Phoenix Theatre’s moving Arizona premiere of Miss Evers’ Boys puts achingly human faces on a truly brutal episode of American racism. The year is 1932, and a group of black men in Macon County, Alabama, is chosen for a seemingly benevolent government study on how best to treat syphilis patients…
One-act plays aren’t produced often, and that’s ironic given that the half-hour television sitcom has become America’s most popular dramatic form. That may be why the latest Black Theatre Troupe offering is so refreshing. Its current evening of oneacts provides comic and emotional extremes that would give Friends and Martin…
In August of 1991, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a car carrying Lubavitcher Jewish leader Menachem Schneerson ran into two children, killing a Guyanese-American boy. Brooklyn erupted into a race riot accompanied by an explosive public dialogue that rapidly escalated into a national debate on racism that showed a despairingly large…
Anyone who believes that ancient Greek theatre must be stuffy and boring should take in Planet Earth Multi-Cultural Theatre’s production of Antigone. He or she will find a rare and rewarding confluence of classic and experimental theatre. Antigone is the work of Sophocles, the fifth century B.C.’s answer to Stephen…
Remember when live theatre was an event, a special occasion? Just as I was beginning to fear that those days were gone, along comes a troupe called In Mixed Company, which takes a good evening of theatre, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, and turns it into a happening. Five…
Patsy Cline remains a top-selling artist more than 30 years after her death. The 1985 biographical movie Sweet Dreams (starring Jessica Lange), recent videos about her life and music, and the release of a greatest-hits album in 1992 (it sold more than four million copies) have kept Cline a prominent…
Let’s hope you never have a houseguest like the one currently visiting Theater Works, which is presenting Larry Shue’s uproarious comedy The Nerd. This guest is a nerd in the traditional sense–taped glasses, a pocket protector, and toilet paper hanging out of high-water trousers–and is inappropriate at every opportunity. In…
With a play first performed almost 2,500 years ago, Southwest Shakespeare Company provides the opportunity to transcend the ages by bringing to life the nightmarish story Oedipus Rex. One of Sophocles’ Theban plays, Oedipus is the well-known story of one man’s ignorant and arrogant fight against the gods. The play…
Neil Simon, the most prolific comic playwright of our day, is a household name. Even those who don’t attend theatre know him through movies such as The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park. But few people have heard of Neil’s older brother, Danny. In staging Danny Simon’s most successful…
A plant that thrives on human blood, an innocent botanist looking for a break in life and a blond beauty with the IQ of Miracle-Gro are main ingredients of Arizona Theatre Company’s current theatrical feast, the funny, grisly musical Little Shop of Horrors. Made into a movie starring Rick Moranis…
“Ideally, the purpose of the church is to become obsolete.” That’s a radical thought, especially coming from a seminarian, but it’s representative of the theme running through Mass Appeal, the current offering at St. George Actors Showcase. Originally produced on Broadway in 1981, author Bill C. Davis’ two-person comedy is…
If you’re looking for a traditional holiday treat, Actors Theatre of Phoenix is offering its slick production of A Christmas Carol. Forthose with a slightly less traditional taste in holiday fare, let me recommend Copperstate Players’ production of Inspecting Carol. If a Mrs. Cratchit played as a Southern landowner, a…
With Ruby Christmas, Planet Earth Multi-Cultural Theatre gives us another fine production. No frills, and not a false step in the dance: These people make theatre look as easy and natural as sliding into old jeans. Playwright Sarah Dreher transports us to a conjoint Christmas and 40th-wedding-anniversary celebration at the…
Black Theatre Troupe is taking people to church with Mama, I Want to Sing, the first production of its silver-anniversary season. With a program that reads more like a Sunday bulletin than a playbill, this production got a hearty “amen” from the opening-night audience: The powerful musical brought the full…
It’s the end of an era. Theater Works, arguably the best community theatre in the Valley, must be out of its Glendale facility by December 31. The troupe plans to move to a new site at 91st Avenue and Thunderbird in Peoria, but that venue won’t be ready until next…
The American Heritage Dictionary defines “creation” as “an original product of human invention or artistic imagination.” One of the things that makes creation in art so exciting is that you never know quite where the experience will take you. The Arizona State University theatre department’s current presentation of two one-acts–Angel…
Remember the days before political correctness, the days when we weren’t afraid to talk topeople for fear of offending them? Well, Arizona Jewish Theatre Company is presenting a delightful, slice-of-life comedy, King of the Kosher Grocers, which serves to remind us of those bygone days. Originally produced in 1992, Joe…
Arizona Theatre Company opens its 1995-96 season with an intriguing, eclectic version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In an attempt to bring Shakespeare to a short-attention-span audience, director David Ira Goldstein has used scores of nontraditional approaches to Shakespeare’s work. The result is a must-see for Valley theatregoers. A…
Sporting some of the most lackluster acting this Valley has seen in a long time, the current play by Phoenix Theatre has proven that a wonderful story and a well-crafted script cannot save poor execution onstage. PT’s second production of this season, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, turns into…
Even in this fast-paced world of ours, are we ever able to embrace change? Imagine going back to 1948 to a small Kentucky town in the Cumberland River Gorge, to find people who know little of change. These are the characters currently being examined by Arizona State University’s theatre department…
To celebrate its 45th theatre season, Grand Canyon University continues to emphasize the works of Shakespeare with the pastoral comedy As You Like It. This whimsical tale of love is filled with all the unbelievable characters and situations we have now come to expect on TV sitcoms, but they are…
Theater Works has scored solidly with a winning production of John Guare’s darkly deranged comedy The House of Blue Leaves. Guare is the author of two pieces I have admired very much, the film Atlantic City and the play and film Six Degrees of Separation. But despite two acclaimed New…
