Nearly Naked Theatre’s Shakespeare’s R & J Is an Early-Season Highlight

Theater fans are anticipating Nearly Naked Theatre’s upcoming production of Spring Awakening, but I’ll venture that nothing else the company does this year will surpass its remount of Shakespeare’s R & J, playing now at Phoenix Theatre. The bare bones of Romeo and Juliet (interspersed with other Shakespearean verse) provide…

Hunter Gatherers at Actors Theatre: The Consequences of Extremes

Hearing Actors Theatre managing director Erica McKibben Black tell Sunday’s matinee audience that the rest of this season is on was a lovely way to greet the new year. Though they fell just a smidge short of what they needed to raise by December 31, the company’s planning and restructuring…

Phoenix Suns Announce Another Lineup of Dancers — Seniors

The Phoenix Suns announced yesterday that they would welcome a group of “high energy” youngsters to their entertainment crew, and today they announced their double whammy — seniors. Dance Fusion, a group of 15 women ages 42 to 73 (who are self-described seniors), will also perform for Suns fans on Friday…

Phoenix Suns Introduce an Additional Lineup of Dancers — Kids

Before you start drooling over the possibility of another handful of toned, tanned, and semi-clothed dancers being added to the Suns’ popular entertainment lineup — allow the basketball team to introduce The SunDance Kids. Important to note: The group taking to the court this Friday will not be Butch Cassidy’s entourage…

Opera Superstar Dmitri Hvorostovsky to Take Orpheum Stage

Editor’s note: This story has been altered from its original version. The Arizona Opera reports it’s holding steady, even in a difficult economic climate for the arts. Dmitri Hvorostovsky is to opera what David Beckham is to soccer. What Brad Pitt is to Hollywood. He’s the Lady Gaga of the…

Arizona Theatre Company’s Daddy Long Legs is a Perfect Play

Post-holiday blahs are so 2011. Look at the January calendar! So many interesting plays to see. Some of them are bound to take you by surprise. For example, learning that there’s a two-character musical based on the 1912 novel that inspired the Fred Astaire musical Daddy Long Legs was not…

In Review: Favorite Theater Experiences of 2011

Though it’s been a wild, wonderful year of theatergoing, and the very best shows were better than ever, I found it unusually easy to narrow the best down to fewer than 20. For what that’s worth. Also, let’s acknowledge that we’re talking about live, ephemeral art here. Unfortunately, if you…

Robrt Pela on Local Theater Troupes’ Tough Times in 2011

Not far from where I sit typing this, theater people are wringing their hands. That’s what I picture, anyway: The folks at Actors Theatre, pacing and moaning and occasionally stopping to grab the backs of their necks. This, our most interesting professional theater company, has only a few weeks to…

Three and a Half Kick-Ass Christmas Plays in the Valley

We know you’re crazy busy this time of year, and so are local theater companies. With very few revivals of Curtains-approved holiday extravaganzas on the boards in 2011, we ran around and checked out as many of the current crop of offerings as we could.Here are three plays and a…

Four Local Christmas Plays to Skip This Season

We know you’re crazy busy this time of year, and so are local theater companies. With very few revivals of Curtains-approved holiday extravaganzas on the boards in 2011, we ran around and checked out as many of the current crop of offerings as we could. Here are four plays running through the weekend…

MilkMilkLemonade: Check It Out; You’ll Have It Made

It’s time, once again, to be amused, shocked, and educated into humility by adults playing characters who are children, so who better than Louis Farber, who played the title role in NewBrave Theatre’s Mr. Marmalade, to direct MilkMilkLemonade for Stray Cat Theatre? Every performer in this show is playing something…

Five Neil Hamburger Jokes to Tell at Your Own Risk

Neil Hamburger’s set at Crescent Ballroom last night was precisely what the crowd wanted: The suited and combed-over comic (the alter ego of Gregg Turkington) went on a high-energy roll, churning through offensive pop culture jokes with unexpected, often shocking, punchlines, with plenty of mucousy throat clearing.”I’ve been diagnosed with…

Th [sic] Sense on Ice: God Bless Us, Every One

I like to think that after a night of being raunchy and transgressive, the sketch writer/performers of Th [sic] Sense troupe curl up by the fireside in Grammy’s old quilt with some hot cocoa and fluffy kittens to read old fairy tales. And it makes them feel naughty.  Curtains has…

Race: iTheatre Collaborative Makes the Most of David Mamet’s Latest

Tolstoy was right: It’s more fun watching people be miserable. And so we have David Mamet, the American playwright who has brought us the delightful anguish of Oleanna (in which a young woman accuses her professor of sexual harassment) and the stunning treachery of Glengarry Glen Ross (about disreputable realtors…