Herbert Paine - Page 2

Director Maren Maclean Mascarelli has assembled a remarkable cast in an intense retelling of Orwell's classic.

The National Touring production of the Broadway musical SUFFS, now playing at ASU Gammage until October 19, didn’t arrive on the stage quietly. Like its subject matter, it gathered like a movement and was shaped by persistence. The show, written, composed, and, on its Broadway opening, led by Shaina Taub, is a reclamation of voices long overlooked and of equality battles still to be won. 

THE ROADS TO LOCH LOMOND is a stirring, beautifully crafted musical that wears its heart on its tartan sleeve. The Scots never had it easy in their struggle against the British crown. From 1689 to 1746 – culminating in the devastating defeat at Culloden – the Jacobite Uprisings marked a turbulent chapter of rebellion and loss, as Highland clans fought to restore the Stuart monarchy to the throne.

Héctor Armienta’s operatic reimagining of ZORRO is a richly textured work that fuses bravado and romance into a timely meditation on liberty. This tale of dual identity and defiance receives the full operatic treatment (performed in both English and Spanish) in Arizona Opera’s 2025-26 season opener.

With a running time of two hours plus Jacobs-Jenkins's uneven script may waver at times, yet to the company’s credit, and to director Seth Tucker, this Stray Cat Theatre production remains impossible to ignore.

The Phoenix Theatre Company's production of FROZEN is a delight for those who know and love the film and are looking to be wowed with song and spectacle.

Scott Carter’s THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, CHARLES DICKENS AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY: DISCORD, directed by Beau Heckman, is a heady and entertaining intellectual feast.

The emotional terrain is fertile, but in Black Theatre Troupe’s 56th-season opener, GRACE AND GLORIE, the production comes close but not quite far enough to capture the fullness and weight that popularized the work.

Arizona Broadway Theatre's staging is a mixed bag – lifted at times by sharp comic performances and spirited choreography, yet hampered by a lackluster book, uneven score, and a central transformation that never fully convinces.

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL is a vibrant, music-soaked love letter to a city that lives and breathes rhythm even in the face of heartbreak and hardship. The Phoenix Theatre Company creates a celebration of a city, its culture, and its music.

In an age of displacement, inherited trauma, and cultural fragmentation, two short films –WEAVING and SPRING BREEZE, TAIWAN – directed by Taiwanese American filmmaker Hsuan Yu Pan, offer deeply resonant reflections on how art can restore identity, rebuild community, and help us remember who we are. Both films remind us that home is not always a place on a map. Sometimes, it is an act of making. Of remembering. Of returning – thread by thread, note by note – to ourselves.

For all its clashing parts, like an overstuffed jewelry box where diamonds, pearls, and plastic trinkets jangle together, MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL’s visuals are hard to resist, and that’s what most audiences will respond to. It sparkles wonderfully even when it confuses.

Deeply moving and riveting, TETHER offers a rare cinematic glimpse into a kind of moral injury: not simply mourning the dead, but confronting the unbearable weight of surviving them.

Whether it’s a bold reimagining of a Broadway classic, a world premiere, or a spotlight on local talent, here are the shows I’m most excited about for Summer 2025—and why you should mark your calendars now.

In Arizona Broadway Theatre’s production of CINDERELLA, audiences of all ages will find the magic they came for…and in that space, a story once deemed simple becomes something richer.

Lea Pascal's THE GREATEST JOY is a short film with a long emotional echo. It’s also a timely statement that there is—and must be—a place for telling women’s stories about their bodies.

MS. HOLMES & MS. WATSON – APT. 2B delivers bold feminist comedy with manic energy and clever gags, but its chaotic pacing and shallow mystery leave the story more frantic than fulfilling.

Theatre Artists Studio's perennial showcase of original 10-minute plays presents an impressive range of voices and tones, from sharply comic to deeply affecting. This year’s lineup leans toward intimate, character-driven encounters, anchored by the kind of unvarnished human truths only live theater can deliver.

Fairy tales have always promised us that once the dragon is slain and the prince is kissed, the story ends in blissful finality. But Into The Woods, now playing at The Phoenix Theatre Company’s Hormel Theatre until July 13, dares to ask, what if that happy ending is only the beginning?

Despite earnest efforts and glimpses of talent, this production of Shelagh Stephenson's THE MEMORY OF WATER failed to honor the quiet depth of the playwright's work.