Today's Top Picks
Click a day to view events
Search for things to do
- Events
- Movies
- Dining
- Venues
Arts
| 'Clean House’ winds up being a beautiful mess | |
 |
A good joke can be powerful. Transforming, even. It can save a dreadful party. Spark a romance. A hearty laugh, science says, can improve your health. A good joke can win a crowd or break tensions. A great joke, a perfect joke? That can kill. Read more... |
| Dance the night away with 'Buddy' |
|
There is a big generational shift happening in live theater these days. To see it, though, you'll first have to put on your dancing shoes. Read more... |
| Fisher’s solo show is frank but a bit messy | |
|
|
Carrie Fisher is nothing if not candid. Read more... |
| Life is a missing punch line in 'The Clean House’ | |
 |
The play is called “The Clean House,” yet it opens with a particularly dirty joke. Read more... |
| Carrie Fisher opens up her life onstage | |
 |
There are wild lives, and then there's Carrie Fisher's. A cinnamon bun-haired cinematic icon as Princess Leia of "Star Wars," she's the daughter of crooner Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, and one-time wife of pop folkie Paul Simon. Read more... |
| ‘Remix’ moving from Heard to Big Apple | |
 |
“Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World,” an exhibition of paintings, photography and multimedia installations from 15 contemporary indigenous artists, closes at Phoenix’s Heard Museum on April 27. After that, you’ll still have a chance to catch it — you’ll just have to travel 2,500 miles or so. Read more... |
| Scottsdale Cycle of the Arts a good ride |
|
Here in the Valley, we’re still in that elusive, magical time when it’s nice enough to actually want to do things outside — like a relaxing Sunday morning bike ride. Read more... |
| Theater review: Take a bite of a minimalist 'Sweeney’ (A) | |
 |
The screech of a train whistle pierces the air. The lights turn a creepy crimson. Another corpse is ready for the grinder. Care for a delicious meat pie, dearie? Just don’t ask any questions. Read more... |
| Phoenix native stars in ‘Sweeney Todd’ | |
 |
Judy Kaye, the Phoenix native turned Tony Award-winning musical theater actress, is back in the Valley. But this time she’s singing a totally different tune. Read more... |
| Improv troupes making it up as they go |
|
With the National Comedy Theatre opening in Mesa and theseventh annual Phoenix Improv Festival coming this weekend, we can't help but notice: Improv is thriving in the Valley. Read more... |
| Artist Laurie Anderson cancels Scottsdale gig |
|
Performance artist and songwriter Laurie Anderson has canceled her April 6 show at the Scottsdale Civic Center Mall Amphitheater, according to organizers, citing "unforseen technical difficulties" in taking Anderson's touring show "Homeland" to an outdoor venue. Read more... |
| Catwoman Eartha Kitt to sing with Phoenix Symphony | |
 |
Mrrowwrr: Eartha Kitt, the actress best known as Catwoman on television's "Batman" in the late 1960s, will sing with The Phoenix Symphony in concert May 31 at downtown Phoenix's Symphony Hall. Read more... |
| Hits ‘Lion King,’ ‘Wicked’ return in ‘08-’09 Gammage season | |
 |
Stage musical versions of television’s “Happy Days” and Disney’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” plus returns of hit musicals “The Lion King,” “Rent,” “Cats” and “Wicked,” headline the 2008-’09 Broadway Across America season at Tempe’s Gammage Auditorium. Read more... |
| E.V. actor's chronicle of alcohol addiction plays Mesa | |
 |
John Caswell Jr. has no problem discussing his near-fatal battle with alcohol addiction in matter-of-fact terms. Yet explaining the emotional roller coaster of that time — that’s a different story. One that Caswell, a 26-year-old Tempe actor and Arizona State University student, could only express onstage. Read more... |
| Q&A: 'Prairie Home Companion' host Garrison Keillor | |
 |
Garrison Keillor, host of public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," will perform a solo show March 19 at Phoenix's Dodge Theatre. Two weeks before the show date, Keillor responded to interview questions via e-mail. Read more... |
| 'Merry Wives’ of whimsy | |
 |
Dressed up in the fat suit and fineries of bloated grifter Sir John Falstaff in Southwest Shakespeare Company’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” Ben Tyler is so much more than the funniest sight gag this season. He’s a source of architectural wonder. Read more... |
| MVPs: Our picks for this season's best local actors | |
 |
On the tail end of the 2007-08 season, here are the actors who delivered memorable, standout performances on East Valley stages. They’re this season’s Most Valuable Players. Read more... |
| Audio: Mesa's Stewart sisters talk about siblings on stage | |
 |
In an online extra, we interview Mesa sisters Christina Rae Stewart and Katherine Stewart, who for years have been wowing audiences on Valley stages. They're two of this season's Most Valuable Players. Read more... |
| 50th annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market | |
 |
American Indian dance, music and food give authentic flavor to the second largest and second oldest American Indian art fair in the country. Read more... |
| 'Kahekili' recounts Hawaiian history in hula | |
 |
Hokulani Holt-Padilla admits that "Kahekili," her theatrical production of traditional hula, can be a hard sell to mainland audiences."People think they know all about it," she says of the dance form. Read more... |
| Mesa theater’s ‘Dolly’ shines | |
 |
Of all the actors who’ve trod the boards at Mesa’s Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre, that megasize supper and show house, none has earned quite the same star power as Elizabeth Loos. Read more... |
| SMoCA gets new curator, sculptures |
|
The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts has announced two recent acquisitions. The first is a new senior curator, Claire Schneider. The second is a 27-piece collection of modern sculpture featuring artists Jean Arp, Gary Beals and Fletcher Benton. Read more... |
| Phoenix Symphony goes to Broadway | |
 |
There will be no chandelier smashing to the floor. No helicopter. No balcony pronouncements or revolutionaries at the barricade. Read more... |
| 'Singin’ in the Rain’ is a puddle of mud | |
 |
As the American Movie Classics of Valley theater, it was only a matter of time before downtown Gilbert's Hale Centre Theatre got around to staging the 1952 screen gem "Singin' in the Rain." Read more... |
| Jill Scott performs at Dodge Theatre | |
 |
Jill Scott, Grammy-winning singer, published poet and film and television actress performs Saturday at the Dodge Theatre. Read more... |
| Performance artist vows to become Perfect Woman |
|
Delia W. Oman is not a crazy person. Sure, she plans on physically and emotionally transforming herself based on a stranger’s idea of “the perfect woman.” But there’s a point to it. Read more... |
| Searching for lost manhood in a cave of comedy | |
 |
Pity the modern man. In the wake of the battle of the sexes — having signed a lopsided treaty giving way to the Metrosexual Age — the poor schlub’s been stripped of his unbridled machismo, relegated to the garage with the rest of the boxed-up relics. Read more... |
| Moby Dick Rehearsed | |
 |
Admit it. You’ve never read Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” and you’re not likely to any time soon. (Neither are we. We tried.) Read more... |
| Napolitano charms 'Wait Wait' quiz show |
|
Governor Janet Napolitano may not have done well answering quiz questions during her guest spot on National Public Radio's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!," but she did manage to win over the show's host, Peter Sagal, and a panel of comedians during Thursday's taping at the Mesa Arts Center. Read more... |
| 'Cloris!' not quite as sweet as she is herself |
|
In a career spanning more than a half-century, actress Cloris Leachman has brought to life a far-ranging menagerie of characters: peppy heroine Nellie Forbush (Broadway's "South Pacific"), overzealous landlord Phyllis Lindstrom (TV's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), comically creepy Frau Blücher (Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein”). Read more... |
| 'Prairie Home Companion's' Keillor performs in March | |
 |
Garrison Keillor, host of public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," will perform a solo show March 19 at Phoenix's Dodge Theatre. Read more... |
| Downtown Mesa's Windup Gallery closing |
|
Windup Gallery, downtown Mesa's funky lowbrow arts gallery, is closing, co-owner Lindsay Cresta told Get Out. Read more... |
| Super Bowl comes with art on the side | |
 |
Even the most ardent Super Bowl buff, sadly, cannot live on football alone. Read more... |
| 'Proof’ adds up to dramatic challenges | |
 |
Like the lead character in “Proof,” director Melissa Stinson-Borg has an affinity for math. Read more... |
| Roy Orbison comes to Tempe, as memorabilia exhibit | |
 |
Roy Orbison, whose career spanned the early days of rock 'n' roll in the mid-'50s to his run in the late '80s with supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, is the focus of several events this week at the Tempe Center for the Arts. Read more... |
| 'Gilligan’ sets sail as a musical | |
 |
Scottsdale Desert Stages Theatre is reprising “Gilligan’s Island: The Musical,” which was a hit for them in 2005. Yes, it’s exactly what the name suggests: A musical adaptation of the ’60s sitcom about seven wacky castaways who packed suspiciously heavy for a three-hour tour. Read more... |
| Yin meets yang on Fridays at SMoCA | |
 |
The downtown Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art lures hundreds of younger people to its evening mixers. The latest is “Yin Yang Fridays,” a monthly series of after-work soirees offering either yoga or jazz music. The first is Friday, Jan. 18. Read more... |
| Review: This 'Macbeth’ a sound tragedy (C-) | |
 |
After a string of stellar productions, Mesa's Southwest Shakespeare Company fumbles with a "Macbeth" that's plagued by some ambitious but frustrating details. Read more... |
| Poets and performers celebrate Poe's posthumous birthday | |
 |
One does not generally equate Edgar Allan Poe, author of such morbidly chilly works as “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Raven,” with knee-slapping humor. Read more... |
| Review: 'Camelot' fights ham with ham (C+) | |
 |
“La Bamba” '80s heartthrob Lou Diamond Phillips stars as King Arthur in the national touring musical “Camelot,” now playing at Tempe’s Gammage Auditorium. So what’s a D-list celeb doing on stage? Turns out, he’s saving the show. Read more... |
| Dame Edna cancels tour, Scottsdale dates | |
 |
Sorry, possums. Dame Edna, the Australian housewife turned self-proclaimed “giga-star,” has canceled a string of performances, Feb. 5-10, at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, the center announced. Read more... |
| Lou Diamond Phillips crowned 'Camelot’s’ king | |
 |
It was hard not to guffaw when producers of the “Camelot” musical’s national tour made an announcement back in May. In the role of King Arthur, leading the Lerner and Loewe musical, esteemed British actor Michael York was dropping out. Donning the crown (and shoulder-length wig) in his stead: “La Bamba” star and 1980s heartthrob Lou Diamond Phillips. Read more... |
| Casual photographers can mimic Avedon’s style in a few steps | |
 |
There’s a deceptive simplicity to Richard Avedon’s black-and-white portraits, from the hardscrabble folks of his “In the American West” series (1979-1984) to the world leaders he had been photographing for decades until his death in 2004 — all rendered against his trademark stark whiteness. Read more... |
| Exhibit showcases Avedon’s portraits of the human soul | |
 |
Presidents and coal miners, regal celebrities and scruffy drifters. They all stood between stark whiteness and a camera’s lens, watching as Richard Avedon captured their souls. Read more... |
| Public art project plants a big red one in Scottsdale | |
 |
Don't panic. The bright red orb that will invade Scottsdale's cityscapes for two weeks isn't anything to fear. Big enough to evoke a human-size hamster ball, red as a clown's nose, it's also not some freaky new sequel to "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." It’s a funky, playful public art piece. Read more... |
| Are you ready for some 'Football: The Musical'? (B-) | |
 |
Around these parts, Scottsdale’s Alexx Stuart reigns supreme over a very particular domain: humorous stage plays about sports. Read more... |
| This 'Anything Goes’ is a cruise worth taking (A) | |
 |
I’ll let you in on a secret. Just about every theater critic harbors inexplicable, almost random, loathing for one show or another. Read more... |
| Bloody good 'Macbeth’ finds the king’s fear | |
 |
Bloody murder. Witchcraft. Madness. The way Southwest Shakespeare Company artistic director Jared Sakren talks about his “Macbeth,” you might think he was describing a slasher flick. Read more... |
| British comedy 'Cash' pays out at all the right spots (B) | |
 |
Some people can get away with anything. Read more... |
| Vestal virgins head to Vegas in 'Nunsensations’ | |
 |
When a production of the burlesque musical “Gypsy” couldn’t jell in time for the new year, Copperstate Dinner Theater looked at its cadre of would-be bump-and-grinders and pondered: Wouldn’t they look great in nuns’ habits? Read more... |
| Chris Page's top theater productions of 2007 |
|
1. “Napolinator and the Ex-Guvs for Justice,” Citrus Valley Playhouse - Brian Nissen’s hilarious (and, sshhh, oddly educational) variety show about Arizona life hit its stride this season, even as it migrated to Tempe’s $66.5 million, show-stopping Tempe Center for the Arts. Read more... |
| Sorenson goes from solo gigs to 'Pajama Game’ |
|
His last two shows here were triumphantly schizophrenic solo affairs — juggling dozens of characters in the comedy “Fully Committed” in Mesa, then playing meticulous German transvestite Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf in Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife” for Arizona Theatre Company. Read more... |
| Spend New Year’s Eve with the arts | |
 |
Looking for a classier way to ring in the New Year than the East Valley club scene? Try one of these offerings from local arts groups, combining midnight celebration with pre-party entertainment. Read more... |
| Farces like 'Cash’ put actors through their paces | |
 |
Theatrical farce, any seasoned actor will tell you, is less about art than sheer athletics. Slamming doors, sprints across the stage, frantic fits of damage control as characters collide and plots fall to pieces like Jenga towers. Read more... |
| 'Jewtopia’ brings laughing matters to East Valley | |
 |
For every demographic niche, it seems, there is a novelty-comedy show. For nerds, “One-Man 'Star Wars’ Trilogy.” Alpha males, “Defending the Caveman.” Women of a certain age, ahem, “Menopause — The Musical.” Catholics, take your pick from two popular franchises: “Late Nite Catechism” or “Nunsense.” Read more... |
| Unsatisfying 'Noise’ may be Desert Rose swan song (C) | |
 |
A sad spectre haunts Desert Rose Theatre’s winter play, “Joyful Noise,” though it’s probably not apparent to anyone making a first foray to the 55-seat strip mall playhouse in west Mesa. Read more... |
| Couple adds a 2nd opera voice to the Valley | |
 |
Can the Valley support a second opera company? That’s the question hovering over the Phoenix Metropolitan Opera on the eve of its debut production, the Puccini classic “La Boheme,” at downtown Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre this weekend. Read more... |
| AUDIO: Listen to 'Sing-a-Long Messiah' rehearsal | |
 |
What’s it like when a group of choir singers, wannabes and the simply curious combine to tackle, without rehearsal, one of the season’s most beloved classical pieces? Read more... |
| Holiday shows can turn moody to merry | |
 |
See if this fits. It’s Christmas crunch-time, and your tree’s still naked as a snowman. Shopping for gifts remains an abstract proposition. Overhearing Mannheim Steamroller’s “Deck the Halls” in the grocery store elicits something just shy of a sugarplum panic attack. You, dear reader, are suffering from the holiday blahs. Read more... |
| 'Christmas Carol,’ an old chestnut roasting on a welcome fire (A-) | |
 |
The holidays, without fail, send a particular shiver down the spines of most arts critics. We wince at the onslaught of holiday chestnuts, shudder at the relentless yuletide of “A Christmas Carols” and caroling revues and “Nutcracker” ballets we’ll have to endure for the umpteenth time. Read more... |
| Wimple while you work: Sister leads 'Christmas Catechism’ (A-) | |
 |
So, a nun walks into a theater. No, really. It’s not a joke. Not yet. Read more... |
| Scenes from the Tempe Festival of the Arts |
|
For the 400 or so artists and craftspeople at the weekend-long Tempe Festival of the Arts, Friday's intermittent rain showers meant fewer of the otherwise usual thousands of patrons browsing their creative wares. We dispatched Get Out arts critic Chris Page - who provided both photos and text - with a digital camera to capture the scene that afternoon. Read more... |
| Bedecked skateboards being rolled out as newest canvas | |
 |
When is a skateboard not a skateboard? When it’s artwork worthy more of gracing a wall than carving an empty pool. Read more... |
| Review: Nearly Naked Theatre dives deep into 'Metamorphoses’ (A) | |
 |
Still waters into deadly storm. Objects into pure gold. People into seabirds. Read more... |
| Broadway Palm sounds a tried Christmas tune (B+) | |
 |
Seven seasons and counting, Mesa’s Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre continues to tinker with its holiday show offering. Read more... |
| Ira Glass brings 'This American Life' to Scottsdale | |
 |
If Ira Glass had his druthers, he’d never pose for a publicity photo ever again. Read more... |
| Tempe dancer kicks up a storm with the Rockettes |
|
Every party needs a Stacy Paydo. When conversation hits the inevitable lull, simply turn and ask the 26-year-old Tempe resident what she does for a living Read more... |
| Shakespeare-based medley to celebrate holidays in Mesa |
|
It’s a little before rehearsals Tuesday night at Southwest Shakespeare Company’s downtown Mesa office, and Sandy Elias is spending a few spare minutes strumming Christmas carols on an acoustic guitar. Read more... |
| Galleries, festivals catch eyes usually fixed elsewhere | |
 |
It was the typical scene last Thursday evening in downtown Scottsdale’s art district, buzzing with art-fueled activity. Read more... |
| ASU grad students takes the stage at Festival of New Works | |
 |
Until 2004, Arizona State University’s graduate playwriting students had to settle for seeing their new plays given a simple staged reading. Read more... |
| 'Murder in Paradise' resuscitates the genre (B-) | |
 |
For the longest time, it seems, the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre has struggled to find a profitable purpose for its Marquee Room. Read more... |
| Energetic actor is a blast in 'Star Wars’ trilogy (B) | |
 |
In Charles Ross’ nearly verbatim live stage ode to the “Star Wars” trilogy, that sprawling sci-fi epic, an entire galaxy of creatures and characters is conjured using the simplest of special effects: the human body. Read more... |
| Titanic docks at Science Center |
|
What is it about the Titanic that captures the American imagination? Read more... |
| 'Debbie’ does a pompom musical | |
 |
The idea of a theater company staging “Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical” — an adaptation of the notorious X-rated film from 1978 — might’ve sounded ridiculous three years ago when Valley indie troupe Artists’ Theatre Project, or @Pro, staged it in Phoenix. Read more... |
| Hughley 'Unapologetic' in new show | |
 |
Get him going, and D.L. Hughley sounds a little like Bill O’Reilly. Read more... |
| Review: All community theater should be daring as this 'Cabaret' |
|
Maybe it’s the sight of a late-1920s cabaret chanteuse, clad almost entirely in peekaboo fishnet, sporting a bobbed wig in shockingly modern electric blue. Read more... |
| Youth theaters pack a vital, fresh punch | |
 |
Oh, to be a kid again. To the frustration, perhaps, of Valley theater buffs over the 5-foot height mark, oftentimes the finest displays of local talent happen on our youth stages. Read more... |
| Review: "Napolinator" worthy of larger crowds (A-) | |
 |
It may have been a new venue and a new show, but for Citrus Valley Playhouse it was a distressingly familiar sight. Read more... |
| Life’s a frugal 'Cabaret' | |
 |
Director Phillip Fazio has big ideas for his Mesa Encore Theatre production of the musical “Cabaret.” Read more... |
| Solo 'Star Wars’ lands on Scottsdale stage | |
 |
What on earth would prompt an actor to smoosh the entire first “Star Wars” film trilogy into a one-man, one-hour stage show? Easy, Charles Ross says: “Looming unemployment.” Read more... |
| For New York lawyer, 'Movin’ Out’ may be a ticket out | |
 |
It could almost be a Billy Joel song. New York guy works as a lawyer. Only the not-so-glamorous kind. For the insurance industry. The job’s kind of a grind. But guy dreams of being a musician. Dreams big. Read more... |
| New blood for 'Vampire Tale' | |
 |
Lisa Starry has a hard time keeping victims around. They keep turning into vampires. Read more... |
| Experienced actors play undead in haunted houses | |
 |
Half an hour before showtime, backstage is buzzing. Katherine Roll Lang, 23, leans into a mirror, sponging makeup onto her face. With the help of a wardrobe assistant, Kelly Kralicka, 17, gets into her costume. Around them, fellow thespians chat about auditions they’re going for later in the season. Read more... |
| Comic timing for this 'Lucky Stiff’ is DOA | |
 |
A good rule of thumb: Avoid any form of entertainment described as “zany.” Add to the list “Lucky Stiff,” the musical farce, or farcical musical, killing time at the Hale Centre Theatre before the annual “A Christmas Carol” settles in its place. Read more... |
| Desert Rose's 'Doctor Faustus' goes goth (C+) | |
 |
Fast on the heels of "M.M. xx," a bioplay about legendary actress Marilyn Monroe on her last night, Mesa's Desert Rose Theatre offers another tragic, doomed icon: "Doctor Faustus." Read more... |
| Citrus Playhouse seeks governor for latest spoof | |
 |
In the weeks before Citrus Valley Playhouse’s first show at the new $66.5 million Tempe Center for the Arts, Brian Nissen has been tapping every possible connection to reach Gov. Janet Napolitano. Read more... |
| Disabilities bind together the beauty of the dance | |
 |
Sometimes a dance troupe’s most delicate footwork occurs offstage, when it attempts to explain itself. Read more... |
| Youth museum explores the aesthetics of books | |
 |
Whoever said “don’t judge a book by its cover” was pretty shortsighted. Read more... |
| 'Ferocious Beauty’ examines the fine line of genetic science | |
 |
Writing about music, the quote goes, is like dancing about architecture. But what of dancing about science? Read more... |
| Animal lawn decorations among public art exhibit | |
 |
The plastic pink flamingo, once the ne plus ultra of tacky lawn decor, has indeed fallen on hard times. Witness the summerlong plight of Seattle artist Nicole Kistler, who needed a gaggle of the bogus birds for a public art installation at the campus of her alma mater, Arizona State University. Read more... |
| 'Fiddler' finds good home under new roof (A-) | |
 |
For a Jewish theater company staging its first show in a new venue, "Fiddler on the Roof" would seem an obligatory choice. Read more... |
| 'Swing!' not quite a Lindy hop flop (C+) | |
 |
Let me admit up front a certain ambivalence about musical revues based around dance songs. Read more... |
| Arts scene gets hooked on Web | |
 |
Ballet Arizona wants to be your friend. Read more... |
| Going lowbrow: Mesa exhibit plants its feet firmly in pop culture | |
 |
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by the Happy Meal. Read more... |
| 'Jersey Boys' a catchy treat (B) | |
 |
We all know the songs of The Four Seasons. “Sherry.” “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” “Walk Like a Man.” Four decades after those hits made the transition from the top of the Billboard charts to the playlists of golden-oldies radio, it’s still an unmistakable sound: the stomping rhythm, the clarion blast of wide four-part harmony, Frankie Valli’s piercing falsetto atop it all. Read more... |
| 'Fiddler' under a new roof | |
 |
Change, though scary, can turn out to be a good thing. Read more... |
| Southwest Shakespeare's 'Shrew' a feral, funny gem (A) | |
 |
The conventional wisdom of theater says all the heavy lifting comes with staging Shakespeare's tragedies. Not so when it comes to Southwest Shakespeare Company. Read more... |
| Harmony and dissonance: 'Jersey Boys’ comes to Tempe | |
 |
You’d be forgiven for dismissing the Four Seasons as little more than just another staple of oldies radio. Read more... |
| Young actor tames roles with an older man’s panache | |
 |
Sitting in a downtown Mesa cafe one recent afternoon, actor Richard Baird strokes his scruffy beard and recalls the moment, six months ago, when his nose came off. Read more... |
| AriZonis recognize best in local theater |
|
Actors Theatre's production of the fantastical drama "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow," the Hale Centre Theatre and injured Valley playwright Terry Earp were big winners at the 2006-'07 AriZoni Awards, the Valley theater community's version of the Tony Awards. Read more... |
| Marilyn Monroe's life charted in one-woman show (B) | |
 |
Who was Marilyn Monroe? Forty-five years after her apparent suicide — with hundreds of books about her since written — we’re no closer to understanding. Read more... |
| Dark 'Inishmore’ strikes a bloody funny bone | |
 |
Martin McDonagh’s “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” does not come with PETA’s good seal of approval. Read more... |
| TLT stages ‘Urinetown’ with over-the-top irony | |
 |
No community theater should step lightly into staging “Urinetown,” the musical comedy about a draught-stricken, pay-to-pee dystopia. Read more... |
| Stage blood isn’t just going to spurt itself | |
 |
Special-effects engineer Cory Starr walks into the downtown Phoenix offices of Actors Theatre carrying what may very well be the coolest thing ever invented. It looks innocent enough — a 2-foot or so assemblage of pipe and canister with a nozzle. And then he explains. Read more... |
| Mountain Shadows Theatre cancels season |
|
After losing its venue Mountain Shadows Theatre Company, the community theater in Surprise will cancel its 2007-'08 season, the theater announced today. Read more... |
| Intimacy forte of new Tempe Center for Arts | |
 |
Size is everything. The Tempe Center for the Arts’ first major event Saturday night, a black-tie gala culminating in a concert by jazz singer Natalie Cole, proved as much. Read more... |
| Get Out’s lively guide to best in Valley performing arts | |
 |
This is the year. The year you’ll want to jump headfirst into the Valley’s performing arts scene. If you hadn’t noticed — if you just moved here, or are only now beginning to consider entertainment options outside the multiplex — the arts are thriving here in the desert. Read more... |
| Alternative arts troupes search for the R-rated crowd | |
 |
The 2007-08 season could be the Year of the Alternatives. Independent play troupes Nearly Naked Theatre and Stray Cat Theatre have more subscribers than ever. Read more... |
| Theater tickets need not be expensive, if you know where to look |
|
In New York, Broadway buffs with especially thin wallets know all about the TKTS booth — that venerable clearinghouse for deeply discounted theater tickets. And starving students line up to pay pittances for last-minute rush seats to shows like “Rent” and “Legally Blonde.” Read more... |
| 8 Cool Events | |
 |
1. HERE, KITTY KITTY: He’s the homicidal, torturehappy terrorist leader of his own one-man Irish Republican Army splinter group, and someone’s just killed the most precious thing in his life, his cat, Wee Thomas. Read more... |
| 5 people to watch | |
 |
1. Actor Epps plays Irish, Scottish with 'Inishmore’ and 'Macbeth’: With his broad, stocky frame and commanding voice, it’s no wonder Valley actor Cale Epps plays a lot of heavies — from brute cops (Actors Theatre’s “The Pillowman” last season) to drunken thugs (Stray Cat Theatre’s “Trainspotting”). Read more... |
| Myths that may be keeping you from enjoying a night at the opera |
|
If you’ve had a bad experience with the arts, Jared Sakren knows your pain. Read more... |
| Cold 'Snake in Fridge’ has no fangs to bare (D+) | |
 |
Some houses, according to the tag line of the 1999 horror flick “The Haunting,” are born bad. Well, some plays are too. Read more... |
| ‘Mamma Mia!’ trips the light nostalgic | |
 |
Considering the pricey array of sparkly T-shirts, soundtrack CDs and souvenir trinkets on display at the “Mamma Mia!” merchandise booth Tuesday night, there was something missing for which I would have paid top dollar. Disco offset credits. Read more... |
| ‘Snake’reflects evolving audience, troupe | |
 |
For Nearly Naked Theatre’s Damon Dering to consider his latest project “the most provocative thing” he’s staged — well, that’s saying something. Read more... |
| Review: 'Beehive’ celebrates catchy tunes but fails to deliver a theme (C+) | |
 |
Blame my parents’ romantic timing. I missed the decade of high hair and highly flammable fashions, those sweet but turbulent 1960s, by several years. So one could reasonably argue that a prepackaged jukebox musical romp through that era’s female pop hit-makers — a wide swath from Connie Francis to Janis Joplin — isn’t exactly built to tickle my sense of nostalgia. Read more... |
| Review: Our love/hate relationship with 'Sweet Charity' at Gammage (B-) | |
 |
To love "Sweet Charity" is to overlook its faults. The spirited, lighthearted 1966 Broadway musical comedy about a plucky dance-hall hostess who's unlucky in love yet eternally optimistic isn't one of Neil Simon's best efforts at book writing. Though Cy Coleman's gorgeous, hip score (paired with Dorothy Fields' sassy lyrics) and Bob Fosse's original choreography certainly compensate. Read more... |
| Celebrity has its perks for 'Charity’s’ Paige Davis | |
 |
Paige Davis is best known as the plucky, preternaturally perky former host of cable television’s “Trading Spaces.” But the actress wants you to know she’s got real theater credibility. Read more... |
| Art on Boston adds hip factor to downtown Chandler | |
 |
Ever since strolling downtown Chandler’s first monthly ArtWalk back in February — chatting with some of the many fellow Wednesday evening meanderers, sipping a cocktail at chic 98 South — a nagging and improbable thought has persisted. Read more... |
| Poetry slams still finding the right words | |
 |
Slam poetry, the hip-hop-inspired hybrid of literary and performance art — in which poets recite their words in staged competition — never quite hit the mainstream the way its hype promised in the mid-1990s, when both MTV and PBS slipped on black berets and came courting. Read more... |
| This troupe is playing with 'Deathtrap’ | |
 |
There’s a reason murder-thrillers onstage seem positively quaint, and — don’t look now! — the reason is standing in your living room at this very moment. Read more... |
| E.V. painter refines the art of hustling | |
 |
Here’s a comparison that might make most artists shudder: Nicole Royse very well could be the East Valley’s Thomas Kinkade. Read more... |
| ASU Art Museum attendance up, announces new shows |
|
The Arizona State University Art Museum experienced a 40 percent increase in attendance during the 2006-'07 season, the museum said in an announcement for its upcoming season. Read more... |
| Review: '80 revival brings 'Footloose' to 2 E.V. stages | |
 |
The 1980s, if you hadn’t noticed, are back with a vengeance. The shallow retro revival is more than “Transformers” on the big screen and Paula Abdul on the small one (or, gulp, “Xanadu” on Broadway). This summer, two East Valley community theaters, coincidentally, are staging the musical adaptation of “Footloose.” Read more... |
| The art of surviving 58 public meetings and 260 critics |
|
Mesa artist Joel Coplin admits there’s something ironic about the concept of public art. “It’s kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it?” he says, chuckling. “Art is supposed to be such an individual thing.” Read more... |
| Scottsdale's outdoor art helps color the urban beige | |
 |
When it comes to Scottsdale, image is everything. Downtown, the spirit of Western nostalgia jockeys for attention against the throbbing pulse of the ultra-hip and modern; it’s dream-catchers and polo shirts, turquoise and spray tans. Read more... |
| Valley native Kaye tapped to star in 'Sweeney Todd' tour | |
 |
Judy Kaye, the Valley native-turned-Tony Award-winning actress, is returning home for the second time in as many years. Read more... |
| Dinner theaters serve up campy mysteries | |
 |
Murder mystery dinner theater — those goofy comedies in which outrageous actors interact with (read: accost) audiences and serve up silly, suspicious plots alongside three-course meals — is doing a healthy business here, with a handful of troupes performing to large audiences and garnering plenty of word-of-mouth. Read more... |
| Graffiti stylist puts on canvas what used to be on the street | |
 |
When Noah Baez gets stuck in traffic while a freight train rolls by, he doesn’t get frustrated. He gets nostalgic. Read more... |
| No replacement for 'Catechism' Sister during knee surgery | |
 |
Though it’s been happening for more than six years now, it’s still a surreal sight: a nun, in full penguin habit, making her way through the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts. Read more... |
| Review: ‘All Shook Up’ lacks Presley’s cool (D) | |
 |
If there's one thing musical theater has never been, strictly speaking, it's cool. This poses a problem for a jukebox musical based on the hits of Elvis Presley. The pelvis-powered pioneer of rock 'n' roll was pretty much the epitome of cool during his chart-topping kingship in the 1950s. Read more... |
| Review: Broadway Palm’s ‘King and I’ saved by songs and set (B-) | |
 |
Like brief contact with poison sumac, productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The King and I" always make me feel a little itchy. Read more... |
| Photography exhibit 're-imagines' old-time film processing | |
 |
To many of us, the transition from film to digital cameras was as seamless as point and shoot. But not to serious photographers like France Scully Osterman, a fine art shooter, historian and guest lecturer at New York’s George Eastman House, the oldest photography museum in the world. Read more... |
| Review: Hale’s 'Pillow Talk’ carries nostalgic tones well (B) |
|
Every so often, it slips my mind just how deeply nostalgia permeates almost everything Gilbert’s Hale Centre Theatre does. And then this: Owner David Dietlein, before a recent show, announced to the audience in his cozy 380-seat playhouse that he’s printed the upcoming season schedule, as a friendly reminder, on refrigerator magnets. Read more... |
| Actor Caswell launches new Valley performance group |
|
John Caswell Jr. doesn't have a home for his new theater troupe, per se. Read more... |
| Nearly Naked Theatre breaks out fangs with 'Bat Boy’ | |
 |
Nearly a decade after “Bat Boy: The Musical” made its stage debut — and long since its 2001 off-Broadway run and subsequent hit productions across the globe — it strikes Damon Dering as perfectly natural that none of the Valley’s professional playhouses has mounted a staging. Read more... |
| Road back to stage is slow but inspiring for Terry Earp | |
 |
An audience gathers on a warm Friday evening in May inside the cramped Scottsdale studio of Arizona Women’s Theatre Company for a staged reading of new plays. Read more... |
| Theater review: 'Piazza' charms as it aims for heart (A-) | |
 |
It would take a cold-blooded scrooge to deny the charms of "The Light in the Piazza," the unabashedly swooning, Tony Award-winning musical whose tour has swept into Tempe's Gammage Auditorium with all the grace and beauty of dried leaves in the autumn wind. Read more... |
| Steven Wright hunts laughs a line at a time, comes to Mesa | |
 |
The first thing you need to know about comedian Steven Wright is that, yes, he really does talk like that. Like a middle-aged, heavy-accented Bostonian whom you’ve woken up at 3 a.m. to shoot the breeze: soft-spoken but grizzled, slightly groggy, teetering on the brink of a wide-mouth yawn. He sounds, if this is possible, like a hangover and 5 o’clock shadow. Read more... |
| Actress takes childlike turn in 'Piazza’ | |
 |
If the past several Broadway musicals to play Tempe’s Gammage Auditorium could be summed up with one phrase, it would be ironic detachment. Read more... |
| Theater review: Drama queens spoil 'Girls Night' (D) | |
 |
There’s a particular kind of bummer-trip girlfriend — “Saturday Night Live” famously calls her Debbie Downer — that practically every group of gal-pals has in some form or another. Read more... |
| Theater review: 'Pillowman' both creepy, fun (B+) | |
 |
When it comes to in-your-face drama, the Valley’s theater scene can be woefully lacking. So it’s a welcome oddity to find Martin McDonagh seeing such welcome reception here lately. Read more... |
| Sharp eye of a young artist shows in 'unfinished' paintings | |
 |
East Valley artist Marcus Payzant plucks his ideas from the everyday. Concrete highway partitions. Lawn chairs. Red toy wagons. The ideas come from anywhere and everywhere and can strike at any time — which means Payzant occasionally finds himself sketching notes while driving, “on dollar bills or anything I can draw on,” he says. Read more... |
| Yearwood, Hornsby headline MAC's 2007-08 season | |
 |
Mesa Arts Center’s 2007-08 season of performances will include country star Trisha Yearwood, classical violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Bruce Hornsby. The $98 million center’s third season comes on the heels of what Randy Vogel, assistant director of theater and operations at the MAC, says has been a successful year of shows at the four-theater downtown complex. Read more... |
| Theater review: Broadway Palm's 'Full Monty' (B+) | |
 |
The idea of a dinner theater staging "The Full Monty" -- a musical adaptation of the 1997 British film about a band of unemployed blue-collar guys turned striptease showmen -- can't help but give one pause. Read more... |
| Former Valley stage performers make a splash on TV |
|
What do television shows “American Idol,” “The Sopranos,” “The Black Donnellys” and “The Riches” have in common? They all feature former Valley stage actors. Read more... |
