12/4-12/6 It’s heroine versus heroin in Needles, Guns & Grass . . . , a dark new comedy taking the stage this weekend at ASU. The “live action graphic novel,” written and directed by playwriting master’s student Laurelann Porter, re-creates a post-apocalyptic world, where “the government is conspiring with the…
Playwright Charlotte Mann has, according to her playbill bio, an outstanding handbag collection. What she doesn’t have, unfortunately, is a particularly engaging story to tell in Hysteric Studs, which is currently floundering on a late-night stage near you. I was surprised and sorry to see a mediocre production from Stray…
Like the Disneyland ride upon which it’s based, The Haunted Mansion opens with a spooky voice intoning, “Welcome, foolish mortals!” Scary objects, like candelabra and tarot cards, float in front of the screen, and we’re then treated to a nicely wordless sequence from the 19th century, a Romeo and Juliet-type…
Michael Crichton seems pretty clever. The doctor-screenwriter-novelist digs odd history (Eaters of the Dead, a.k.a. The 13th Warrior), clashing cultures (Rising Sun) and cutting-edge biotechnology (Jurassic Park, and virtually his whole canon). His 1999 novel and its inevitable new movie adaptation, Timeline, both attempt to deliver all this and more,…
The sheer size of The Arizona International Auto Show can be a bit overwhelming. But that’s a good thing to Bobbi Sparrow, vice president of the Valley Auto Dealers Association, which organizes the yearly event. “We use every square inch of the Civic Plaza, and we use the outside, too,”…
Thursday, November 27 Like clockwork, our Thanksgiving always plays out like this: Spend the morning ravenous, tortured by the incredible smells of turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie wafting from the kitchen. Inhale the whole meal, extra helpings and all, too quickly for a feeling of fullness to kick in. Then…
At the stroke of midnight, Ebenezer Scrooge begins getting visits by ghosts — one from Christmas past, one from Christmas present, and one from Christmas that may or may not come to pass. But in most theatrical versions of Charles Dickens’ story, they’re not all performed by the same person…
Sun 11/30 Keeping up appearances is a must in the sports world, a universe where a franchise is nothing without a shiny new building to call home. Naming rights, signage and concessions represent the pot of gold waiting for owners at the end of the sports rainbow, but in the…
11/28-11/29 It all started 20 years ago on a string and a prayer. In November 1983, the Great Arizona Puppet Theater gave its first performance — The Elves and the Shoemaker at the old Los Arcos Mall. The puppet masters raise the curtain on their 20th Anniversary Weekend Celebration this…
Mon 12/1 Interested in artworks, but not really sure how art works? Let Steven Yazzie paint you a picture on Monday, December 1, when the local artist takes the podium at the FirstMondays Art Salon. Aiming to acquaint audiences with artists and the creative process, the free public program encourages…
Sat 11/29 Willie Nelson. Call him the original musical road warrior or the silver-throated pirate of the highways, his tour bus cutting through the night as he moves from city to city, gig to gig. And while Nelson roams the highways and byways, various labels have been busy reissuing a…
LeeAnn Dobbs was framed. The 15-year-old Ironwood High School student showed up at Tent City to do a story about Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s SMART Tents program for the school’s television news show (note to oldsters: high schools have their own TV networks now) and ended up in the slammer. SMART,…
In director Ron Howard’s The Missing, Tommy Lee Jones’ Samuel Jones takes his place among the oldest archetypes in the Western genre — the white man who has lived among the Indians ’til he has at last become one. This plot device, used in Hombre and Nevada Smith and myriad…
11/2811/29 Before the holiday avalanche thunders down on you, stop and enjoy a shot of winter wonderland. From 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, November 28, and Saturday, November 29, the Glendale Glitters Spectacular Opening Weekend ignites the annual festival of lights that transforms downtown Glendale into fairyland. At 6 p.m…
11/21-11/22 A new beat generation gets its message across loud and clear when Taikoproject presents the world première of (re)generation at Gammage Auditorium this weekend. For their debut creative work, a multimedia stage show combining dynamic taiko drumming, spoken word and hip-hop dance, the young performers of Taikoproject give their…
Move over, Howard Stern. Rick Bloom is ready to take over the airwaves with his own peculiar blend of low-concept radio entertainment. Bloom’s three-hour show, which airs every day on KFNX-AM 1100, is a hybrid of top-of-the-hour news, talk and Bloom’s special brand of humor, which involves a lot of…
To this critic’s eye, a stage full of fake plants never looks like the real thing, and usually prefigures a production as false as silk-and-wire foliage. But D. Martyn Bookwalter’s gorgeous set for Arizona Theatre Company’s Talley’s Folly is as real as the people who walk through its lush, expertly…
It took four years, but finally Dark Castle — Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver’s horror division that puts out a movie a year around Halloween — has made something that’s genuinely scary. It may be no coincidence that this time around, Silver has scored a higher-profile cast than usual, and…
If you’re hankering for a movie about an awkward yet lovable “outsider” type who wanders into a pastel mockup of Middle America and cajoles the straights to get saucy, you’re in luck. It’s called Edward Scissorhands, and it’s been available on video for years. Renting it will absolve you of…
As former director of the popular First Friday stop Artfit Exhibition Space, which was housed in the monOrchid building, Scott Andrews knows how to attract a crowd to an art event. So he’s already figured out the best way to jump-start his new nonprofit, without any funding: “Throw a party,”…
Thursday, November 20 Arizona Opera performs a new addition to its repertoire beginning Thursday, November 20: The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta about the comically complicated love lives of Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum. The two frolic in the fictional village of Titti-Pu, made delightfully real thanks to sets created by Don…
Brian Regan won’t joke about sex — and there’s something funny about that. So funny, in fact, that Regan has earned a reputation as the most talented comic on today’s standup scene — a frequently filthy place. “I have always worked fairly clean,” Regan explains. “Although, when I first started,…
