Herbert Paine

Theatre Artists Studio's production of Amy Hartman's MAZEL has ended its run, but its themes of remembering, reconciliation, and forgiveness echo beyond the stage. Under Kathleen Butler's direction, the play, which was conceived in 2006, arrives in reworked form at a moment when its central question is no longer merely theatrical, but urgently real: what happens when the last witnesses to history are no longer here to tell it?

A production that reveals what the craft of theater can do when it trusts simplicity and emotion.

Silverman's dark and witty script, Mason's incisive direction, and two beautifully calibrated performances make this one of the season's more provocative and entertaining productions.

A small, sincere musical that reaches for neither spectacle nor modernity.

By the mid-1920s the Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo) were already well known on the vaudeville circuit. Broadway gave their mayhem a larger canvas. Producer Sam Harris commissioned a musical comedy built around them, pairing their improvisational chaos with the polish of Berlin’s songs and Kaufman’s sharp theatrical wit.

A tour de force, a musical perfectly crafted and performed, and directed by Dzifa Kwawu with remarkable precision. A must-see!

With four actors on a generally bare deck, and a whale that exists in our imagination, the old story of compulsion and the sea finds a fresh, unexpectedly playful life.

What’s more satisfying than watching six wronged women reclaim their power? Watching them do it in rhinestone corsets, backed by a thunderous girl band and enough LED lighting to short-circuit Times Square. SIX, the British import that’s barreled from university revue to Broadway headliner like a sugar-rushed Spice Girls revival, is a history class... if the lessons were taught in stilettos and unapologetic girl-group glory.

Stephen Casey, the director and choreographer of Arizona Broadway Theatre’s production of PRETTY WOMAN: THE MUSICAL, understands something essential about adapting a modern fairy tale, especially one rooted in a Rodeo Drive fantasy, for the stage: unless the performers anchor the story in authenticity, the flair of the music and dancing can vanish like a pumpkin carriage after midnight, leaving little substance beneath the sparkle.

UNCLE VANYA arrives at Theatre Artists Studio with thoughtful intentions and a capable ensemble, though the results are somewhat uneven. Presented in Conor McPherson’s streamlined adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s classic, and directed by Carol MacLeod, the production leans heavily into emotional immediacy.

A joyful revival that reanimates the spirit of the show that once jolted Broadway.

Lean and evocative, funny and frightening, tender and profane...reckoning with how to survive trauma.

Mounted with in-the-round polish and flair, Hale Centre Theatre’s GUYS AND DOLLS is bright, brassy, and built on rhythm. And for a few hours in Gilbert, the neon-drenched skyline glows, the dice roll, and Broadway’s Golden Age feels very much alive.

The play is suffused with the sympathetic wisdom that defines Wilson’s writing. He looks at lives many would dismiss as small or defeated and finds in them an undeniable nobility.

COME FROM AWAY makes you care with a humility and vigor that feel bracingly out of step with our more cynical age.

Titled after Neil Diamond’s 1976 album of the same name, A BEAUTIFUL NOISE: THE NEIL DIAMOND MUSICAL aims for something more intimate and riskier than the average jukebox musical. Rather than simply charting a performer’s rise to fame, it presents a man in conversation with his past where he’s both haunted and sustained by the songs he wrote to survive it. The structure is unorthodox and quietly daring.

Tom Noga's clear-eyed direction and riveting performances by the ensemble make for a stirring production of a timely and relevant play...APPROPRIATE!

This sparkling musical is a brand of theater that’s all surface and shimmer and doesn’t pretend to be otherwise. A showbiz fantasy at full throttle making you feel delightfully upbeat.

Director Jodie Weiss understands the play's challenge and meets it head-on, shaping the production with an ear for the material’s alternating currents of terror and fragile joy.

Arizona Theatre Company’s HEIST, directed with style and clockwork precision by Matt August, is the kind of production that reminds you how elastic the boundaries of live theatre can be.