A lot goes into Curtains’ decisions about which plays to review for you. But when I opened my program for Central Community Theatre’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar and saw that Robin Vining plays guitar in the orchestra, I became Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction: “Shit, negro! That’s all you…
Most art spaces in this town feel like solid, real world places, built out of the stuff of waking life. Safe places where the art is caged on walls lik e docile zoo animals and can’t get close enough to take a swipe at your face. Walking into Deus Ex…
The debate raging through John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God concerns the veracity of miracles and the possibility of virgin birth. In a series of monologues and flashbacks, it tells a story that’s often ambiguous and deliberately vague. But in its Desert Stages production, one thing is very clear: The young…
Roald Dahl wrote a bunch of dense, sometimes sweetly twisted fiction for adults, but his works that best survived crossing the pond to the U.S. were those for children, including the deliciously cruel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, and The BFG (short…
Playwright and actor Kim Porter knows a thing or two about writing for the stage. The Texas-born Arizona resident’s yarns have been staged at theaters on both coasts and garnered multiple awards. (Most recently, she received two L.A. Drama Critics awards and three L.A. Weekly awards for the Los Angeles…
There’s a lot to go out and do lately. I would credit my own frolicsome attitude for this observation, but everybody I run into says the same thing. Occasionally, a theater person of my acquaintance (not always the same one) will opine that there are just too many companies and…
The timing, of course, couldn’t be better. A show that spoofs the profundities of Arizona’s many weaknesses — our weather sucks for about half the year, our sheriff is a jag-off, our budget is in the toilet — has premiered so soon after our latest national disgrace that there was…
courtesy of Mesa Arts Center Penn Jillette and Teller Penn Jillette and his professional partner, Teller, are two extremely busy guys. (Full disclosure: I worked for their entertainment lawyer in Manhattan a long time ago.) However boho and edgy they may have once considered themselves, they’ve been performing their irreverent,…
One of our, and your, favorite local stars of both the musical and straight (as it were) stage is the brassy, funny, rangy Johanna Carlisle. And Saturday night, May 8 (tomorrow), is a perfect time to help make it a happy Mother’s Day for this working mom whose son needs…
Scorpius Dance Theatre is known for several things: sensual movements, innovative choreography and Artistic Director/Choreographer Lisa Starry’s creativity in designing shows that appeal to a broad audience. Last night’s performance of Catwalk is no exception. Modeled (no pun intended) after a haute couture fashion show, Catwalk incorporates rock music and…
Kyle Lewis Ina (Lauren Dykes) will take any help she can get in And What She Found There, even from mysterious Joe (Adam Pinti). Some dude online called me strident and condescending yesterday, and I just wanted to say, “I have to be. It’s for the Curtains readers.” So, you…
Platitudes we all oughta write on the mirror in lipstick or shaving cream, as the case may be: All of us can make miracles where one of us will fail. It [everything, by the way] takes a village. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Need a…
Audience members who attend Stray Cat Theatre’s current show can buy $5 ponchos before entering the playhouse. The ponchos are meant to protect the clothing of those sitting in the first few rows from being spattered with the fake gore that is the real star of this worthless one-act. Unfortunately,…
Homeless no more. Starting May 1, the downtown Phoenix-area improv community, which has really blossomed over the past few years, will have its own digs. The venue, which will most likely be called The Torch Theatre, is an approximately 1,400-square-foot space located at Central Avenue and Highland. Once they get…
Yes, it’s roomy and picturesque here at Jackalope Ranch, but I think my favorite thing is the ottoman — best reintroduction of a piece of furniture in the past two decades! Remember footstools? Fuck that. And if you want to go back to read any of the older Curtains reviews,…
Yet another thing you might not know about Hale Centre Theatre in Gilbert is that they present a Children’s Theatre series — shows especially for little squirts, with whom, in case you haven’t checked lately, the east Valley is simply overrun. Naturally, because we care, Curtains is thrilled to tip…
When I was 13 years old, I had very long hair and braces. I was skinny and effeminate and favored garish clothing. My brother David, who was forever trying to wean me off the bubblegum music I preferred, took me to see the new movie version of The Who’s rock…
I’m dating myself here (at least somebody is — ba dum bump!) but there used to be this TV show called The Dating Game. I would go on and on about it, but I just accidentally deleted what I’d already written, and it was basically a low-tech precursor of reality…
First, a blurb of super-good news for you audience types: David Barker’s astonishing one-man show, Dodging Bullets, returns as part of the 2010 Phoenix Fringe Festival (where you can catch lots of new stuff during the coming week, by the way) with performances beginning Friday night, April 2, at The…
I hesitate to describe the staging tricks that make Arizona Theatre Company’s production of The Glass Menagerie so magnificent, for fear that detailing the ways in which director Juliette Carrillo has illuminated this graceful old warhorse will diminish its beauty for you when you go to see it. And you…
At least three excellent classic 20th-century plays are presented regularly by high schools, which tends to taint them for anyone who was first exposed to them there: Arsenic and Old Lace, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (which I wish I could have squeezed into the “Curtains” schedule when Fountain Hills Community…
Wanna know a secret about publicity photos? A show’s final hair and makeup designs often do not appear in them, since they’re taken weeks or months before opening night.While everyone in the above photo looks lovely, and it’s a very good photograph, these actors look even better on stage in…
