It’s just polished and adorable silliness from beginning to end. That’s most of what there is to say about the Tony-winning lunacy of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, in a fine production transplanted from Minnesota’s Guthrie Theater by Arizona Theatre Company. Director Joel Sass has the four performers (one of…
History is written by the winners, they say. Memoir is even more selective, having generally been preserved by people who are not just literate, but literate in a language the victors understand (which weeds out quite a few), and often by those who think interesting things have happened to them…
For 11 days in March, we’ll get to revel in off-the-beaten-path (ideally) performances — 23 different ones, in 88 time slots at five locations — in the fifth annual Phoenix Fringe Festival. Local alt-Christian glam-rock-opera dude Paisley Yankolovich is back on the schedule (we missed him last year!), and some new…
Have you ever been in so far above your depth that you could barely function? Of course you have; and those are great learning experiences, but you still pity the other people who had to watch. It’s no fun to tell you that’s what it appears to be like to…
Some dudes are more than eager to fork over $24.95 a month to see local porn starlets Priya Rai and Taryn Thomas either on DVD or via the Internet. Valley party promoter Chuck Huus, however, is hoping they’ll be eager to spend that same amount for the opportunity to meet…
By Sunday, you might be plopped on the couch and ankle-deep in nacho sauce and crappy beer. But if you’re looking for a more, um, active approach to the year’s biggest football event, Pink Fitness is here to help. The Peoria club hosts its annual Super Pole Sunday “as way…
This month has been a whirlwind of great performances in relatively unfamiliar plays. And this weekend’s your last chance to catch iTheatre Collaborative’s 9 Circles, an example of just such a production. This small company, playwright Bill Cain, and local director/designer Steven J. Scally all have fine pedigrees, and the…
On January 28, the Musical Instrument Museum is partnering with the American Chinese Arts and Culture Exchange Association to celebrate the Chinese New Year. According to Courtney Tjaden, Events and Volunteer Manager at the museum, there will be a number of events and performances that pay tribute to 2012, the year…
Playwrights have to make several decisions in the course of their work (unless they’re lucky enough to be able to make great drama flying by the seats of their pants). One of the trickiest chores is what to do with your Big Idea, if you know what it is at…
A good friend of mine used to manage a bookstore. (A lot of people used to manage a bookstore.) In their proud, intellectual geekiness, her employees tended to look just terrible. It wasn’t that anyone expected them to spend money on clothes; if they’d just made the effort to be…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Women tend to remember what they were wearing at life’s big moments. (Maybe men do, too.) It’s probably because some outfits are very carefully chosen, and because some events really carve in stone the memory of things like those million little buttons or cuffed ivory ankle boots or the skirt…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Wow, 2011’s nearly over. If you’re desperate to improve your tax situation, you have just a couple of days to decide how. How . . . about giving some money to the arts? (This does not constitute professional financial advice.) As we’ve been mentioning, some of the best theater companies…
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…
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…
