The 114 musicians and performers who make up the Arizona Academy Drum and Bugle Corps aren’t your typical band geeks who “this one time, at band camp” performed obscene acts with clarinets and oboes. (After all, there are no woodwinds in drum corps. As if!) Then again, they don’t possess…
If splashy special effects and epic backdrops are a must for your theater-going experience, Phoenix Theatre’s Seventh Annual New Works Festival might not be for you. The monthlong festival, starting this weekend, showcases a workshop production of a new musical and staged readings of three new plays. In other words,…
Sun 7/25 So much for the pity. The only splash Lollapalooza 2004 made was in the toilet, but The Thrills bounced back instantly from the cancellation, booking a big U.S. tour with fellow Lolla-gaggers and U.K. rockers Gomez. Such good fortune hounds the Dublin band — get a load of…
SAT 7/24 A dream catcher — a hoop strung with netting — traps bad dreams while allowing good ones to swish through, functioning pretty much like a basket on the basketball court. Dream catchers — in the entirely figurative sense — take to the court this Saturday, July 24, for…
Wed 7/28 What Zephryn Conte does with a beat is easily defined: anything she wants. To be more precise, Conte, who’s “somewhere between 40 and ageless,” uses her omnipotent rhythmic abilities to channel dance, song and rhyme into one performance — the Zephryn Conte Jazz/Poetry Experience, on Wednesday, July 28,…
CHECK HER OUT Seattle may have the Space Needle, and Paris may have the Eiffel Tower, but Phoenix is home to 2004’s Librarian of the Year. Toni Garvey hasn’t let her title go to her head, despite the fact that she was chosen earlier this year from among all librarians…
Richard Warren abandoned a career in advertising and rewrote himself as a playwright. But when the cost of a staged reading of one of his plays proved prohibitive, Warren convinced Phoenix Theatre to present the piece as part of a new plays festival. Today, the monthlong Phoenix Theatre New Works…
THU 15 Can’t crack The Da Vinci Code? Don’t blame yourself for trying — you and a few million other obsessive-compulsive readers who’ve turned the book into a way of life. Dan Brown’s best-selling novel’s been a talker, for sure. And it keeps spawning further discussion. Take, for instance, Dr…
As written, Late Night Catechism II isn’t much more than an excuse to charge us twice for the same shtick. It’s told in the same spirit as its predecessor, Late Night Catechism, which has been running for years at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. This sequel stars Patti Hannon…
“Memory is a wonderful thing, if you don’t have to deal with the past,” declares the French Celine (Julie Delpy) to her erstwhile American one-night stand Jesse (Ethan Hawke) in Before Sunset, the meandering but reasonably charming follow-up to the duo’s 1995 Euromance, Before Sunrise. In the movies, as in…
7/16-7/18 John DiResta’s got a new catchphrase he hopes will grab the nation by the balls: “How’s your cock?” asks the portly comedian and former NYPD flatfoot. So far, response has been mixed. “You’re the second person I’ve asked, seriously. The first one was my wife. She just said, ‘Fine…
Laughter, Markham Breen says, is the best medicine. Breen is a master of tittering, a ruler of guffaws. He’s a Scottsdale psychotherapist who believes in the healing power of laughter, and who’s lately touting a systematic method of giggling and sniggering that he swears is about to take psychiatry by…
Fair warning: If the behavior of camels in the Gobi Desert during the spring birthing season is not high on your things-to-learn-about list, and you don’t hunger to know everything about southern Mongolian herdsmen, then The Story of the Weeping Camel probably isn’t your kind of movie. Saying they were…
Six days of the week — sometimes all seven — you’ll find Seth Riveras, Baron Faust and Ethan Bortin in the maze of rails, obstacles and ramps that is Phoenix Skatepark. The three 13-year-olds have been skateboarding together since they first set their feet on a deck about four years…
The crossover has always been the mega-event in the comic book kingdom. Fanatics easily spout off titles like Aliens vs. Predator or 1978’s Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (wait — we thought Ali was Superman). But the latest coupling from the realm of superheroes and supervillains doesn’t feature limited-edition, varied-ink chromium…
Sat 7/17 Now that he’s pimped his own ride, Robert Aguilar will be rollin’ with his homies from Mystical Car Club to the first Car & Music Show at Audio Express, 6710 West Camelback, on Saturday, July 17. After touring his custom 2000 Chevy Silverado (pictured) to 25 car shows…
Sun 7/18 This bar brawl’s going to spill out into the parking lot. And they’re ready — with 100 tons of sand trucked in for the occasion. This Sunday, July 18, the inaugural “Battle of the Bars Volleyball Tournament” pits the staffs of eight Tempe bars against those of eight…
Thu 7/16 Author Erika Lopez is growing out her grassroots. After writing four books for Simon & Schuster (with saucy titles such as Lap Dancing for Mommy and Hoochie Mama: The Other White Meat), the self-described “half Puerto Rican Quaker bisexual” gave S&S the finger, choosing to self-publish and tour…
THU 8 Don’t drink the water. Don’t pay full price. And don’t piss off the Federales! When it comes to planning a trip south of the border, that’s pretty much the holy trinity of need-to-know info. But the father-son tandem of Drs. Robert and Curtis Page have some additional advice…
Every afternoon, a whirlwind kicks up inside Pete Deise’s studio. It’s not just the metal sculptor at work. The artist has considered that he might have a roommate or two of the paranormal variety, someone who playfully blows dust around on a daily basis. “It’s kind of weird, and the…
Sun 7/11 Say the name Pablo Neruda to the average Joe, and you’ll probably get blank stares in return (or, at best, a slight dawn of recognition). He’s heard Neruda mentioned somewhere, maybe on that rerun of The Simpsons. It’s a shame, since “the Picasso of poetry” penned a few…
Behold what is, in theory, the thinking person’s ideal summer blockbuster. King Arthur features some of the planet’s most beautiful people, dressed way sexily, gallantly galloping and bashing each other with all manner of implements amid lush vistas and robustly appointed sets. Add an intriguing historical pedigree and apparently unprecedented…
