Jonathan Winters was an American artist and comedian, dubbed the “Pioneer of Improvisational Comedy.” Winters acted on stage and in films and television, including Stanley Kramer’s It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Twilight Zone. He was known as a comedic chameleon who slipped in and out of characters…
Summer’s around the corner, which means there’s plenty of time to get creative (and finish a few projects) before the heat sets in. Lucky you, there happen to be a handful of great opportunities for local artists to have their work displayed and recognized. See also: – Announcing the…
The cast and crew behind downtown’s Space 55 first held “A Bitch in Time” two years ago. It was cheap (and semi last minute); no sets or costumes were required and actors had little time for rehearsal. The show sold out, and proceeds benefited the theater’s future productions. A year…
If that skinny pedicab driver giving you a lift to some trendy Old Town gin joint this weekend seems bummed out, it’s only because he’ll soon have to conform to a new ordinance passed by Scottsdale’s city government earlier this week. And you might wanna consider giving him an extra…
If the style of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and the themes in Django: Unchained could be fused together into one movie, it might look something like The Retrieval. Director, writer, and editor Chris Eska made the dark Civil War-era flick and it’s getting buzz all across the country, winning a…
Dearest poindexter, please remove your nose from that book and do some intellectual exploring this April. Here are five must-attend lectures that’ll get your neurons firing. Pascal Cotte @ Arizona Science Center In conjunction with the Arizona Science Center’s ongoing exhibit “Da Vinci – The Genius,” French engineer Pascal Cotte…
Kathleen Vanesian is no stranger to Latin American art. We’ve featured the New Times art critic’s private collection of folk art, and you should see her collection of photographs from Cuba’s biennale, her trips to Mexico to buy more artwork, and her catalog of research on the genre. So her…
The setup: Neil Simon is still a massively popular American playwright — able to sell tickets on name alone when some shows can scarcely sell tickets at all — and his success gets in his way, critically speaking. You have to look at a theater company’s choice to do one…
A likable hagiography as nuanced as a plaque at the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, Brian Helgeland’s Jackie Robinson bio 42 finds a politic solution to the challenge Quentin Tarantino faced last year with Django Unchained: How to craft a crowd-pleasing multiplex period piece whose villain is, essentially, “all white people”?…
Here’s the kind of theory that the five interviewees in Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 have come up with about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining: One believes that it’s an allegory about the genocide of Native Americans. Another that it’s instead about the Holocaust. Or that it’s Kubrick’s coded confession that he…
It’s time, apparently, for the aging ghosts of ’60s radicalism to once again take stock of their sins and compromises. In The Big Chill and Running on Empty, during the Reagan ’80s, the then-middle-aged revolutionaries’ to-do list involved holding down careers and worrying about their kids; now the noble fist-wavers…
Charles L. Mee’s Soot and Spit is, in its ASU première, beautiful to behold. Cloaked in shadows, fractured with light, its 90 minutes chug along earnestly, sometimes passionately. If only Mee’s play (if, indeed, that’s what this is) were more entertaining. And more edifying. One leaves the theater having seen…
If your idea of Latin American art is limited to quaint portraits of indigenous women clutching calla lilies or balancing water jugs on their heads, you might have a hard time wrapping your head around “Order, Chaos, and the Space Between: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Diane and Bruce…
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a film that inspires strong reactions, and people have been trying to pin down what it’s really about almost since the day it was released. With Room 237 first-time feature director Rodney Ascher has gone deeper down the rabbit hole than anyone before him, bringing…
A common sentiment recurs through the abundance of eulogies and obituaries penned by film critics in the wake of his death late last week: Roger Ebert was an inspiration. It’s easy enough to be encouraged by another’s success — to regard an esteemed elder colleague with a combination of admiration…
Though the Phoenix run of Arizona Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro has wrapped, those who missed out on the opulent comedy (and don’t wish to trek to Tucson this weekend) still can get an earful of operatic tuneage when the leads from the production’s two casts perform at the Musical…
Retired professional wrestler Mick Foley is one paradoxical fellow. During his lengthy career, the grappler formerly known as Mankind and Cactus Jack (who claims to have spilled blood on four different continents) participated in some of the most brutal and intense matches wrestling fans have witnessed — oftentimes involving barbed…
Google Glass, the Internet giant’s tech-crammed lensless eyeglass frames, might have some techies abuzz, but we prefer the fashion points scored with the stylishly clunky aviator goggles of yore. If you agree, you’ll be right at home at Alwun House’s “Intertemporalist Steampunk Exposition” this Saturday, April 13.Victorian era sci-fi, 19th…
There are plenty of reasons to celebrate local Latino art and culture and countless events throughout the year, but you’ll want to mark Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13, on the calendar.Throughout the weekend, the Arizona Chapter of the Foundation of Latin American Arts (FALA)’s Festival para las Artes…
You might expect someone with the name Lisa Starry to have an artistic obsession with celestial bodies, but based on the modern dance choreographer’s latest work, Dreaming in Water, it’s fair to say Scorpius Dance Theatre’s director has more of a yen for aqua than NASA.The new production is a…
How often does an event feature a map that one can plant and grow when finished? Probably not often, but such is the case with the Scottsdale Cultural Council’s Cycle The Arts, an organized, guided bicycle journey that will visit art installations in Scottsdale, Tempe, and Phoenix. The seed-impregnated map,…
Valley Bike Month is in full swing with cyclists whipping out their favorite velocipedes. It’s doubtful, though, that even the sleekest of fixies could be as cool as the vintage red Schwinn in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which screens Saturday, April 13. The 1985 Tim Burton-helmed film chronicles the cross-country quest…
