ultra-deadpan delivery while performing are all part of his bizarre charm. It also makes the often-surreal non-sequiturs — including many…
Shaking your groove thing on a dark dance floor in the club can be intimidating enough, but in front of a mirror in a brightly lit dance studio? Well, that’s a whole different ballgame. There are scores of places where you can learn to pas de chat and pirouette, but…
The setup: Damn Yankees is a zippy, popular 1955 musical about a rabid baseball fan, Joe Boyd, who says he’d sell his soul for a long-ball hitter for his beloved Washington Senators team. Satan, badly disguised as a guy named Mr. Applegate (and it’s taken me my whole life to…
Good news, comedy nerds. The first-ever Oddball Comedy and Curiosity Festival presented by Funny or Die will stop in 13 cities across the U.S. this summer. And what city just happens to be the final stop for this one-of-a-kind stand-up celebrity showcase? You guessed it. Phoenix. Headlining the tour will…
A rock musical American history lesson that commences with the line “Here’s the thing about the Indians!” then segues into a song whose refrain is “Populism, yeah, yeah!” can’t be all bad. And in its brand-new, Ron May-directed Phoenix Theatre production, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is sublime. See also: -Space…
The setup: Cheaters’ short Broadway run in 1978 put then 22-year-old playwright Michael Jacobs in the record books as the youngest documented author to open a show on the Great White Way. Jacobs went on to run a couple of the most popular TV shows of the following decade: Charles…
