The Entertainer! Magazine Supporting The Arts 2014-2016 by Times Media Group

SUPPORTING THE ARTS

2014-2016

“Into the Woods”

ARTS

CALENDAR INTO THE WOODS THROUGH AUGUST 7

THE MUSIC OF MOTOWN AUGUST 5

THROUGH AUGUST 7 The popular stage play was made accessible to larger audiences in 2014 when Disney released a feature film adaptation. The story features several of your favorite characters from classic fairytales. Scottsdale Desert Stages Theatre 4720 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale 480.483.1664, desertstages.org

“Shrek The Musical” THROUGH AUGUST 14 Everyone’s favorite ogre is coming to the stage in the West Valley. Join Shrek, Fiona and Donkey for a hilarious production based on the popular Dreamworks animated film. Featuring familiar tunes and all new songs. Arizona Broadway Theatre 7701 W. Paradise Lane, Peoria 623.776.8400, azbroadway.org

Sage Brushes Exhibit

THROUGH AUGUST 14

THROUGH AUGUST 18 The West Valley Arts Council enriches the community by growing a vibrant and connected arts and cultural scene. Its art exhibit features pieces from women of all walks of life. Some of the artists have created all of their lives, other started after retirement. The gallery is open Tuesday through Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Presented by the West Valley Arts Council 16126 N. Civic Center Plaza, Surprise 623.584.2626, westvalleyarts.org

“West Side Story”

SUGAR THIEVES AUGUST 5

THROUGH AUGUST 20 The modern-day story of Romeo and Juliet set in New York City in the 1950s. A guy and gal fall in love amidst the backdrop of gang turf warfare. Familiar songs will have your toes tapping. Hale Centre Theatre 50 W. Page Avenue, Gilbert 480.497.1181 haletheatrearizona.com

First Friday at Phoenix Art Museum

AUGUST 12-21

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

AUGUST 5 There’s no better way to participate in the arts than partaking in First Friday. Visit the Phoenix Art Museum and receive free general admission between 6 and 10 p.m. This will be your last chance to see the current fashion exhibit. Park, or take the trolley to the museum from downtown. Phoenix Art Museum 1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix 602.257.1880 phxart.org

The Music of Motown starring Joe Bourne AUGUST 5 Take a musical journey back to the 1960s with Joe Bourne and his eight-piece band. Reminisce with songs from Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and more. Chandler Center for the Arts 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler 480.782.2680 chandlercenter.org

Sugar Thieves AUGUST 5 The Sugar Thieves have a sultry blues roots foundation, and powerhouse delta sound. They offer a fresh new style, high-energy showmanship and move between blues, country, gospel, rock and elements of jazz. Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts 7380 E. Second Street, Scottsdale 480.499.TKTS scottsdaleperformingarts.org

The Oz Chronicles AUGUST 12 TO 21 The original Brelby production directed by Brian Maticic intertwines the original Oz series into a unique adaptation of the classic stories. Inspired by L Frank Baum’s unique and engaging world, this twist on the American fairy tale will feature epic themes of good versus evil, new interpretations of classic characters. Brelby Theatre Company 6835 N. 58th Avenue, Glendale brelby.com

Contemporary Forum 2016 Summer Film Festival: “Art and Craft” AUGUST 17 The film focuses on the life of American art forger, Mark Landis. Landis spent 30 years forging multiple styles and periods such Pablo Picasso and Walt Disney. This screening is free and is open to the public. Phoenix Art Museum 1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix 602.257.1880 phxart.org

30 Years: The Show AUGUST 19 TO AUGUST 28 Take a trip down memory lane as Fountain Hills Community Theatre celebrates 30 years entertaining audiences. This musical revue features selections from three decades of performances. Fountain Hills Community Theatre 1445 N. Saguaro Boulevard, Fountain Hills 480.837.9661 fhct.org

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE AUGUST 2016

Jackson Browne

Cisco & The Racecars

Cinematic Pop

AUGUST 19 The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee tours the country this summer with his long-time bandmates and is making a stop in Mesa. Browne has written and performed some of the most literate and moving songs in popular music. Mesa Arts Center 1 E. Main Street, Mesa 480.644.6500 mesaartscenter.org

AUGUST 26 Enjoy an evening of bluegrass music performed by exciting young band, Cisco & The Racecars. With a full range of instruments including banjo, guitar, mandolin, bass, fiddle, and cello and super vocals by all members, this Arizona band is sure to entertain. This concert is free and open to the public. Chandler Center for the Arts 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler 480.782.2680 chandlercenter.org

AUGUST 27 The classical crossover has been featured on “America’s Got Talent.” The Mesa engagement will feature a 50-piece orchestra, 100-voice choir and several soloists. Selections performed are a unique blend of choral and orchestral music combined with popular rock and pop songs. Mesa Arts Center 1 E. Main Street, Mesa 480.644.6500 mesaartscenter.org

Fast Times at SMoCA

Free Summer Sunday

AUGUST 26 This event held in the SMoCA Lounge features a cash bar and promises to be a fun, laughter-filled night of stand-up comedy. Advanced tickets are strongly recommended. Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art 7374 E. Second Street, Scottsdale 480.874.4666 smoca.org

AUGUST 28 Visit the Heard Museum for free! While there, make and take a craft, see former world champion hoop dancer Derrick Suwaima Davis perform in the Steele Auditorium and view the work of basketry artist Lakota Scott. Heard Museum 2301 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix 602.252.8840 heard.org

2016 Acoustic Summer AUGUST 24 Dust off your cowboy boots and get ready to enjoy an evening of country music’s hottest current artists. 102.5 KNIX Country presents Eli Young Band, Granger Smith and Chase Bryant. Mesa Arts Center 1 E. Main Street, Mesa 480.644.6500 mesaartscenter.org

AUGUST 19-28

‘AVENUE Q’ THROUGH JULY 10

2016 ACOUSTIC SUMMER AUGUST 24

JACKSON BROWNE AUGUST 19

CINEMATIC POP AUGUST 27

CISCO AND THE RACECARS AUGUST 26

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE AUGUST 2016

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

CARPE DIEM ‘Dancing’ brothers live for the moment, while chasing their dreams Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

ancing with the Stars” professionals Maks and Val Chmerkovskiy are living for the moment. Since moving here from the Ukraine in 1994, the brothers have found success on the dance floor. They will share their pre-fame journey by way of the stage show “Maks & Val Live On Tour: Our Way,” which they spoke about in a heartfelt and comical hour-long teleconference call with journalists. “As they say, ‘Carpe Diem,’” Maks says. “We’re carpe-ing the hell out of the diem now.”

This year, that has meant expanding their horizons with this tour and beyond. On a personal note, Maks is engaged to fellow dancer Peta Murgatroyd, who is expecting their child in January. The ABC-TV show has been good to kindhearted Val and the tempestuous Maks, but “Our Way” is a check off the men’s bucket lists. “There’s nothing like doing something with your brother, with your family, telling a story that’s so personal to you,” Val says. “It’s nerve-wracking being on our own, but it’s exciting at the same time. I feel like I’ve gained enough experience

now in the industry to know how to put on a great show. I’m excited to do so with my brother, for whom I have so much love.” And he means that. “Maks is not (a jerk),” Val says with a laugh about his brother’s reputation. Maks adds in the third person, “They’ll be surprised that Maks is actually nicer than Val. It’s all a façade. While we’re having this wonderful conversation, he’s texting me mean messages. I’m going call mom. We’re going to have another thirdparty phone call.” Val and Maks have been inspired during their time on “Dancing,” which returns Monday, September 12. It’s questionable if Maks will return, but Val slipped. “I’m not going to say who, but I was talking with my ‘Dancing with the Stars’ partner yesterday,” Val says. “We started the new season.

“In getting to know each other, we touched on that as magical as (‘Dancing’) has been to me, it doesn’t define who I am. It doesn’t define my journey or my story or my ambition or what I ultimately want to do with this platform. “I want to make an impression. I want to inspire others. I want to help others as much as I can. It isn’t my dream to go to Hollywood and become the next Fred Astaire. That wasn’t my dream at all.” Instead, Maks and Val wanted to make their parents proud. “They gave us the tools that provided us the opportunity to capitalize on all the beautiful opportunities that we have. So I think there are a lot of surprises in the (‘Our Way’) show.” Maks adds, “But most importantly, we just want the audience to be entertained and spend two hours with us, laughing, maybe not crying, but if they are, they’re tears of joy.” Maks calls it a “humbling opportunity.” “We’re trying to be responsible to the people’s time and their hard-earned dollars to put on a great show,” he said. “On the other side, I think it will be a lot easier for us to do that rather than be part of the cast. We’re telling our story. We’re passionate about our story. We love where we come from. We love what we had to overcome to be here. We want to inspire people.” Maks explains that his family was touched by the overture. “Our family didn’t expect it and so this came as a big surprise,” he says. “The next thing you know, our mom was calling us saying, ‘Hey, there are no more tickets in Red Bank, New Jersey. How do I see the show?’” What did Maks tell his mom? She should have been a little quicker. “I’m kidding,” he says. “The point is we just didn’t expect to even be here. You know, 20 years ago, this was not our foreseeable future. Our success is a testament to our upbringing, the way our parents raised their family, all the things they instilled into us, and we just want to do our best not to let them down.”

“Maks & Val Live on Tour: Our Story”

Comerica Theatre, 400 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, 800.745.3000, ticketmaster. com, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 9, $38-$68.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE AGE OF HYSTERIA ‘American Idiot’ cast bring excitement to TCA Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

“American Idiot”

Tempe Center for the Arts’ Studio, 700 W. Rio Salado Parkway, 480.350.2822, http://1.usa.gov/1U9NSs0, various times through Saturday, July 16, $30-$35.

icholas John Gearing is, admittedly, a huge Green Day fan. So when he was cast as Johnny in the Stray Cat Theatre’s production of the pop-punk band’s rock opera, “American Idiot,” he wasn’t sure how to react. “It was surreal,” Gearing says via telephone in between bells at Boulder Creek High School in Anthem, where he teaches English. “It’s pretty fantastic.” Playing at the Tempe Center for the Arts from June 24 to July 16, “American Idiot” is based on the Grammy Awardwinning concept album of the same name. The musical tells the story of three disaffected young men—Will, Johnny and Tunny. The latter two flee the suburbs, where their parents have a tight rein on them, and seek the freedom of the city. When Tunny joins the military and is shipped off to war, Johnny turns to drugs. “American Idiot” features little dialogue and instead relies on the lyrics to execute the storyline of teen rage, love and loss. Gearing says it’s interesting to see how the characters—many of whom were taken from album art—come together to form “this crazy kaleidoscope of things.”

The Stray Cat’s rendition of “American Idiot” is the Arizona company premiere. The only other time it has reportedly been produced in the state was when the national touring show came to ASU Gammage. Gearing says he isn’t the only one in the cast who has butterflies about the musical hitting the stage. “We’re all such big fans of Green Day,” Gearing says. “You don’t want to mess anything up. (The album) American Idiot means something to us and being in the show gives it additional meaning. We don’t want to do it a disservice.” “American Idiot” features all of the songs from the album (“Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Holiday”), as well as other hits (“21 Guns”). Gearing paused before naming his favorite song to sing. “‘21 Guns’ is one of the more intricate pieces, or ‘Whatsername.’ That arrangement is rather pretty. In both numbers, the room is electric. My hair stands on its end from start to beginning. It’s one thing when you’re singing your favorite Green Day song or your favorite from this album. It’s another thing altogether when a roomful of people gets excited at the same time. I can’t say enough about that experience.”

ARIZONA’S LEADER IN MUSICAL THEATRE

JULY 15 - AUG 14 SEASON 11 SPONSORED BY:

623.776.8400 | AZBROADWAY.ORG | 7701 W. PARADISE LN. | PEORIA, AZ 85382 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JULY 2016

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

THE PUPPET MUSICAL

‘Avenue Q’ deals with adult themes from A to Z Kenneth LaFave » The Entertainer!

obbie Harper never gets tired of directing “Avenue Q,” the grown-up take on “Sesame Street” that uses puppets to explore themes such as relationship, racism and sexuality. And Phoenix audiences, it seems, never tire of seeing it. The musical is back again this summer at Phoenix Theatre after two previous stagings there. It opens Wednesday, June 8, in the company’s new black-box facility. “The show has universal appeal and I always love coming back to it,” says Harper, who directed Phoenix Theatre’s

original staging of the Broadway hit musical in 2008 as well as its successful revival in 2014. He also directed the show in 2013 for Arkansas Repertory Theatre. “We all grew up watching ‘Sesame Street’ and learning how to be a good young person. But nothing teaches you how to be an adult, how to survive the move to a new city or break up with your first girlfriend. ‘Avenue Q’ addresses that,” Harper says. Like “Sesame Street,” “Avenue Q” combines humans (three of them) with puppets (11) in dialogue and in song. Unlike the children’s long-running TV favorite, the musical looks at grown-up concerns—so much so that a disclaimer at the Phoenix Theatre website warns that “Avenue Q” “deals with adult material” and contains “full puppet nudity.” Not only are the puppets sometimes naked, but they feel free to, uh, enjoy each other. Harper downplays that aspect of the show. “The puppet-on-puppet sex is just a bonus,” he says. “The show is really about

battling with life and making mistakes— really stupid mistakes. Everybody knows what that feels like.” What are some of those mistakes? Titles to some of the songs (written by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marks) provide hints: “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?,” “If You Were Gay,” “The Internet is for Porn,” “The Money Song” and “Everyone’s a Bit Racist” are just a few. The ballad, “There’s a Fine, Fine Line” deals with the need to sometimes end a relationship. Because most of these are sung by or with puppets, they can dare to say things that just plain people might not get away with. “When a puppet experiences something it creates enough distance, so that even when the song says, ‘Everyone’s a bit racist,’ you go, ‘Yup, that’s true.’ If a bunch of white people sang it, you wouldn’t react the same. The puppets provide removal, and audiences can hear the bad stuff.” A lot of what the characters in experience in “Avenue Q” reminds Harper of his

own life lessons. “The characters learn to leave their preconceived judgments behind. I know about that. As soon as you think things are right, other things show up in your life to show how wrong you are. You either listen to that, or not.” The puppets for Phoenix Theatre’s production were designed by Rick Lyon, who was a puppeteer in the show’s original New York cast. The puppet design allows the audience to see the puppeteers, a convention Harper says he loves, “because both the puppet and the human become the character together.” Harper, who also staged Phoenix Theatre’s recent production of “Evita” and appeared in its production of “Mary Poppins,” is the company’s associate artistic director. “That means I do a lot of paperwork when I’m not directing or onstage.” The theater community often refers to itself as a family, and it is a message of family that Harper believes is the ultimate “Avenue Q” statement. “Everybody in the show takes care of each other. It’s the people you surround yourself with that make it possible to get through it all. We all create our own family, and it is family that helps you navigate both your brilliance and your stupidity.”

“Avenue Q”

Phoenix Theatre, 100 E. McDowell Road, Phoenix, 602.254.2151, phoenixtheatre.com, various times Wednesday, June, 8 to Sunday, July 10, $36-$81. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

RENAISSANCE WOMAN

Actress Gloria Reuben brings her music to the MIM stage Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

ultihyphenate entertainer Gloria Reuben feels lucky. She’s acted in award-winning shows like “ER” and “Mr. Robot,” while pursuing a music career. She’s also an activist, committing her time to the global climate change crisis through her participation with The Climate Reality Project, and to human rights issues with the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. “It is nice to keep it fresh,” says Reuben, during a recent phone interview. “I’m really happy to have been able to expand the horizon on my creative expression.” Reuben has spent time as a backup singer for Tina Turner in 2000, which led her to record her solo record, Just for You. She released a jazz album, Perchance to Dream, in 2015 on MCG Jazz. She is promoting Perchance to Dream with her first musical performance in Phoenix—at the Musical Instrument Museum on Friday, June 10. “I have a number of very good friends who live in Phoenix,” Reuben says. “It’s going to be a celebratory night. My birthday is the night before. I’ll be carrying on the celebration. I won’t be able to celebrate too much on the night. But it’ll be a fun night at the MIM for sure.”

Her set will be a combination of standards with different arrangements to a couple of her original tunes. Reuben will also perform a few songs at the piano. “I like doing a little bit of narration, too,” she says. “I have to say I feel like in everything I do I’m a storyteller—but there’s not too much talking. Don’t worry. There will be some anecdotes and such that’ll tie the songs together.” One of those originals is “Poor Girl,” a Maya Angelou poem set to music. The music was written by Jay Ashby, the brother of Marty Ashby, who is leading her quartet at the MIM. The other song is “When I Close My Eyes,” which she calls “more upbeat” and “feisty.” Reuben, who, at the time of the interview, was admittedly exhausted, enjoys being busy with all of her projects. “For me, I’m happiest when I’m busiest creatively,” she says. “That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m working for money. But if I’m being creatively busy, that’s a good thing.”

Gloria Reuben and the Marty Ashby Quartet Musical Instrument Museum, 4725 E. Mayo Boulevard, Phoenix, 480.478.6000, mimmusictheater. themim.org, 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 10, $38.50-$43.50.

ARIZONA’S LEADER IN MUSICAL THEATRE

JULY 15 - AUG 14 SEASON 11 SPONSORED BY:

623.776.8400 | AZBROADWAY.ORG | 7701 W. PARADISE LN. | PEORIA, AZ 85382 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JUNE 2016

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

PLAYING THE

COOL CHARACTER

‘Newsies’ is hot off Broadway

Kenneth LaFave » The Entertainer! oe Barreiro and Jack Kelly have one thing in common: They’ve never been to Santa Fe. Other than that, says Barreiro, who plays Kelly in the Disney-produced musical “Newsies” at Gammage Auditorium this month—zip. “I’m nothing like Jack as far as being graceful and always knowing what to say,” Barreiro says. “But every night when I put on the hat, I get to be him. It is so satisfying to play the cool character. It’s as fun as it looks.” And fun is the key word here. “Newsies” is an old-fashioned feel-good musical about newspaper boys who go on strike. The national road tour, which started last year following the show’s successful Broadway run, will stop at ASU Gammage June 14 to June 19. A “newspaper boy” or “newsboy,” for those too young to recall, was a kid who delivered the morning (or afternoon) newspapers to subscribers’ homes. In 1899, a bunch of them in New York City went on strike when newspaper mogul Joseph Pulitzer increased their cost of product, thus shrinking their pay. “Newsies” is based on that historic incident. The character of Jack Kelly is the strike’s leader. But, what was that about Santa Fe?

“Jack is always longing to get out of New York and find open spaces,” says Barreiro. Santa Fe becomes Jack’s unseen ideal, as well as the title of the song that both opens and closes the first act. Of course, this being a musical, and a Disney musical at that, Jack—spoiler alert here—finds his true calling during the strike, falls in love with a spunky reporter from the paper, and realizes that New York is his true home. Barreiro is a multiple-threat musical theater guy who plays the piano and conducts shows as well as singing and acting in them. Last year, he was music-directing a production of “Urinetown” in upstate New York when his agent called with a stunning opportunity: Could he audition for the touring production of the latest Disney Broadway hit? Those words led to a successful audition and fulfilled the work of his life over the past few years. “I was a singer in choir through high school but knew I didn’t want to sing in choirs the rest of my life,” Barreiro says. “I started watching a lot of Daniel Day Lewis films and his performances were so transformative that I thought, ‘I’m going to be an actor.’” Barreiro has appeared in musicals and nonmusicals and developed a sophisticated taste for both. The musical role he would most like to perform is George in Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George.” “I’d add ‘Sweeney Todd’ but I’m a tenor and that’s a baritone role, so it’s not

in my future,” Barreiro says. And the nonmusical role? “I would love to play Stanley Kowalski in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’ I want to communicate a deeply superficial character.” One of the things Barreiro loves about “Newsies,” in addition to being the cool character, I that the songs were composed by a childhood hero. “I am a ‘90s baby, born the year after ‘Little Mermaid,’ the first of the great Disney animated musicals. The composer was Alan Menken,” who went on to compose “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “Pocahontas” and the original live-action film, “Newsies,” on which the stage musical is based. “Without Alan Menken’s music for those films, I’m not sure I would have gone in the direction I have,” Barreiro says. “Those scores are deeper in me than any other pieces of music. I am completely in awe of Alan Menken’s work.” Barreiro also praises the lyrics for the show, which were written by Jack Feldman. “There’s a move in some shows to push Broadway songs more in the direction of pop. But the Broadway show is a lyrical medium, and the words to the songs need to keep the plot moving.” After seven months touring in “Newsies,” Barreiro has no immediate plans for the future. Of course, the next call from his agent might be for a Broadway show, right? “Exactly,” says Barreiro, who knows precisely what to say.

“Newsies”

ASU Gammage, 1200 S. Forest Avenue, Tempe, asugammage.com, various times, Tuesday, June 14, to Sunday, June 19, $20-$150. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JUNE 2016

RUNNING AWAY WITH THE CIRCUS David Shipman is living his dream in the ring

Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer!

t 2 1/2 years old, David Shipman’s parents took him to his first Ringling Bros. circus. He remembers the horses, the elephants, the sawdust and— most importantly—the ringmaster. “You know, you don’t remember much from when you were 2, but everyone remembers their first circus,” Shipman says. Today, he is the 37th ringmaster in the circus’ 146-year history. Even though he’s a performer at heart, Shipman got a “big boy” job after college as an admissions counselor for an art and design college, where he did musical theater in his spare time. “My job was essentially to meet with students, figure out their passions and remind them that they needed to take chances and that life began at the end of their comfort zone and to do things that might scare them.” After a while, he came to a realization about his own life. “I wasn’t following my own advice. So I decided that I was going to leave my job in 2012 and focus on really putting my own words to good use and pushing myself to my own limits of my own comfort zone,” Shipman says. Shipman landed his job as ringmaster thanks to a stroke of luck. He was living in Orlando, Florida, when he saw a posting on Facebook from Feld Entertainment, the owners of Ringling Bros. “I missed the audition by a week and a half, and I almost scrolled past it, but with that ‘do-the-things-that-scare-you’

mentality, I thought, the worst they can say is no.” He sent in his headshot and resume anyway and, within an hour, they invited him to a private audition with the owners. “It was something that was never supposed to happen, if I’d scrolled passed it and just kept going, I think that things could have been very, different. It was very serendipitous that it lined up the way that it did.” As ringmaster, Shipman plays a big part in creating the show. “There are writers, songwriters, directors and choreographers but I think the shows are created for our personalities. The ringmaster gets a say in how things are written, how things are delivered, and then from there, it’s really about the audience and figuring out how to take the audience on a journey.” Shipman says there are a lot of misconceptions about ringmasters and circus performers. “There’s this preconceived notion that the ringmaster is an older, kind of chubby guy who’s kind of balding and he stands in the middle of the ring shouting into a megaphone. It’s not like that anymore. It’s an all-inclusive role. I get to sing and interact with the audience and the cast. It’s not just barking orders—it’s the showmanship style, which is fun,” he says. Along the same lines, the word “carnie” get thrown around to describe circus performers, which, for Ringling Bros., couldn’t be further from the truth. “We travel with the most elite of athletes, they are trained professionals, incredible performers and they are the top of the top. It’s just really amazing to get

to see them perform every single night,” Shipman says. He recently said farewell to some of the most iconic performers in “The Greatest Show On Earth”—the elephants. “It was very, very bittersweet. The elephants have been a part of The Greatest Show on Earth for over 146 years—that is a very long time. To be surrounded by them and to be able to get to say that I was one of the very last ringmasters to work with them is something really powerful. I’m really grateful that I got to see it out.” Shipman and the rest of the Ringling Bros. team are coming to Phoenix for their Circus Xtreme performance from Thursday, June 23, through Sunday, June 26, and audiences are in for a wild ride. “What makes Circus Xtreme so fun is that it is a perfect nod to where we came from and where we’re going. There are beautiful, traditional circus elements to it. We’ve got the things that people love—the high wire, the human cannonball, the tigers—the things that keep people on the edge of their seats, but we’re fusing those traditional elements with modern techniques. “We’ve got BMX bikers, parkour flippers, trampoline jumpers—all doing a simultaneous, freestyle sports display unlike anything we’ve ever done before in the circus, and it’s really new and current and modern, and it’s just really fun for audiences,” Shipman boasts. Even with all the excitement from working for the circus, Shipman says he humbled to be a part of such a wonderful show. “It is absolutely life-changing. I’ve grown so much as a person in this job and

to make such an impact in a position such as ringmaster and to look out into the audience and see that magic we talk about when we talk about circus—there’s something that really transcends generations. It’s the reason they call us ‘The Greatest Show on Earth.’ “I got the chance to run away with the circus and who can say they can do that nowadays?” he says with a laugh.

Circus Xtreme

Talking Stick Resort Arena, 201 E. Jefferson Street, Phoenix, 800.745.3000, ticketmaster.com, various times, Thursday, June 23, through Sunday, June 26, $20-$80. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

A FASHIONABLE

NARRATIVE

Intersection of fashion and art exhibit brings history to life

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Alyssa Tufts » The Entertainer! istory is getting a fashionable twist with the “Defining Moments: 50 Years of Fashion” exhibit at the Phoenix

Art Museum. Through August 7, fashion-lovers and visitors alike can see the smartly laid-out exhibition showcasing 50 years of history through clothing and accessories. The exhibit features iconic pieces from brands such as Chanel, Yves St. Laurent, Alexander McQueen and Givenchy. In addition to the clothing items, there are also rare accessories dating back to the 1650s with intricate detailing and shoes. The Arizona Costume Institute, the support organization for the fashion design department at Phoenix Art Museum, helped make the exhibition a reality through their financial contributions. This was accomplished through purchasing acquisitions for the permanent fashion design collection, says Arizona Costume Institute President Judy Steers. Fashion Design curator at Phoenix Art Museum, Dennita Sewell, has spent the last 16 years using her previous experience and expertise to elevate the Fashion Design Department through her many innovative and intricate exhibitions.

“It’s a continuous search by Dennita and ACI through her leadership to find pieces for the collection that fill the need for specific reasons that are determined by Dennita and her expertise,” Steers says. Sewell curated the popular “Hollywood Costume” exhibit in 2014 and the “White Shirt According to Me. Gianfranco Ferre” prior to “Defining Moments: 50 Years of Fashion.” “Just to put it in perspective, we’re really only one of a handful of archives like this in an art museum nationally. It’s very exciting that it has grown here in Phoenix to become a nationally recognized effort and program,” Sewell says. Part of that growth is credit to not only the exhibition’s visual and historical impact, but the educational aspects as well. “We are very interested in the involvement of students, we appreciate students and their relationship with the museum and the use of this collection as a place of study,” Sewell says. “I think they serve as an important historical aspect for study and research, as well as just stimulating conversation about the history of each piece,” Steers says. “I think it’s so important to provide the opportunity for others. Whether they’re in education or design, they can come and study these pieces and glean knowledge and inspiration.” Inspiration is in abundance at the “50 Years of Fashion” exhibit given the

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MAY 2016

aesthetically pleasing layout and design of the historical clothing, accessories, cards, magazines and newspapers. It is smartly displayed in the Ellman Fashion Design Gallery and Orme Lewis Gallery, accompanied by New York artist Ruben Toledo’s “Time Travel Series” pen and ink drawings. The drawings were produced into black life-sized vinyl illustrations that decorate the exhibit’s walls through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. “The job here was to be inspired by the different eras from 18th century to now, so I tried to create a graphic time machine, wind tunnel of time rushing through it,” Toledo says. The collection dates from 18th century to present, including men’s, women’s and children’s dress and accessories. “We tried to pull out something from every decade, something from every era, that would show the breadth of this collection and how important it is to our city,” Sewell says. The curator of fashion design says she thought of what things would be entertaining for people to see at a fashion collection. Enter the many rare and intricate accessories. In addition to the many clothing items on display, there is also a shoe wall detailing the brief history of the shoe along with rare handbags, jewelry, gloves and others.

The oldest piece in the collection is a pair of European leather gloves from 1650, a gift of the Arizona Costume Institute. The accessories case also includes Largnette tortoise shell glasses from 1876, an 18-karat gold Chatelaine watch from 1840, early 20th century Lemaire opera glasses and a rare Shell Minaudiere from Judith Leiber made out of sea urchin shell with a gold-plated lid from 1976. “What I’ve learned from these amazing designers, is how they make things. It’s all about the anatomy, patterns, draping on the body, but also, there’s a whole other art going on, a whole poetry. It’s a poetry you can’t put your finger on, and fashion more than any other art form is the flavor of the time,” Toledo says. Some notable pieces include a 1928 metal sequins on silk tulle Chanel dress, an 1885 Charles Frederick Worth silk brocade and silk satin evening dress, a 1965 Cristóbal Balenciaga cotton lace and silk chiffon dress and cape and a U.S. Army Doughboy uniform from 1918. “Each garment reveals its own story and background about the textile industry, about the culture of the time, about the people who left their DNA on these garments,” Steers says. Steers says many of the items on display in the exhibit were purchased by the Arizona Costume Institute through meticulous searching. Since joining

together in 1966, the Arizona Costume Institute has helped to acquire and preserve garments and accessories of historical and aesthetic significance. “Arizona Costume Institute and the Fashion Design department have been on a upward trajectory for the past few years and we haven’t nearly peaked. Neither the Arizona Costume Institute in its support nor the fashion design department,” Steers says. The president says she hopes to not only continue the progress they’ve made, but outreach that is international, national and local. “I would like to expand the opportunities we’re already creating and being inclusive of the many facets of the design industry and continue to move the organization [Arizona Costume Institute] toward excellence in its objectives and goals in every way,” Steers says. The “Defining Moments: 50 Years of Fashion at Phoenix Art Museum” Exhibit will be on display until Aug. 7 in the Ellman Fashion Design Gallery and Orme Lewis Gallery at the Phoenix Art Museum. “It’s so important that fashion and art students understand that history is alive, and here’s where you see it… it brings things to life and makes it so relevant,” Toledo says. “You can’t have art and you can’t create the future without this past.”

“Defining Moments: 50 Years of Fashion” Exhibit Phoenix Art Museum, 1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, 602.257.1880, phxart.org, through August 7, $10-$15.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MAY 2016

THE EXTRAORDINAIRE

STYLE » ENVY » PASSION » FASHION » BEAUTY » DESIGN

STRIPPING DOWN The Naked Magic Show leaves nothing to the imagination Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

ike Tyler and Christopher Wayne of the Naked Magic Show are full of puns. There’s nothing up their sleeves for this performance. Great magicians don’t need pants. And then there’s the obligatory comments about magic wands. Fans can expect all of that and more when the Aussie duo performs at Symphony Hall on Thursday, May 12. “As you can imagine from the name, the Naked Magic Show, we literally strip away the magic stereotypes from the top hat to the cape to the magic wand to perform the funniest and cheekiest magic show ever,” says Tyler, via telephone with Wayne from Australia. “There’s never been a show like this,” Wayne adds. “We believe it’s the funniest magic show you’ve ever seen. The audience has the best time. For Mike and I, this has hands down been the most amazing, bloody experience of our lives.” The duo says its show is special because it attracts an audience that’s different from the usual magic gigs. “Both of us, together, have been doing magic for some time,” Tyler says. “We thought how do we attract an audience who otherwise wouldn’t see a normal magic show? We thought we would create a naughty magic show. “When we started to design the show together, it was about when ‘Magic Mike’ came out. My name is Mike and I was having a lot of stripper-related jokes thrown at me—‘How big is your magic wand?’ ‘Will you make my clothes disappear?’ Our show is naughty and cheeky, but there’s real magic in it. But every single person on the planet loves magic or

nudity or both. So there you go.” Magic is a longtime love for both Tyler and Wayne. Wayne’s grandfather introduced him to magic—although it was a bit more innocent. When he was 21, he made a career out of it. Tyler worked a 9 to 5 “boring job in banking.” “I traveled overseas and coming back after a couple months, I decided that if there’s one thing I can do, it was to pursue my passion at the time, which was magic,” Tyler says. The duo did a “taste of America” tour last October and the jaunt did better than expected. “We can’t wait to come back and bring it across as many cities as possible in America and Canada,” Tyler adds. “It turns out that America likes naked Australian magicians more than Australia. We’ve never had a better reception to the show.” Tyler and Wayne admit that it was a little unnerving to get naked in front of each other. But the jitters eventually gave way to the quest for success. “We hadn’t been naked in front of big groups of people before,” Wayne explains. “We were nervous about standing naked in front of a room full of people. Now that we’ve done that, it works really well. That moment I stand naked and the audience goes absolutely nuts, I feel invincible. There’s no greater feeling.”

The Naked Magic Show

Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second Street, Phoenix, http://bit. ly/1SZWVb7, 8 p.m. Thursday, May 12, $21.58-$80.94.

Need a Tux? PROMS - WEDDINGS - QUINCEANERAS

$49.95 - 1 free with 4 paid rentals

Angels Tuxedos

6622 W. Camelback Rd, Glendale

623-848-3331 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MAY 2016

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

TAPPING INTO

HISTORY Teenager takes role of Anne Frank seriously Elliott Adams » The Entertainer!

s the member of a Peoria performance troupe, Sarah Pansing was looking forward to showing her stuff at Disneyland this month. She was so excited, in fact, that even though she wanted to audition for the role of Anne Frank in the May production of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” she bypassed it. But then fate stepped in. The troupe’s visit to Disneyland was postponed until June, and then Sarah was free to audition

for the Hale Centre Theatres production. There was one problem, though: The auditions were over. The 15-year-old Arizona School for the Arts freshman stepped into action and persuaded the Hale Centre Theatre staff to let her prove her mettle during callbacks. Now she’s onstage several times a week. “I was so excited,” Sarah says. “I’ve wanted to play this role for a really long time because I’ve always had a really strong connection with Anne, and I was just so excited when I got this part.” The play is based on true events during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam in World War II and is influenced heavily by Anne’s personal writings, later titled “The Diary of a Young Girl.” Sarah read Anne Frank’s diary to prepare for the role and interpret the character. “She has a really wide range of emotions; one minute she’ll be happy and the next minute she’s crying,” she says. “It’s definitely hard to channel all the things that are going through her head, but reading the diary helped me understand her a bit more.”

The role is a professional one, and that’s something that initially intimidated Sarah. The entire cast and the director, M. Seth Reines, were welcoming, though. To learn more about Anne, holocaust survivor Elly Orin visited with the cast. Sarah, who is Jewish, said she learned about the holocaust in school and in her temple’s Sunday school. Hearing firsthand accounts from a survivor, however, made it meaningful. The play isn’t all about the story. She said there are striking technical components. Sarah said the set, sound and lighting of the play add to the emotion of the story and enhance the audience’s overall experience.

“The Diary of Ann Frank”

Hale Centre Theatre, 50 W. Page Avenue, Gilbert, 480.497.1181, haletheatrearizona.com, various times through Saturday, May 14, $18-$28. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

CELEBRATING

THE ART The greatest choreographer comes to Ballet Arizona

Kenneth LaFave » The Entertainer! Rosalie O’Connor » Photographer

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MAY 2016

ho’s the greatest novelist ever? Or the greatest painter? The answers differ according to taste. Tolstoy and Dickens, Rembrandt and Picasso. There are many answers—and no answer. But Ib Andersen makes no qualification about the greatest choreographer. “George Balanchine is the greatest choreographer of all time,” says the artistic director of Ballet Arizona. “Decades later his works are still relevant, fresh and challenging for dancers and the audience.” Andersen comes by his viewpoint honestly. The Danish-born ballet master was the last male principal chosen by Balanchine for New York City Ballet, and he premiered several of Balanchine’s major works in the early 1980s. When Andersen took over Ballet Arizona in 2000, he set about turning it into a “Balanchine company”—one emphasizing the technique and style that Balanchine brought to ballet. Balanchine (1904–1982) modernized ballet, sharpening attacks, lengthening line, and incorporating gestures from jazz and other dance traditions. This month, Ballet Arizona performs its annual all-Balanchine program, this time featuring three works: “Apollo” (1928), “Walpurgisnacht” (1967) and “Symphony in Three Movements” (1972). The trio represents Balanchine in a variety of creative modes, respectively telling a story out of mythology, saluting womanhood, and exploring the intimate relationship of music to dance. Musicality—the pairing of musical phrase and danced gesture—was the hallmark of all Balanchine choreography. “His musicality was unmatched,

whether it’s a ballet with a more specific story, like ‘Apollo,’ or choreography that simply celebrates the art, as you see in ‘Symphony in Three Movements,’” Andersen says. Cutting across all three ballets in the program—and across Balanchine’s output in general—is a celebration of the body and its capacity for movement. “A lot of choreographers may have a strong concept about what they’re trying to do, but very little skill in the language of choreography. With Balanchine, though, you always see ballet for ballet’s sake, no matter what the concept is. It’s always about the beauty of the body,” Andersen says. Putting it as simply as possible, Andersen asserts: “He could do anything.” Balanchine was born Georges Balanchivadze in the nation of Georgia, and moved West when the Soviet Union absorbed his country. In Paris in the 1920s, he danced for the great impresario Serge Diaghilev and made his first ballets for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. He eventually moved to New York, where he choreographed musicals and films and at length linked up with an administrative mind that could make his artistic dreams come true: Lincoln Kirstein. Together, Kirstein and Balanchine launched New York City Ballet in the 1940s. The company—along with its school, the School of American Ballet—continues to flourish as a vanguard of American classical dance. “Apollo” was Balanchine’s first major ballet. The music was by fellow Russian ex-pat Igor Stravinsky. The two men became lifelong friends, and Balanchine used more than a dozen Stravinsky scores

as inspiration for his ballets, including “Symphony in Three Movements.” That ballet was made the year following Stravinsky’s death, in homage to the great composer. It is not a widely performed ballet, even among Balanchine companies such as Ballet Arizona. Though he is a Balanchine protégé who learned 35 of the master’s works in his first three months at New York City Ballet, Andersen has never performed or staged it before. Balanchine ballets require Balanchine-trained dancers. “To do Balanchine ballets the best tool is to teach the dancers how to dance him. He is like Petipa”—the 19th century choreographer of “Swan Lake”—but “much more evolved. He has that purity of line, something that will never go out of style. It’s the same thing you see in Greek sculpture.” When audiences see Ballet Arizona dance Balanchine, they are seeing not only a Balanchine-trained company, but one of the best in the country. Ballet Arizona’s reputation is international, and critics from the New York Times regularly visit. The Times even named Ballet Arizona’s “Nutcracker” “one of the three best outside New York.” In addition to turning Ballet Arizona into a great performing company, Andersen has also taken pains to improve its infrastructure. When he arrived, the company trained and rehearsed in a cramped space in a strip mall. Andersen spearheaded a fund drive to get his dancers the space they deserve, and in 2014 opened a new, 45,000-squre-feet facility at 28th and Washington streets, purchased and renovated at the cost of $13 million.

Ballet Arizona’s “All Balanchine”

Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second Street, Phoenix, balletaz.org, various times, Thursday, May 5, through Sunday, May 8, starts at $25.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

A WORLD OF

SONG Phoenix Boys Choir sings and learns about ‘The Happiest Songs on Earth’ Kenneth LaFave » The Entertainer!

arents, beware: Music education can be a gateway to other forms of learning. “We explore the subjects we sing about,” says Georg Stangelberger, artistic director of the Phoenix Boys Choir. “When we sing about carnations, we study the world of carnations. When we sing a work composed during the Holocaust, we study the Holocaust.” The choir, comprised of boys ages 7 to 14 and one of the most highly regarded youth choirs in the country, will celebrate everything Disney with a concert called “The Happiest Songs on Earth” on Saturday, May 7, at the Mesa Performing Arts Center, 1833 W. Southern Avenue. The program will include songs from “Snow White,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King” and “Frozen.” Did the boys in the choir “study” Disney by going to Disneyland? Not exactly. But the experience of learning the songs kicked off an exploration of fairy tales. Music touches on everything somehow, and using that as a platform for understanding the world has been a mainstay of the choir since its founding in 1947. The boys sing in many different languages and the touring choir—the most select group among the group’s 125 members—tours other countries.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MAY 2016

That kind of broad-based exposure to cultural learning wooed Oleg Shvets away from DECA. After 17 years with the group that specializes in training young entrepreneurs, Shvets recently came on board as the Phoenix Boys Choir’s new executive director. “We’re not just a choir,” Shvets explains. “Yes, we provide a first-rate music education, but we also develop leadership and communication skills. These are things you can’t learn in a classroom, things that will serve young minds whatever fields they wish to go into.” Shvets says he is happy to deal with the business side of the Boys Choir while Stangelberger provides the music direction and education. He says he hopes to broaden the image of the choir. “We need to strengthen the Boys Choir brand and expand our reach to include a more diverse kind of boy. We need to reach communities that may not have the means to join the choir. We don’t want to accept socioeconomic status as a reason for not being in the choir,” Shvets says. No subject is apparently too small or too big for the choir to explore as it rehearses. Singing about carnations led to a study of the kinds of carnations found round the world. Singing about a 16th century battle—a choral work called “La Bataille de Marignan”—generated a discussion of war and the possibility of a

vision of global peace. “We don’t only do classical music,” Stangelberger says. “We did a work incorporating African rhythms that brought us to study African music.” Stangelberger was so impressed with the history and potential of the Phoenix Boys Choir that in 1986 he left his prestigious position of associate artistic director for the world’s best-known youth choir— The Vienna Boys Choir—to take over from Harvey K. Smith, the founder of the Phoenix group. After 30 years, he intends to stick to the finish. Following the May 7 concert by the organization’s massed choirs, the touring choir will breeze through Eastern Canada with stops in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, and then go on to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. In D.C., the choir will visit the Holocaust Museum and will perform “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a work based on poems written by children in the concentration camps. Who knows? Maybe music education can even lead to world peace.

Phoenix Boys Choir

Mesa Performing Arts Center, 1833 W. Southern Avenue, Mesa Community College, Mesa, boyschoir.org, 7 p.m. Saturday, May 7, $18-$28. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

REAL DEAL

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MAY 2016

Broadway, TV star Kristin Chenoweth wants audiences to know who she is Kenneth LaFave » The Entertainer!

ristin Chenoweth wants people to know who she is. And you thought you already knew the star who originated Glinda in “Wicked,” played Annabeth Schott on “West Wing,” won an Emmy for her role in ABC’s “Pushing Daisies,” appeared in five episodes of “Glee” and helped bring “Promises, Promises” and “On the Twentieth Century” back to Broadway. Nope. You won’t really know her until you’ve heard her in concert, which is possible when she performs with The Phoenix Symphony Saturday, May 21, and Sunday, May 22. For times and ticket information, visit phoenixsymphony.org. “I believe doing concerts has helped me define what kind of artist I want to be,” says the Oklahoma-born actress and chanteuse via email. “It’s one thing to be behind a role in a show or TV or movie. But when you’re decided material, and what you wanna say, not just as an artist, but as a human, it helps you know how you want to be remembered.” What will she be saying in her Phoenix Symphony concerts? Getting the answer to that is why we buy tickets. But it’s not by chance that Chenoweth is appearing with a symphony orchestra, for she credits her classical training as a young artist at Oklahoma City University with being able to do what she does. “If I hadn’t had the training from OCU and my beloved mentor, Florence Birdwell, I for sure wouldn’t have had the

technique to get through many shows a week,” Chenoweth says. “On Broadway we do eight a week. Training to sing a show of any kind is like training for a race. Only it’s really a marathon, because you never really stop. Unless you quit altogether. Which would never occur to me because I’m an artist and know nothing else! Ha.” Chenoweth spent the 1990s on the edge of stardom, appearing in Broadway shows such as the revival of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” Then, in 2003, the role of a lifetime showed up: Glinda, the Good Witch in the smash hit “Wizard of Oz” prequel, “Wicked.” Her performance “set the gold standard” for the part, said Playbill, and indeed, it set a standard for her own future stardom. “West Wing” and a ream of Broadway offers soon followed. Chenoweth has spent a lot of her career in the development of revivals, older Broadway shows that are brought back after decades to engage with new audiences. She does this out of sheer love for the form of the musical, helping to remind younger theater-goers of the charms attending such shows as Jerome Kern’s “Music in the Air” and Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide.” Of all of her revivals, it is perhaps “The Apple Tree,” with music and lyrics by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick of “Fiddler on the Roof ” fame, that she says maybe her favorite. The first act is based on Mark Twain’s “Diary of Adam and Eve.” “It doesn’t get better than the act one of that show, ‘Adam and Eve.’ The minute the French horn starts in the overture, you

see Adam and Eve, and their evolution as woman and man, then as a couple. Mark Twain would love the music and lyrics. I believe he would’ve been so proud of that show,” Chenoweth says. The revivals are important, she adds, to keep the musical alive. “I’m happy to show my younger audiences what these shows are about. It’s important to do these gems to keep it all going.” Even Chenoweth has career disappointments, and “the one that got away” from her was... “For sure Millie in ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie.’ I had to make a tough decision about going to do a TV show. It was a real heartbreaker. But ultimately, it was the right decision...It’s all part of the Big Picture. Not always easy, but usually turns out right.” So, who is she after all? Someone, she says, who cares that “when audiences come see my concert, they have fun.” “I want people to know who I am, not just as a singer but as a woman, friend, artist, neighbor, American and lover of God.”

Kristin Chenoweth with the Phoenix Symphony

Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second Street, Phoenix, 602.495.1999, phoenixsymphony.org, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 21, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22, $33-$98. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

MAKING

‘Sesame Street Live’ explores cultural differences

FRIENDS L

Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer! ittle monsters can learn about friendship and cultures through song and dance while having plenty of fun when “Sesame Street Live: Make a New Friend” comes to the Valley. Join Grover and the rest of the “Sesame Street” gang when they meet Grover’s new friend from India, Chamki. The show focuses on embracing new traditions and learning that even though someone may be different doesn’t mean you can’t be friends. The 90-minute performance includes songs that kids can dance to like “The Elmo Slide,” “Rakhi Road” and “ABC Hip Hop.” Other tunes include parodies of modern pop hits from artists like Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and Bruno Mars. “Sesame Street Live” performer Chris Blackmon plays a few different parts in the show, but he likes to say he’s best friends with Cookie Monster. He loves “Make a New Friend” because it can be enjoyed by any age group. “It’s a Broadway-style show, so there are lights, effects and confetti,” he says. “The music is so much fun, the songs get stuck in your head [and] the dancing is amazing. We do the show for ages 2 to 5 in general, but parents and older kids will love it. I am 30 and I enjoy watching the show myself.” He enjoys the plot-driven storyline as well. Kids can learn an important life lesson thanks to Chamki and her new friends. “It’s nice to learn about different cultures,” Blackmon says. “It makes you more empathetic and sympathetic, and it makes you a more well-rounded person. It’s nice to know that not everyone is brought up the same way. People have different ways of life, and different ways of approaching situations based on how they were brought up. Learning about those differences will make you a better person.” In all, the audience will learn that everyone is special in their own way—no matter where they come from. “You shouldn’t be afraid to make friends and if at first you don’t understand someone try to find a common ground. It’s OK to have differences but you can still be friends,” Blackmon says.

“Sesame Street Live”

Comerica Theatre, 400 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, 602.379.2800, sesamestreetlive. com, times vary Saturday, May 14, through Sunday, May 15, $15-$45. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

JURASSIC

BREW

Beer ‘N Bones helps museum with programs, exhibits Ken Abramczyk » The Entertainer!

peed dating with scientists on a Friday night may not sound appealing to some, but the odds are these meetups will lead to revelations and knowledge

about science. If that’s not hunky or hot enough (and perhaps a little too geeky) for you, there will be the tasting of craft beers that night, too. Featuring a 5-minute visit for guests with scientists, Beer ‘N Bones offers local craft beer and savory fare from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, April 11, at the Arizona Museum of Natural History, 53 N. Macdonald in Mesa. Kathy Eastman, the museum’s curator of education, says this “speed dating” event is “like a game show.” “We get scientists from ASU, University of Arizona and we even had a scientist come in from Salt Lake City,”

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Eastman says. “You get 5 minutes and then the bell rings and you move onto another scientist. You meet a lot of scientists and you have a chance to talk to them later about their research.” Topics can range from archaeology, entomology, paleontology and space to even rocket science, as a Boeing scientists appeared at the event one year. Scientists at this year’s event include City of Phoenix archaeologist Laurene Montero, Dr. Dawn Gouge, entomologist in integrated pest management at U of A, and Charles Rolsky, a marine biologist at ASU. The event, open to those 21 and older, also includes science-related activities, food, beverages and raffle prizes. For additional separate food tickets, guests will get tastes of chocolate from Cerreta Chocolate Co. of Glendale. Don’t leave out the beer, and the chance for about 10 local brewers to present their latest lagers and ales to the public. The museum works with the Arizona Home Brewers Association on craft beers showcased for the event. “We have a variety of beer, and guests have a chance to taste local craft beer,” Eastman says. Guests can discuss different flavors with the brewers and even smell the actual hops used in the beers. Admission is $15 in advance at azmnh.org or $20 at the door. A VIP ticket costs $40 and provides extra perks, such as early admission at 6 p.m. and a souvenir pint glass. Wine and nonalcoholic beverages will be available

for those who do not want to drink beer. Food and beverage tickets also can be purchased for $3 each or four tickets for $10. Proceeds from the cash bar, food, raffles and silent auction will fund exhibits and programming. Funds raised in previous years helped the museum purchase new dinosaurs for a display depicting them on a mountain. “This year the funding is for educational programs,” Eastman says. Funds also help the museum conduct a “free day” (no admission) for the public. Last year the museum held a Pluto Party on a free day. The event brings together

demographics that may not have an appreciation of science, but develop one once they visit the museum. “It’s fun to do,” Eastman says. “I have discovered that the people in the beer community are really in the spirit of showing off their product.”

Beer ‘N Bones

Arizona Museum of Natural History, 53 N. Macdonald, Mesa, 480.644.2230, azmnh.org, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, April 11, $15-$40

FAME IN FRAME

Harrison, Clapton among Pattie Boyd’s photographs

Ken Abramczyk » The Entertainer! he is best known for her marriages to George Harrison and Eric Clapton, which she chronicled in her book,

“Wonderful Tonight.” But Pattie Boyd is also known for her photography as a member of the Royal Photographic Society and her photographs of Harrison, Clapton and The Beatles, among others. She joins another iconic photographer, Henry Diltz, at “Behind the Lens with Pattie Boyd and Henry Diltz” Friday, April 1, at the Musical Instrument Museum, 723 E. Mayo Blvd. in Phoenix. Diltz is known for shooting more than 400 album cover images in a career that spanned decades and more than 400,000 images. Fans were connected by his visual photos to the band’s music, as he shot the Morrison Hotel cover for The Doors, the famous front porch cover for Crosby, Stills and Nash and another iconic cover of James Taylor. Boyd was a successful Vogue model in the 1960s and 1970s. As the wife of Harrison and Clapton, and the inspiration of Harrison’s “Something” and Clapton’s “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight,” her marriages put her in the WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

position of photographing not just her two husbands, but fellow Beatles, members of Cream and friends such as Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood. According to the Morrison Hotel Gallery, which is presenting “Behind the Lens,” she has many unique Polaroids and vintage prints never seen before. Boyd also experimented with printing techniques and studied great master photographers of the past as a member of the Royal Photographic Society. Today she explores many avenues in color and black and white photos, which besides musicians, includes landscapes, travel and flowers. Boyd’s collection showcases photographs. She will discuss stories about the photos with the audience during the live tour and PowerPoint presentation. The photographs will not be displayed in an exhibit setting, but Boyd and Diltz will present a one-time live tour and discussion. “It’s a talk about my life in photographs,” Boyd says. She adds that it was difficult to choose which photographs to discuss on the museum tour. “Some are funny, some are nice to look at, but it’s really my story in photographs.” Among them are her classic “Rose Garden” photo of Boyd and Harrison. Harrison is shirtless and standing behind Boyd, looking off to the side and slightly

downward, while she looks straight ahead at the camera, wearing a blue top that is very colorful against a backdrop of roses. Of course, she took many shots of the Beatles in the late 1960s including their much-heralded trip to India in 1968. She took several photos in the city of Rishikesh at the maharishi’s ashram, where The Beatles studied meditation. In some of the photos, she employed a technique that mimicked a gold/sepia tone process. Her photos of Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr showed a relaxing time for the Beatles. In one of the photos, she captures Harrison and the maharishi and in the background, a roofer works on the construction of a building in anticipation of the many meditators who are expected to visit. “The maharishi gave us a private talk,” Boyd says. It was a relaxing time, she adds. “We were slightly privileged,” Boyd says. Later during her marriage to Clapton, she shot several of him performing and also seated by himself, playing guitar. She also had photos of Clapton with Mick Jagger and with Cream’s Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. “I shot my friends, I just shot all my friends,” Boyd said. “I took a few with the Beatles, because it was a wonderful time. My photos of Eric were also fun. I enjoyed

taking photographs of him.” Ronnie Wood, who played with Rod Stewart and the Faces and joined the Rolling Stones, used Boyd’s photographs for a painting he was working on for Andrew Lloyd Webber, Boyd says. In the foreground of the painting, one of the figures is Elton John. She enjoys black and white and still uses her dark room. She can spend hours on one image, she says. In terms of her favorite photos, it changes “depending on what mood” she’s in. Several of her photos capture the solemn and meditative Harrison. One she particularly likes in which he is looking at her, and “he looks so beautiful,” she says. Boyd hopes museum visitors will enjoy the live show and presentation. “I would like for people to enjoy my photographs, and if they are inspired to buy my photos, I will even be more thrilled,” Boyd says.

“Behind the Lens with Pattie Boyd and Henry Diltz” Musical Instrument Museum, 4725 E. Mayo Boulevard, Phoenix, 480.478.6000, themim.org, 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 1, $28.50-$41.50.

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE APRIL 2016

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

‘MUSICAL DEMOCRACY’ ‘America’s classical music’ is alive and well at Jazz Day at The Nash Kenneth LaFave» The Entertainer!

very month is jazz month to the lovers of “America’s classical music,” as Wynton Marsalis has called it. But some months are more so than others, and April reigns supreme among them. April is National Jazz Month, and April 30 also happens to be International Jazz Day. Phoenix’s premiere jazz venue, The Nash, is celebrating both. Joel Robin Goldenthal—since 2000 the executive director of Jazz in Arizona, the nonprofit that runs the downtown concert site—says the Nash has taken off with unexpected success since opening four years ago in April 2012. “The Nash has created a real cross-pollination between musicians, students, teachers and the public, breaking up the silo mentality and creating a real community,” Goldenthal says. The “silo mentality” refers to the isolation felt by jazz musicians and jazz fans who lack a focal point for their passion. Until the Nash came along, that isolation was painful. But now, every weekend, the intimate, 126-seat facility is home to a range of jazz talents, local, national and international. Sunday nights are home to an open jam session that attracts saxophonists, trumpeters, trombonists, pianists, guitarists, bass players and drummers from all over the state. It’s an outlet like no other. “Everybody tells me, ‘I get to play the music I want to play.’ The most important thing is playing with other people and listening to each other. A lot of value in the jazz experience goes way beyond the music.” To return to Marsalis, the country’s unofficial ambassador for jazz and the head of the jazz program at Lincoln Center in New York, jazz is “musical democracy,” in which musicians alternate playing solos with backing up others in their solos. Goldenthal expands on the theme: “The hallmarks of jazz capture the

spirit of America: cooperation, sensitivity to others, but also creativity and ultimate self-expression. If you want to create your own musical voice, jazz is the vehicle for that, not pop music.” Jazz was born in New Orleans, when Africans and Creoles began to use Western European instruments in unique new ways, re-experiencing traditional harmonies in fresh combinations, and adding African-based rhythms. Its popularity spread across America, reaching a peak in the early- to mid-20th century. The rise of rock and contemporary pop eclipsed jazz, which is today heard by only a small percentage of music-lovers. Popularity aside, however, the form’s intrinsic value cannot be denied. Goldenthal says he believes that education and exposure are paths to jazz’s re-emergence as a widespread cultural force. “I’ve seen the decline of jazz in American culture,” says Goldenthal, a jazz pianist. “But it is still revered worldwide. It is really our patriotic music.” To help teach young Americans on their native music, The Nash runs an educational arm. Every summer, more than 300 Valley students participate in its jazz day camps, where they learn about aspects of jazz not taught in the public schools. As for exposure, that’s ingrained in The Nash’s very origins. “The Nash began when Herb Eli, who’s a prominent local attorney, civil rights advocate and jazz lover, called me up one day and said, ‘Joel, I would like you to open a jazz venue in downtown Phoenix for the purpose of giving young musicians performance opportunities and building a new audience for jazz.’” The mission has never changed. Musicians gather to share their takes on jazz standards or to play new music, and audiences gather to hear things that simply aren’t available anywhere else. The Nash is building that new audience very slowly, but if crowded Friday and Saturday nights are any indication, it is succeeding.

The Nash’s name is no random moniker. Lewis Nash, Phoenix-born drummer, is currently one of jazz’s most esteemed artists. “We decided to name the venue for Lewis Nash because he embodies everything we stand for. He’s a revered musician and educator and, above all, he is highly regarded for his personal values and the man he is.” Nash plays twice a year at his namesake venue and consults on the facility’s artistic direction. The Nash’s success has surprised its sponsors, but there is no time to rest on laurels. “Our success has surpassed our human and financial resources, so we thought a consultation would help us

build our infrastructure,” Goldenthal says. The board hired Marty Ashby, a prominent jazz consultant, who has previously worked out jazz programs for such institutions as the Smithsonian in D.C. and Phoenix’s own Musical Instrument Museum. The future is looking good for The Nash, but the present is already fairly amazing. “It’s just one amazing day after another at this place.”

The Nash

110 E. Roosevelt Street Phoenix 85004 602.795.0464 thenash.org WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

COMEDIC TWIST

Kenneth LaFave» The Entertainer!

hakespeare in Italian? An opera that’s genuinely funny? What’s going on here? “Falstaff” is what’s going on. To be specific, it’s going on April 1 through April 3 in Phoenix, and again April 9 and April 10 in Tucson, courtesy Arizona Opera. Verdi’s last opera and only comedy, “Falstaff” spins a tale of the plump, jolly, farcical title character who is featured in several of Shakespeare’s plays, but never given a play of his own. With librettist Arrigo Boito, Verdi fashioned a single story line from episodes in “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Henry IV” parts I and II, and “Henry V.” “Verdi and Boito combined scenes from Shakespeare’s plays to create a multidimensional ‘Falstaff’ that Shakespeare himself probably wouldn’t have recognized,” says Chuck Hudson, the New York-based director who has staged the work for Arizona Opera. The famous saying in theater, that “dying is easy, but comedy is hard,” certainly applied to Verdi, who had previously composed some of opera’s greatest tragedies, including “Aida,” “La Traviata” and WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

“Rigoletto.” In those operas, characters die in ways ranging from knife wounds to suffocation, but the laughs are hard to find. Verdi had even set two of Shakespeare’s tragedies as operas: Macbeth and Othello. He once considered opera-tizing the Bard’s early comedy, “The Taming of the Shrew,” but found himself lacking in the ability to compose comic scenes. So what turned Verdi, approaching the age of 80, at last to comedy? “It took him a long time to figure comedy out,” Hudson says. “It took him a long time to write and he made many changes in a series of productions that were almost like workshops.” “This was no game for him. He took comedy seriously.” Comedy takes special insights that sometimes more serious theatrical artists lack. “Comic actors can often do dramatic roles well, but dramatic actors seldom can do comedy well,” Hudson notes. Hudson is taking his comedy pretty seriously, too. Instead of placing it in the late medieval era in which the action purportedly takes place, Hudson decided to set it in the Elizabethan environment of Shakespeare’s England. He even asked the designer to re-create the

Globe Theatre—the theater in which Shakespeare’s plays were originally produced—onstage. It is possible to buy tickets and actually sit on the stage of the venue as if one is sitting in the Globe itself. “Pushing this production to Shakespeare’s time allowed us to create the Globe Theatre as a focal point,” Hudson says. “It also meant we could do much more more interesting costuming. The medieval era of the Henry plays was drab and dark, but Elizabethan dress was colorful in design and style.” The story of Falstaff concerns middle-class morality and how it played out among the people of high, middle and low status in that era. Believe it or not, that can be funny. “I love doing comedies. I love the timing involved, and the intricacies. Comic operas are incredibly specific as far as action and movement. Every black dot on the page”—every note in the opera’s musical score—“has something exact and specific for the singer to do.” Staging an opera, as opposed to a play, also means that a director must bow to the music for its sense of timing. “In a play, I might be able to move people around the stage faster. But if I do

Falstaff brings Shakespearian laughs and lyrical grandeur to Arizona Opera

that in the middle of an aria, the singer will get winded.” The trick to staging opera, Hudson says, is hearing the music and then “sensing the people and the action” based on the music. That, and “staying out of the way of the singers.” “Falstaff” concludes the 2015-16 season for Arizona Opera, which recently announced its 2016-17 season. Following a benefit concert, Arizona Opera will open with one of its first Dvorak opera, “Rusalka,” to be performed in Phoenix November 11-13. The remainder of the Phoenix season follows: “Madama Butterfly,” Puccini’s masterpiece and one of the most popular operas ever composed, February 3 through February 5. “Riders of the Purples Sage,” the world premiere of an opera by local composer Craig Bohmler, March 3 through March 5. “Cinderella” (La Cenerentola), Rossini’s take on the timeless fairytale, April 7 through April 9. Arizona Opera was founded 45 years ago in Tucson as the Tucson Opera Company, and expanded to Phoenix shortly after. For tickets and more information, go to www.azopera.org.

ALL THAT

JAZZ

Chandler gearing up to show off local artists’ musical prowess

Marjorie Rice » The Entertainer! n April 2, stand on a sidewalk in downtown Chandler, close your eyes and you may think you’ve been transported to New Orleans’ French Quarter, with strains of jazz coming from every direction. On that spring Saturday, jazz performers will set up on the sidewalks in front of five downtown shops to entertain music fans as part of the 17th annual Chandler Jazz Festival, April 1 and 2. Admission is free. The event kicks off Friday night, with a blues vibe on the new Main Stage in the Downtown Library Plaza, 178 E. Commonwealth Avenue. It swings into the sidewalk jazz on Saturday, followed by a night of jazz on the Main Stage. Blues bands include the Levi Platero Band, Paul Cruize and the Blues Crew and headliners RD Olson Blues Band. Saturday night’s Main Stage action kicks off with the South Mountain Community College Latin Jazz Big Band, followed by the Gabriel Mark Hasselbach Quintet and winding up with headliners El Chicano. And that’s not all. In addition to the sidewalk music, blues and jazz entertainers will perform at the Ostrich Lounge, El Zocalo,

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Vintage 95 and the Original Chop Shop restaurants. Each night ends with a jam session at Vintage 95. The festival has been swinging downtown Chandler since 2000, and it’s grown to become Arizona’s largest free jazz event, with music, a beer and wine garden, vendors, food trucks and more. Bart Salzman is artistic director and founder of the festival. He got the gig in 1992, when Rich Dlugas, then director of community services for Chandler, asked him to put together a festival to draw people downtown. “Chandler had a Jazz Fest,” Salzman says, “But they had it in a park east of downtown and they wanted to bring it to the center of the city. My vision was to create a French Quarter feel with music everywhere. I made a couple of calls, and in a week we had $10,000 and sponsors, and we put on a festival in April 2000. In 17 years we’ve never missed a beat.” Salzman, himself a jazz trumpeter, runs the festival as a consultant for the City. “Each year we’ve attracted more famous performers and a bigger budget,” he says. “Typically we get 10,000 people over the two days, depending on the weather.” New this year is the permanent Main Stage, in the park next to the downtown library. That required a change

in scheduling, Salzman says. “The stage has no shade, so we’re not able to put bands on the stage until 5 p.m. We used to have local bands during Saturday afternoon, so we now have a lot more stuff in restaurants and on sidewalks during the day on Saturday. “We want people to know that there’s a lot going on Saturday, starting at 2:30.” Music fans can wander through downtown, shopping, snacking and enjoying the sidewalk sounds, then spread out on the grass for the evening, or head to restaurants where some of the headliner bands also will play after their Main Stage performances. And after the main show each night, they can check out the jam sessions at Vintage 95. “Those are unbelievable fun,” Salzman says. The festival includes all types of jazz–blues, old standards, modern, vocalists–again, echoing New Orleans’ eclectic mix. “If you go stand in the middle of downtown Chandler you’ll get that blending,” Salzman says. “I love that feel–it’s an exciting vibe, that’s what we try to create.” It’s called a jazz festival but Friday night the blues rule. “Glendale used to have a jazz and blues festival,” Salzman says. “They stopped doing that three years ago, and we decided to bring those bands and those fans to Chandler. We get a whole different crowd on blues night,

which is a lot of fun. “On the blues side, the Phoenix Blues Society is the sponsor. They’re my partners in picking the blues bands. We have three of the finest blues bands around. The first is from Albuquerque. They’re young guys who are really hot. The Levi Platero Band. Paul Cruize is a fixture here. He’s got the unbelievable Royce Murray on organ. And the R.D. Olson Blues Band is the real deal blues. Vocal and harmonica-led, RD Olson is the band leader. They just came back from the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. They were the top winners in the Arizona competition for blues bands. They’ve been around a long time.” Jazz night headliners El Chicano has been a standout in L.A. Latino Rock for upward of 40 years, with various artists over the years. “They’re like Santana,” Salzman says. “They’re every bit as good but they have day jobs and don’t tour as much. It’s primarily Latin pop and jazz. They get a huge audience every time.”

Chandler Jazz Festival

Downtown Chandler Library, 22 S. Delaware Street, Chandler, 480.507.7827, chandler.gov/jazz, various times, Friday, April 1, and Saturday, April 2, free.

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MARCH 2016

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

Shen Yun 52 Phoenix Chorale 53 ASU Gammage 50

PUMP

Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer! l Volo’s Piero Barone is pumped up—literally and figuratively. The charming singer in the Italian “popera” trio is pumped about Il Volo’s U.S. tour as well as the workout he just finished at a RitzCarlton “somewhere in America.” “I can’t wait to bring our show to Phoenix,” he says. “It’s been two long years.” Barone is joined in Il Volo by baritone Gianluca Ginoble and fellow tenor Ignazio Boschetto, all of whom practically grew up in the public’s eye. As teenagers, Ginoble, Barone and Boschetto were discovered on an Italian singing competition show “Ti Lascio Una Canzone” in 2009. They performed solo until the show’s creator put the three together to create a trio similar to The Three Tenors (Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti). By the fourth show, the three young men were singing together. The 23-year-old bespectacled Barone says he didn’t mind aging in the spotlight. That maturation is evident on Il Volo’s fifth studio album, Grand Amore, and on its PBS special, “Il Volo: Live from Pompeii.” But there’s always that image to uphold. “It’s great doing PBS special,” Barone says with a laugh in his thick Italian accent. “But you have to fix all the time your hair and put on makeup. We have to concentrate [in front of cameras], you’re not just with the boys, you have to improve your image.” It’s not that Il Volo’s image was tarnished. Teenage girls—and their mothers—scream so loudly at concerts

that Barone says it makes it hard to sing. The band’s career is shining brightly, too, having won awards here and abroad. Barone has a couple special places in his home for them. “We bring them home to put in our wall,” he says. “In my house, I have the award wall. I put all these awards in my wall, yes. I put the awards in the bathroom, too. Every time you go to pee you see your awards.” While Barone is a big fan of Pavarotti and Domingo, he listens to plenty of American music to get him jacked at the gym. “At the gym, I always listen to Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Pink—all these artists who get me up,” he says. “We perform four to five concerts per week. If it’s a concert day, we do just cardio, then when we have a day off, we do weights. The gym is crucial for our way of life.”

IT UP

Whether Il Volo is in the gym or on stage, music is always the focus

Il Volo

Mesa Arts Center, One E. Main St., Mesa, 480.644.6500, mesaartscenter.com, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 24, $49.50-$189.50. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

112

TAKE A BOW

Valley Youth Theatre continues to make stars

ordin Sparks. Emma Stone. Chelsea Kane. Kimiko Glenn. What do these big celeb names have in common? They’re all alum of Valley Youth Theatre (VYT), Phoenix’s premier youth theater company, where kids can get their start in entertainment and learn lifelong skills no matter what profession they choose. “VYT has helped craft some great talent,” says Skye Fallon, director of marketing and communications for VYT. “Not just celebs or those in the entertainment industry but the program helps to train kids for all of the things that are going to happen in their lives.” The theater company is in its 27th season (each season goes from August through June). VYT puts on six shows a season, including two at the Herberger Theater Center. In the productions, kids ages 5 through 19 perform in classic and new shows. Cast size depends on the show and some of this season’s favorites include “A Winnie-the-Pooh Christmas Tail,” “Pinocchio,” “Pinkalicious” and “Disney’s The Little Mermaid.” WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Michelle Talsma Everson » The Entertainer!

This month, Fallon says, some of the youth theatre’s key staff members are celebrating two decades with the company. “Bobb Cooper, the producing artistic director; Karol Cooper, resident costume designer; and Mark Fearey, resident music director have all been with VYT for 20 years this March,” she explains. “Their passion for the children they work with is amazing.” In her own career, Fallon—who has worked in youth theater for years—came to work at VYT because she wanted to work with Bobb Cooper. “I’ll totally admit that I’ve wanted to work with him since 2010 and I’ve been here since fall 2015,” she reveals. In fact, she believes that Bobb Cooper’s presence is one of the key things that set VYT apart from other youth theater companies in the area. “It’s amazing the respect kids have for Bobb; he has a set of principles for each show called ‘Bobb’s Rules of Respect.’ It’s the same rules for 7 year olds as it is for 18 year olds. He genuinely loves the kids and to see him work with them is sheer joy,”

Fallon says. “Bobb is one of the reasons the same kids keep coming back show after show.” Another unique aspect of VYT, Fallon explains, is that kids who are cast in a production do not have to pay a fee to participate. Instead, their family members are asked to volunteer if possible. “We have kids who take the bus to practice and kids who are dropped off in a Mercedes-Benz, but once they walk through that door they are all equal,” Fallon says. Instead of cast fees, production costs are covered through grants, donations and other routes. “We have the best supporters you can imagine and believe that every kid should be involved in a show if that’s where their heart is,” Fallon explains. “In addition to actors and singers, kids can be a part of the backstage crew. Not all kids are on stage.” Much like a professional theater company, there is an audition for each show. Once in a production, rehearsals last between four to seven weeks, with practices mirroring that of a professional company.

“VYT is a professional quality youth theater; when it gets closer to show time there are some eight- to 10-hour days. It can get brutal,” Fallon says. “We’re community theater, yes, but there’s such a high quality to it.” “Anyone can come audition but VYT also has an education component where kids can learn about theater,” she adds. “Oftentimes we encourage kids from our educational programs to try out for the shows.” The education branch of VYT does have fees associated with it but it offers unique programs like spring and summer camps. “For those who can’t afford the education component, though, we always try to make sure scholarships are available,” Fallon says. “Bobb is very big on the fact that, if a child wants to work hard to be on stage, nothing should hold them back.” The next show VYT is putting on is “Pinkalicious,” based on the popular children’s book. Fallon describes the production as “so fun and perfect for little girls and kids of all ages.” “Pinkalicious” will be performed from April 8 to April 24. Another show that VYT is revving up for is “Disney’s The Little Mermaid,” which will be presented at the Herberger Theater from June 10 to June 26. “I’m especially excited for ‘The Little Mermaid’ because the set is sure to be fantastic,” Fallon says. For community members who want to become involved in VYT, there are a variety of volunteer positions available and “professionals to show them how to do different things,” Fallon says. From lighting to ushering, VYT staff members appreciate the assistance of volunteers of all ages. “The beauty of youth theater is that kids can not only relate to the characters they play but also the characters they see in the shows,” Fallon says. “The mission of VYT is to guide every child to be the very best they can be, and that’s done with the devotion of the leaders and caring volunteers.” To learn more about Valley Youth Theatre, including info on upcoming shows and educational opportunities, visit www.vyt.com.

SOUND JUDGMENT

Amplified sound finally catches up with acoustics at ASU Gammage Kenneth LaFave Â» The Entertainer!

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MARCH 2016

attended a musical theater performance last month and understood every word. Well, alright, a few words got lost in songwriter Jason Robert Brown’s complex part-writing and in the high notes. But I understood 95 percent of what was being sung and said. Why is that remarkable? Because the venue was ASU Gammage. “We’ve known about the acoustic complications of presenting Broadway shows in a house built for symphony orchestras for a long time,” says Michael Reed, ASU Gammage’s senior director of programs and organizational initiatives. “But we needed at least a million dollars to do something with real impact.” Last summer, they found the money as part of a 50th-anniversary fundraising campaign, and got to work. The result, 44 new speakers later, is a vastly improved acoustics for the Southwest’s major purveyor of touring Broadway productions. What was wrong before? Nothing, really, provided the performance was not miked. Gammage was, and indeed, still is, a perfectly designed acoustic environment for nonamplified sound. When Frank Lloyd

Wright conceived the structure, he made sure to consult acousticians who understood how symphony orchestras and jazz bands and every other form of naturally produced music might project instantly from the stage to the back of the house—which in the case of 3,000-capacity Gammage, was quite a distance. For more than a quarter century after Gammage opened in 1964, the house was the acoustically friendly home to some of the greatest classical music performers on the planet. I recall hearing a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance in which every stand of violins glowed, and a recital by legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz playing Rachmaninoff, and projecting every nuance into the massive hall. Then, in the 1990s, came the big change to Broadway musicals. Broadway musicals were popular in a way that classical music was not, and capable of generating revenue. There was only one problem. Broadway shows were amplified, but the miking didn’t throw the sound into the audience as quickly as the natural, acoustic production did. This resulted in audience members hearing the sound twice: first, as the perfectly

delivered acoustic sound of the singers and orchestra, and then—frustrating nanoseconds later—the miked “ghost” of the acoustic sound. Words and notes arrived at the ear just slightly out of phase, like seeing a color picture out of register, and it made comprehension difficult. I recall seeing a production of “Porgy and Bess,” a piece I know very well, and not being able to discern the familiar words at all. But last month at the musical version of “Bridges of Madison County,” I heard everything with amazing clarity. What did they do to fix it? “We now have way more distribution [of sound] throughout the house, with 64 speakers instead of 20,” Reed says. The speakers are strategically placed to make sure everyone hears what’s being said or sung at the same time. “The timing from spot to spot in the house is within hundredths of seconds,” Reed adds. Each production brings its own sound package, so adjustments will be made from show to show to ensure good acoustics. “The sound will improve with each show,” Reed promises. Now, can we talk about the parking at Gammage? WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

‘LAND OF THE ’ DIVINE Chinese art comes to life with Shen Yun

nearly forgotten culture will come to life in this awe-inspiring performance from the nonprofit Shen Yun Performing Arts. Shen Yun 2016 will combine a live orchestra, classically trained dancers and an animated backdrop that will transport the audience back to the “Land of the Divine.” The 40-piece orchestra will play a diverse selection of Chinese folk songs and traditional melodies as 60 dancers dressed in customary fashion fill the stage. Behind them, a 30-foot backdrop full of animated scenes including the Tibetan mountains and the Dai Village will captivate the crowd. The interactive screen will add an exciting element to this already remarkable show. In the story “The Fable of the Magic Brush,” a woman is saved and rewards her rescuer with a paintbrush that turns his art into reality. When the rescuer paints on the interactive screen during Shen Yun, his artwork will come to life before the eyes of WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

the audience. The Shen Yun Orchestra is highly impressive. Each production is complete with music that is unique to that show, written by internationally recognized composers. The orchestra combines traditional Chinese music with western sounds, resulting in the perfect marriage of modern and and ancient instruments like the pipa and erhu, bringing together cultures to generate extraordinarily new sounds. Shen Yun cannot be seen in China today, where its 5,000-year-old culture has all but disappeared. Today, the thought of divine beings and mortals coexisting is intimidating to the Communist regime. Ancient stories and tales that have been passed down from generation to generation are now banned or altered in the country. However, the traditions continue to live on through Shen Yun in other parts of the globe, bringing over 20 mystical legends of heroes swimming with dragons and heavenly beings walking on land to the stage.

For close to a decade, Shen Yun has astounded more than five million people in 30 countries and four continents with their breathtaking performances. Their production presents a myriad of Chinese tales like the stories of the fierce heroine Mulan and General Yue Fei, through grand musical performances, extravagant period costumes and beautifully choreographed dance numbers. Shen Yun invites you to the Orpheum Theatre on Thursday, March 31, through Wednesday April 6. Tickets range from $60 to $149. Grab your seats today and experience China’s 5,000-year history in one extraordinary performance.

Orpheum Theatre

203 W. Adams Street, Phoenix, 602.262.7272, shenyun.com, Thursday, March 31, through, Wednesday, April 6, times vary, $60-$149

GRAMMY GOLD

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MARCH 2016

Phoenix Chorale’s premier reputation is confirmed by latest win Kenneth LaFave » The Entertainer!

harles Bruffy is starting to lose track of how many Grammy nominations and wins his recordings have won. “It’s a lot,” he says, and the choral conductor not bragging: it is a lot. As of last month’s awards ceremony of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, 12 nominations and five Grammy Awards have gone to Bruffyconducted recordings. Three of the wins involved the Phoenix Chorale, which Bruffy has music-directed since 1999. He’s also led the Kansas City Chorale since 1988. In 2015, Bruffy’s Phoenix and Kansas City chorales combined to record Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil on the occasion of the massive work’s 100th anniversary. On Feb. 15 of this year, that CD won the Phoenix Chorale’s and Bruffy’s latest Grammy: Best Choral Performance. “It’s always exciting to win. That doesn’t get old,” says Bruffy by phone from Scottsdale’s Arabian Horse Show. (Bruffy owns a horse farm near Kansas City, Missouri.) “But I have to tell you, the wait for the announcement gets more and more excruciating. We were the 39th award to be announced. How many times can you listen to, ‘And the Grammy goes to...’”? The wait was all the harder, Bruffy says, because “both choirs were involved and this was such an important piece.” The Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil is considered a landmark in the history of sacred music. The Phoenix Chorale/ Kansas City Chorale CD was released last year on March 15, the exact centenary of the work’s world premiere in Russia. “I don’t mean to jinx it, but every recording my choirs have been nominated for has come home a winner.” That doesn’t mean every nomination has won. This year, for example, the AllNight Vigil was also nominated for Best Engineering, Classical, and lost. But every CD nominated has brought home at least one prize. Previous winners for The Phoenix Chorale were Best Engineered Album, Classical for “Grechaninov, Passion Week” (2008) and Best Small Ensemble Performance for “Spotless Rose” (2009). All-Night Vigil was already a major event in the world of choral music when it won the Grammy. The Chandos CD spent five weeks on Billboard’s classical charts, ranked No. 1 on three Amazon

sales charts (Opera/Vocal, Chamber, and Classical), and was featured on iTunes “First Play.” What has Bruffy done, in 17 years at the helm of the Phoenix Chorale, to achieve such stature? After taking a moment to consider the question, the conductor answers: “The one thing predominant in my approach with these wonderfully skilled singers is to turn what starts out as beautiful sound into something that is compellingly meaningful.” The aliveness of the choir’s sound owes not only to the notes, but the words. “Unlike other musical ensembles, we have the challenge and the grace of having text to deal with,” Bruffy muses, “and so the way we approach articulation of the words, the pronunciation of them, and how long the consonants take and the vowels take and the diphthongs take—all that impacts one’s perception of what is heard.” It also helps that the Phoenix Chorale sings and performs together regularly. “Some of the other nominees this year have their singers flown in,” Bruffy observes. “But we have singers who live here in the Valley and work together all the time. That in no small way contributes to the way we sound.” The Phoenix Chorale is one of very few choirs in the nation considered “professional,” which means its member are paid a modest salary to participate. What is the salary of a Phoenix Chorale member? “No more than it was before the Grammy win” is Bruffy’s gnomic answer. Since All-Night Vigil is a Russian work, the question naturally arises: Will the Phoenix and Kansas City chorales take the piece to the land of the bear? “I’ve been talking with some people in Germany and Russia” about tours, Bruffy says, but he is not willing to comment further. What’s next for Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale? “So many pieces need exposure, pieces with historic value and newly written scores. But hell, I don’t really know what’s next. I love the one I’m with!” You can hear the Phoenix Chorale perform American folk music in concert March 4, March 5 and March 6 at various Valley venues. Go to phoenixchorale.org for more information.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

HOOPING IT UP

Heard Museum welcomes champion hoop dancers Lee Allen » The Entertainer!

t’s that time again for a unique Valley event that combines sheer athleticism and creative artistry sprinkled with a taste of Native American cultural tradition— the 26th annual Heard Museum World Championship Hoop Dancing Competition. It’s storytelling through circles, utilizing hoops that symbolize the indigenous concept of a never-ending Circle of Life—no beginning and no end. Whether or not that story is captivating depends a lot on the talents of the storyteller and the number of hoops put into play (anywhere from one to 50). But it isn’t the number of hoops involved that’s impressive. It’s how they are used. In determining the best performers, what dancers do with their hoops is more important than how many they put into play. “We look for timing and rhythm and how the dancers coordinate with the drum,” says dance judge Victor Bob. “We watch for speed, precision, creativity and showmanship—little things that go on simultaneously. We also keep an eye on the hoop forms they make during their dance. Things don’t have to be perfect as long as the dance is completed, nothing gets dropped, and the forms don’t fall apart before the end of the song.” “Not only are we looking for the obvious, but the intangibles, too, like how well the crowd reacts to a performer’s moves,” adds fellow judge Jocy Bird (Mandan/Hidatsa). Crowds at the annual exhibition of pageantry and artistry are responsive to the dancers’ initiatives with an estimated 8,000 spectators adding their own hoots and hollers at the annual competition. Held every February at Heard Museum, this year’s event is scheduled for February 13 and February 14 with several dozen contestants from the United States and Canada vying for the title and the winner’s portion of $30,000 in prize money. Each performer presents a unique variation of intertribal dance, weaving in aspects of their distinct tradition or culture. Hoops are constructed to interlock and extended from the dancer’s

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

body to form appendages such as wings or tails. The circles are shaped to create a variety of designs and formations representing symbols, storytelling elements, or animals like butterflies, eagles, snakes and coyotes. Originally a male-only dance form, in recent years, women have become active participants to make it an equalgender sport. Age is not a handicap either. Indicative of the longevity and popularity of hoop dancing is Dine dancer Jones Benally, Arizona’s unofficial dean of Hoop Dance. Now in his 90s, Benally has been a dancer for more than 75 years. Recently, when Hopi/Choctaw Derrick Suwaima Davis of Old Oraibi won yet another (an unprecedented seventh) adult title, he was joined by 6-year-old Rito Lopez Jr. (Pima/ Arikara/Hidatsa/Mandan) of Scottsdale who hooped his way into the Youth Division winners circle. Last year, in a classic case of the student besting the mentor, 25-yearold Nakotah LaRance (Hopi/Tewa/ Assiniboin) from New Mexico beat defending champion Davis by a mere 6 points. Competition has become so close that in 2015, two adult division dancers had to compete in an additional dance-off to determine their final standing. Said LaRance, a former featured artist with Cirque de Soleil’s “Totem Show” and a master of his own five-hoop performance: “Derrick taught me my whole routine when I was a kid, but those teaching days are far behind.” The competition is a way to get up close and personal with a truly unique Native American sport. The rules are simple, the dancers accessible, and you get to see a lot of different native cultures represented. Performances are scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, February 13, and Sunday, February 14. Ticket prices (including admission to Heard Museum itself ) are $18 for adults; $13.50 for seniors; $12 for Heard Museum members and American Indian tribal members, and $7.50 for children, ages 4-12. Youngsters age 3 and under get to watch the festivities for free. General admission tickets may be purchased online at heard.org.

HEROES AND VILLAINS

Alek Skarlatos goes from tackling terrorist to ‘Dancing’ star Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

lek Skarlatos is late for an interview. The Oregon Army National Guardsman was tied up going through airport security on his way to his hosting duties for the “Dancing with the Stars Live!” tour. The story is ironic. After all, he did a little terrorist prevention of his own when he and two friends—Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler—famously tackled a gun-wielding man on a Paris-bound train in August. His life has been a whirlwind since then. President Barack Obama awarded him the U.S. Army Soldier’s Medal, and from French president Francois Hollande he received the Legion of Honour. On a lighter note, he spent the fall competing on season 21 of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” with pro Lindsay Arnold, finishing in third place. “Honestly, I just take it a day at a time. That’s the only way,” says the 23-year-old Skarlatos of how he handles his fame. “Life changes whenever it wants WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

and however it wants. You can’t really control a lot. So you just have to learn how to deal with things as best you can.” That includes serving as host on the “Dancing” tour, which comes to the Comerica Theatre for two shows on Sunday, February 14. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Skarlatos says. “I’m actually really excited. We’re all having drinks together right now, waiting for our flight. I like all the people I’m going with. It’s a lot of fun. They’re all good people.” While most former contestants complain more about the physical toll on their bodies during their run on “Dancing,” Skarlatos knows how to put things in perspective. “It really wasn’t too bad,” he says about the constant rehearsals. “At times it was kind of rough, using different muscles than I’m used to using. Coming off of Afghanistan, it wasn’t too difficult. Maybe if it was before Afghanistan it would be hard. But [while I was in Afghanistan] I was working out every day.” He’ll continue his “Dancing” participation as a host and dancer. “I’m doing a little bit of hosting

and talking, then I’m doing about three or four dances with Emma [Slater] and Lindsay [Arnold] and a group number,” he says. At the time of the interview, he was looking forward to the first show so he could soothe his nerves. “I’m a little nervous about the speaking parts,” he says. “I’ve never had to fill time before. But when they asked me to host, honestly, it was like no big deal. I’ve been dancing in front of 14 million people every night. “This is a whole different story, honestly, seeing everybody looking at you and having to talk for 2 minutes at a time or whatever and fill space. It’s going to be a challenge for me.” Skarlatos’ latest challenge is penning a book about his experiences on the train. He couldn’t give any details about it other than it is planned for 2016. “It’s been a pretty crazy year for me,” he says. “I’m looking forward to things calming down.”

“Dancing with the Stars Live!”

Comerica Theatre, 400 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, 800.745.3000, www. ticketmaster.com, Sunday, February 14, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., $38-$63

PLANTING A SEED

Years of nature love at Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Kimberly Hosey » The Entertainer!

ike any sentimental mother who can’t believe her little cherub is already a surly teenager, I’ve taken (and frequently look back on) my share of snapshots. Happily, with one destination that’s become a family tradition, I have a readymade excuse, as well as a lovely background for those photos. My son and I have regularly visited Boyce Thompson Arboretum, which houses more than 3,000 different desert plants as well as the animals that call the plants and environment home, since shortly after he learned to walk. In those days, it was the best local spot I knew to take long walks and expose him to the natural world. As time went by and we got to know the trails well, we found favorite spots: the main trail as it winds around a canyon rim, flowers alive with hummingbirds and butterflies and many more. We’ve visited at all seasons, become members and even volunteered there. Boyce Thompson Arboretum is where we learned that hummingbirds glue their nests together with spider web threads. It’s where we first heard the haunting, howling sound a made by a didgeridoo. It’s where my son took his first nature photographs and I honed my own skills. It’s where we’ve seen countless hawks, lizards, tarantulas, our first wild Gila monster, and more exotic plants than we even knew existed.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2016

I would return every few weeks out of loyalty, but it’s not necessary. We keep visiting because the arboretum keeps giving us new experiences. A one-hour drive due east of Phoenix, the arboretum feels a bit like a secret garden at first, tucked off the side of U.S. Highway 60. In reality, the arboretum is a 320-acre arid-plants wonderland. If you want to learn about the desert, you’re in the right place. Bringing very young children? Many trails can accommodate strollers. While you’re strolling, check out the Smith Interpretive Center. Built in 1925 of locally quarried stone, it sits between two greenhouses showcasing cacti and succulents (that’s botanist-speak for water-retaining plants, including cacti) from around the world. While you browse the plants, your little ones can sit at tables or in an overstuffed beanbag chair and color detailed Arizona nature scenes, or check out one of the many children’s nature books. If your explorers are slightly older, make sure to linger at the hummingbird and butterfly garden, right as you enter the main trail, where butterflies flit around your heads in a perpetually shade-dappled clearing. Next, make sure to check out the demonstration garden. The 2.5-acre natural display encompasses swaths of flowering plants as well as a “mini-oasis” showcasing landscape design in the desert and how to use water efficiently. Among the functional landscape displays are vine arbors, stonework, shady walkways, and trickling water fountains. Interpretive displays teach visitors about issues desert creatures face. Our favorite reason for visiting, however, is the haven the area creates for hummingbirds, butterflies, dragonflies, and other animals. On our last visit, we watched a Cooper’s hawk perched in a tree, snacking on a lunchtime lizard. For children of any age, be sure to stop by the children’s garden. From nature-inspired noise-makers, to a maze

that my son makes me walk with him every time (yes, every time), to a sundial that uses your body’s shadow, the garden invites participation. Flowers, trees and other plants abound—my son’s favorite is a giant saguaro “skeleton,” a favorite perch of birds—and kids can even dig for “fossils” in a sand pit. I could go on listing the arboretum’s great spots. The winding trails of the cactus garden are fascinating any time of year. The herb garden highlights desert herbs used for purposes including culinary, medicinal, and cosmetic; and is quite beautiful. The high trail along Queen Creek Canyon offers gorgeous views of Magma Ridge and Queen Creek’s riparian corridor. The towering trees of the lush eucalyptus forest are home to countless birds you probably won’t see outside the arboretum. Boyce Thompson Arboretum is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. October through April and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. from May through September. Admission is taken until one hour before closing. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for ages 5 to 12. Walk the arboretum’s trails any day, or check out their upcoming events: • Guided walking tours of the Main Trail, 11 a.m. every Monday through Saturday • Plants of the Bible Land Guided Walk, 1:30 p.m. Saturday, February 20 • Tree Tour, 1:30 p.m. Sunday, February 21 • Guided Bird Walks; Saturday, February 6; Sunday, February 14; Saturday, February 20 and Sunday, February 28 Visit http://ag.arizona.edu/bta/ events.html for details and more upcoming events.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

520.689.2723 http://cals.arizona.edu/bta/ WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

MUSIC MAN

Ben Vereen says thanks to longtime fans with performance Christina Fuoco-Karasinski Â» The Entertainer!

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2016

ilm, TV and stage personality Ben Vereen has been blessed to have a 40-year career, one that has been honored by colleges around the nation and most award shows. The legendary performer is touring the world to say “thank you” to fans for supporting him and allowing him to make audiences smile. The 69-year-old “Roots” star is set to play the Chandler Center for the Arts as part of “Steppin’ Out Live with Ben Vereen and Trio” on Saturday, February 27. “I’ve never been to Chandler, Arizona,” Vereen says via telephone. “I look forward to meeting the people of Chandler who built such a beautiful facility.” According to Vereen, the show pays tribute to Broadway, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., and features songs like “Defying Gravity,” “Mr. Bojangles,” “For Good” and “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” Vereen will also share stories about his career and his humorous yet positive spin on life. “It is fun,” he says. “It’s my thank you to my audiences for this wonderful, fantastic career I have had. I tell them about my journey they’ve allowed me to have. We just generally have fun.” Vereen continues to have fun himself. Last year, he appeared in “Top Five,” a Chris Rock-directed feature film. Vereen complimented Rock on his directorial skills. He says that each project he works on is a learning experience. “I learn another aspect of what I do and how to approach it,” he says. “I also teach master classes. I leave myself open to learning and I take those lessons I learn and pass them on to my students. I call them the steps toward excellence and the excellence is you.” He also starred alongside Richard Gere in “Time Out of Mind,” for which he received a Variety Oscar Critics’ Pick mention. “‘Time Out of Mind’ is about the homeless and I play a character named Dixon, who befriends [Gere’s character] in a homeless shelter,” he says. “It’s not blaming anything. It’s like a day in the life of a homeless person.

Richard wanted to do this to give voice to the voiceless.” Vereen is passionate about the United States remedying its homeless problem. As a matter of fact, he’s downright frustrated. “You’re spending money to put up the camps and keep them homeless,” he says about states that provide such service. “Give them money to put them back in homes and make them viable citizens, so they can help the communities.” He considers everyone equal so friends, family and strangers should all be helped when necessary. “We are all our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers,” Vereen explains. “Someone reached out to me. I want to be there for them as much as we can.” His acting abilities have garnered him several nominations and awards. For his work on “Grey’s Anatomy,” he earned a Prism Award, while he was nominated for an Emmy for “Intruders: They Are Among Us.” Vereen also has seven Emmy Awards under his belt for “Ben Vereen: His Roots” and a Golden Globe nom for “Ellis Island.” He doesn’t keep any of his awards at his home. Instead, he donates them to Boston University, which is archiving his career. “The accolades are wonderful and marvelous and I thank the people for acknowledging me,” Vereen says. “My want is to continue to give them what I do and then allowing me to do that. The opportunity to give is more [satisfying].” He hopes audiences are just as satisfied with “Steppin’ Out Live with Ben Vereen and Trio.” “I hope they have a good time,” Vereen says. “I hope they walk away with a good message and a good time.”

“Steppin’ Out Live with Ben Vereen and Trio”

Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, 480.782.2680, chandlercenter. org, Saturday, February 27, 7:30 p.m., $38-$58 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

‘CARNEGIE HALL IN OUR BACKYARD’

Arizona MusicFest turns heads—and ears— locally and nationally Kenneth LaFave » The Entertainer!

rizona’s reputation as a snowbird destination has paid off for one of the state’s highest-profile musical events. “When I tell musicians that the usual weather in February is 72 degrees and sunny, they almost forget to ask about a fee.” So says Robert Moody, former assistant conductor of The Phoenix Symphony and for 10 years the artistic director of Arizona MusicFest. The musicians he’s talking about are members of the MusicFest Orchestra, who hail, for the most part, from major orchestras in the iceboxes of the Midwest and East Coast. The orchestra Moody will conduct this month at MusicFest boasts a concertmaster who is also the leader of The New York Philharmonic, a principal trumpet who’s taking a two-week leave from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and members of, among others, the orchestras of Philadelphia, Cleveland, Washington D.C., Toronto, Montreal, Memphis, Portland (Maine) and slightly less frigid burgs like Atlanta, San Francisco and Seattle. A couple of them have even slid down the slopes from Flagstaff, and Tucson and Phoenix are represented. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

In sum, the orchestra is the best-ofthe-best from around the country. “It’s like driving a Ferrari,” Moody says of conducting his all-stars. “To have this many fine musicians from that many orchestras, plus the fact that this is a festival, makes for joyous music-making at the highest possible level.” Moody and the orchestra anchor the six-week festival that began January 29 and goes through March 11. Arizona MusicFest’s featured classical artists, including superstar violinist Joshua Bell and the emerging ensemble, the Calidore String Quartet, will share the series with Broadway, jazz, pop and bluegrass artists headlined by jazz legend Al Jarreau February 5. Local guitar sensation Esteban will make his first appearance with orchestra February 26, and a performance of the massive “Carmina Burana” of Carl Orff will be featured February 28. The 19 concerts of Arizona MusicFest take place at a number of venues in North Scottsdale and Phoenix, including the Musical Instrument Museum. Information on ticket prices and ticket “bundles” is available by calling 480.840.0457, or by visiting azmusicfest.org. But act soon: Bell’s appearance February 25 and one of two shows scheduled for February 13 by progressive bluegrass artists The Kruger Brothers have already sold out.

Arizona MusicFest, which started out 25 years ago as a grouping of five modest concerts in a single venue, is now a regional and even national draw for music lovers. Most of the growth has taken place over the 10 years since Moody took over as artistic director. He recalls: “When I interviewed for the job, the board told me they wanted ‘Carnegie Hall in our backyard,’ and I asked, ‘What does that mean?’ It meant they wanted to turn what was a local festival—back then it was called Desert Foothills MusicFest—into the nation’s premier winter music festival. They wanted people to think of ‘Arizona MusicFest’ in winter the way people think ‘Spoleto’ in the summer.” It’s a judgment call, but chances are good that Arizona MusicFest is at least a contender for that place of honor. The very idea of a wintertime music festival was new in 1991, when Chet and Ann Goldberg started MusicFest. There may be others around now, but Arizona’s is surely the flagship of winter music festivals. Moody’s first task was to grow the orchestra from a small ensemble of local musicians into the large orchestra of major musicians that it is today. Close to that as his No. 2 job was shifting the character of the festival’s administration from volunteer to professional. “Hiring Allan Naplan as our

executive director three years ago was the climax of our administrative evolution. We used to rely on 100 percent volunteer staff. Now, volunteers still play a vital role, but we have a fulltime paid staff of four, headed by Allan.” Naplan, who formerly held similar positions with the Minnesota and Madison opera companies, says he came here to find “an extraordinary artistic product, but a less-than dynamic audience experience.” He engaged a third-party ticketing service, transitioned from general seating to assigned seats, and ramped up the online services, making for “a more robust sales process.” The result: A 53-percent increase in ticket sales from 2013 to 2015. More than 11,000 people attended MusicFest concerts in 2015. Desert Foothills MusicFest started out in 1991 on a $50,000 budget. The 2016 budget is $1.4 million. “We planned for this, but it exceeds even our dreams,” says Moody. Like most conductors, Moody holds several positions, and is in the process of giving up some of them for a new job with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Would he ever surrender Arizona MusicFest? “You’d have to pry this one from my cold, dead hands.”

120

MORE FUN

THAN A MUD PUDDLE ‘Peppa Pig Live!’ makes its Phoenix debut Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

ith her posh English accent and simple pastel colors, Nick Jr.’s Peppa Pig has become a hit on American TV with her show of the same name. Now the barnyard mammal is hitting the stage for the first time here with “Peppa Pig Live! Peppa Pig’s Big Splash.” The stage show is an adaption of the London play that was a mainstay in the West End. There are a few differences, though. “We have bigger puppets and costumed characters as part of our show,” says Jonathan Shank, “Peppa Pig Live!” producer. “What people can expect is a lot of singing, dancing and a puddle-jumping competition.” There are some commonalities. “I like the script and the songs are magnificently well done,” he says. Peppa Pig is called a loveable, although a little bossy, piggy. She lives with Mummy Pig, Daddy Pig and her little brother, George. The appeal of “Peppa Pig,” Shank says, is that the show is simple. It’s easy for kids of all ages to follow. “I think that Peppa lives in a very simple and serene world and the color WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

palette is very peaceful and made up of many pastel colors,” he says. “Things move at a very even pace. The sky is a bright color of blue. There are also a lot of really unique things about English culture as well. I think that the charm of the show certainly revolves around some of that English charm and its customs.” Even though it’s Anglo-centric, “Peppa Pig” touches on themes that all children can relate to. “The show is palatable to parents and adults as well,” Shank explains. “It’s not overly flashy and it doesn’t have car chases or things that a lot of other children’s shows have showcased. Peppa is very sweet. I think that honestly people just adore the character Peppa and her family. There’s a lot of great humor that is attached to the show, too.”

“Peppa Pig Live!”

Comerica Theatre, 400 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, 800.745.3000, ticketmaster.com, Thursday, February 18, 6 p.m., $29-$39

A RARE PEEK

Stradivarius exhibit premieres at the MIM Kenneth LaFave Â» The Entertainer!

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2016

bout a year ago, Kathleen Wiens overheard someone in a sporting goods store refer to a certain tennis racket as the “Stradivarius” of tennis rackets. That got the Musical Instrument Museum’s curator for Europe thinking: “The name ‘Stradivarius’ has become synonymous with ‘the best’ of anything. But how many people know what a Stradivarius really is? Or why it’s considered the best?” Voilá, violins: Eight of them, plus a viola and a cello, in a unique new exhibition at the MIM, the world’s premiere museum of musical instruments and a Valley treasure. “Stradivarius: Origins and Legacy of the Greatest Violin Maker” opened January 16 and will be up through June 5. Wiens’ response to her own questions, the exhibition brings together five historic and five contemporary instruments, along with a display of the tools used to craft early instrument, plus documents and videos exploring how a truly great-sounding violin is made. Put together with the assistance of Italy’s Museo del Violino and the Friends of Stradivari, the show presents instruments never before seen in the United States. “This is an exhibition with appeal to anyone who cares about great craftsmanship of any kind,” Wiens says. “It’s so exciting to create something that gets people fascinated by the story of violins.”

There’s a lot to learn from it. To begin with, the name of the greatest violin maker was Antonio Stradivari. The Latinized form of his surname, “Stradivarius,” is generally used to refer to his instruments. A single Stradivarius violin anchors the MIM’s exhibition, a 1728 instrument called the “Artot-Alard” (individual classic violins are generally named after early owners). One of the first stops in the show allows visitors to listen to excerpts from concertos by Tchaikovsky and Brahms played twice: once on a Stradivarius and once on a mid-level, contemporary instrument. It lets you guess which performance was which, but the differences are obvious and striking. Stradivari (1644-1737) was not alone in his ability to craft violins that sent high notes sailing up to the stratosphere. Andrea Amati (1505-1578) was one of the very first to make violins, and is generally credited with standardizing the shapes and sizes of the violin, the viola, and the cello, which together make up “the violin family.” One of only 20 violins made by him, the “Carlo IX,” is among those on display. And then there was Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri (1698-1744), known as “del Gesu” (“of Jesus”), the last of the great masters and, to many, superior even to Stradivari. The MIM’s show includes his 1734 violin, known as the “Prince Doria.” All of the great masters lived in the small Italian town of Cremona, and used wood from the forest that lay between Cremona and the neighboring town of Brescia, leading some to believe that the kind of wood they used was a major factor in their instruments’ quality. Yet, following the great heyday of violin craftsmanship from the 16th through early 18th centuries, that quality began to wane in spite of the wood. The exhibition contains two instruments from those twilight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. “There’s a mystery and mythology around these instruments,” Wiens says. “The origin of the mythology is that people learned through apprenticeship from master teachers, so they learned by watching and doing. And as the teachers died off, and nothing was written down, the knowledge lay dormant for about 150 years.” A violin renaissance of sorts began in the mid-20th century, and the exhibition celebrates this with three violins, a viola and a cello made by contemporary luthiers, to use the technical term for anyone who makes stringed instruments. A video interview with one of those contemporaries, American Bruce Carlson, reveals the fascinating story of a man who started out with nothing but a book about Stradivari and some extra time on

his hands. Stationed on Guam as a U.S. Navy meteorologist, Carlson tried to make a violin after reading about the great Stradivarius violins. “It was pretty bad,” he recalls, but he kept going, and it became a passion. At length, he moved to Cremona, married an Italian woman, and today is a respected luthier in his own right. One of his violins is in the MIM show. Another American luthier living in Italy is Gregg Alf, whose special interest is the scientific examination of classic instruments, using 3-D scanning. In a video in the MIM show, we see Alf in his studio in Venice, examining Guarneri’s “Prince Doria” violin. Alf found, using tree-ring analysis, that the fronts and backs of the fabled instrument had not been made from the same block of wood, exploding the theory that cutting from the same piece was a factor in the masters’ superior sound. So, what does account for the sound of a Stradivarius or Guarneri violin? Wiens, who has a doctorate in ethnomusicology, thinks it may have to do with the fact that the great ones designed from the inside out. “They would shape the wood around the inner form of the violin, finding the best place to locate the sound holes and allow the sound to fly out the quickest.” In an age of digital sound and the

increasing popularity of electronic instruments, why does it matter? “People make music for a reason, and very often that reason has a meaning in a community,” Wiens says. “Why do people care about violins? Why do they care enough to do scientific experiments on violins? It comes down to the pursuit of beauty. People still love beautiful sounds and want to know how they’re made.” The exhibition opened with a concert by classical violinist Rachel Barton Pines, and four other concerts at the MIM will share the great sound of bowed string instruments during the exhibition’s run: Regina Carter’s Southern Comfort, February 25; Midori (who plays a Guarneri del Gesu), March 24; Mark O’Connor’s American Classics, April 8; and ASU String Faculty’s “Masterpieces in the Valley,” May 1.

“Stradivarius: Origins and Legacy of the Greatest Violin Maker”

Musical Instrument Museum, 4725 E. Mayo Boulevard, Phoenix, 480.478.6000, mim. org, various times through June 5, $10, or $7 with general admission to the MIM.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016

AMMER CLASS

Andy Grammer keeps his mom in his heart whether dancing or singing

Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

s a celebrity on “Dancing with the Stars,” Andy Grammer was asked for his most memorable year. He chose 2009—the year his mother, Kathryn, was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was so advanced that he and his family had two to three days to say goodbye. Devastated, Grammer returned to busking but one day he looked to the sky and hoped for something positive to happen. He went home and, out of pain, penned his breakthrough hit “Keep Your Head Up.” It went on to sell more than 1 million downloads. The success of that song, as well as “Honey, I’m Good” and “Fine by Me,” afforded Grammer to participate in “Dancing” and pay tribute to his mom. One of Grammer’s subsequent singles, “Good to Be Alive (Hallelujah),” provided the soundtrack to the cha cha he danced with partner Allison Holker. “You know, there’s no right way to have a relationship with someone who has passed,” says Grammer whose father, Red, is a successful musician himself. “To honor them, remember them, we all find our own way. One of the ways I chose to honor my mother was...through dance. Amazing. Absurd. Surprisingly, so so sweet.”

Besides being emotionally challenging, “Dancing with the Stars” was a physical and mental test. “It was super challenging and maybe one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,’ Grammer says. “Honestly, physically, it wasn’t the hardest. I’m in decent shape, but mentally it was so hard. Remembering choreography every week was like finals week in college.” He wasn’t exactly schooled in dancing, either. “Honestly I don’t know how to dance and had very little dance experience,” Grammer says. “If you go on YouTube and watch some of the dances there were times where a girl is spinning from my neck and stuff. Unbelievable.” Dancing aside, Grammer will show off his musical prowess during the AT&T Playlist Playoff Live in Phoenix. He and Moon Taxi are supporting John Mellencamp on Sunday, January 10. An avid fan of Army and Navy, Grammer explains he’s not intimidated about opening for the “Pink Houses” singer. “As a songwriter I’m always really impressed by people who have been able to crank out a bunch of hits,” he says. “So someone like John, I am very honored to play with. Me and the band are all looking forward to it.” Grammer is the quintessential showman and he says to expect an

enthusiastic show in Phoenix. “This is not a singer-songwriter stand behind the mic and just play my songs type show,” he says. “Me and the band aim to make everyone get out of their seat and have the best time they’ve had in a while. “It’s a high bar to set every night and we go after with the same intensity I would imagine college football players run out of the tunnel with.” Besides playing Phoenix, Grammer will spend part of this year penning new music. “I’m definitely back into writing as the main focus of the New Year,” Grammer says. “I have a bunch of musical ideas that I’m excited to wrangle down into songs. I’m really looking forward to digging in.” He has the work ethic to back that statement. Thanks to his success as a singer-songwriter and as a dancer, he is confident in his talents. “With the right work ethic you can do anything.”

Andy Grammer

downtown Phoenix, collegefootballplayoff.com/events, Sunday, January 10, gates open at 12 p.m., free

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

Human Nature 50 Sculpture & Wine Festival 48 Arts Calendar 42

‘FUNCTIONAL’ FUN Phoenix Symphony hits the books for ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

nyone, say, 50 or younger can fully recite the preamble to the U.S. Constitution without hesitation, or define a conjunction thanks to the clever “Schoolhouse Rock” Saturday morning cartoon snippets. Phoenix Symphony Orchestra is celebrating the series with a concert featuring the Step on Stage children’s choir, a select ensemble of Horizon High School students. Part of the American Airlines Family Series, the show is 2 p.m. Sunday, January 10. “There’s just recently been a resurgence of those great Schoolhouse Rock videos and songs,” says Jim Ward, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra CEO. “It’s

gotten hip and cool again and we felt now that it’s kind of back in the public eye, why not do something around that and have some fun with it.” The concert will be led by Robert Franz, the associate conductor of the Houston Symphony. One of the highlights of his career was the world premiere of music from the iconic series for orchestra. “The Houston Symphony put together a show and their conductor is Robert Franz, who’s a great guy,” he says. “We talked to him and asked if we could recreate it up here. We started to do that with him and, voila, we have a show.” The show, he expects, will be a hit just like the jingles.

“Any time in music when you have an enduring melody and great lyrics, it’s going to stick around,” he says. “Cyclically, it’ll never go away. It keeps coming back. “The Schoolhouse Rock vignettes and songs and videos on TV were just great. They’re a lot of fun. They’re educational as well. Great music never goes away.”

Phoenix Symphony Orchestra’s Schoolhouse Rock

75 N. Second Street, Phoenix, 602.262.6225, phoenixsymphony.org, 2 p.m. Sunday, January 10, starts at $11

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

YOU GOTTA HAVE ART

I — 24th Annual — Saturday, January 9th from 10am-5pm Sunday, January 10th from 10am-4pm e Tells a Story

This year’s theme: Every Pictur

Artist Demonstration

Entertainment

Shopping

A distinctive arts and cultural experience in historic Litchfield Park

$10 per person entry • 12 & Under Free $5 per person for active military and students with ID

litchfieldparkgathering.com 623-935-9040

n an unprecedented event for the award-winning producer of juried fine art and wine festivals in Arizona, Thunderbird Artists will host its inaugural Sculpture & Wine Festival in Fountain Hills Friday, Jan. 15, through Sunday, Jan. 17. The juried show will feature more than 60 acclaimed sculptors from around the globe, giving awestruck patrons a chance to view and purchase stunning, diverse pieces comprised of bronze, stone, copper, clay, wood, metal, glass, gourd, steel, found objects and mixed media. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at 16810 E. Avenue of the Fountains, and a portion of proceeds will benefit International Cancer Advocacy Network (ICAN). Denise Dale, Thunderbird Artists’ vice president, said the January Fountain Hills show will provide a rare chance to meet many of the renowned sculptors in one setting. “Our roster of sculptors will exhibit a breathtaking array of small, medium, lifesized and even monumental sculptures,” she said. “Whether you are seeking to enhance your home décor or you want to begin a sculpture garden, you’ll find a diverse selection of original, high-quality pieces to choose from.” One such artist exhibiting in the show is Fred Krakowiak, a Scottsdale resident who is recognized as a leading wildlife artist, author, safari expert and engaging speaker. It was a photo that Krakowiak found after his mother died that inspired him to paint and sculpt wildlife. “It was a photo of me at age 5, riding an Indian elephant at the Toledo Zoo circus—clutching the elephant’s bridal— no safety rope, no straddle. There were clearly no regulations then,” Krakowiak said. “Little did I realize I was planting a seed into my subconscious to have the opportunities I do today as a wildlife artist and guide.” A renowned painter, he began working in bronze in 2000. “For me, a sculpture is the creation of a threedimensional object originating within my soul with such passion toward a subject that it results in a bronze that will express those emotional feelings when you view

and especially touch it forever,” he said. His first safari was in 2004 and his love of wildlife inspired his Zimbabwe guide to offer him a position as an apprentice guide. He accepted and has traveled there, guiding safaris in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and South Africa. For the January show, Krakowiak will feature bronzes that originate from inspirations and experiences he has had over the past decade in Africa. “I was fortunate to have shared time the past several years in Somalisa, with Cecil the Lion, who was murdered in Zimbabwe. As a dedication to everyone who was touched by him, I will unveil a bronze at the show of this spectacular and special lion,” he said. Wine tasting tickets at the January sculpture show cost $10, which provides a souvenir wine glass and six tasting tickets. Tastings require one, two or three tickets depending on the wine characteristics and quality. Additional wine tickets are $1.

Sculpture & Wine Festival in Fountain Hills 16810 E. Avenue of the Fountains, 480.837.5637, thunderbirdartists.com, Friday, January 15, through Sunday, January, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., $3 adults, free for children 18 and younger

LIKE US! FOLLOW US! WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

DANCING

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANUARY 2016

IN THE

SEATS Human Nature brings its love of Motown to Symphony Hall

Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

ndrew Tierney and his brother, Mike, began their love affair with music as children growing up in Australia. But it wasn’t until they and their friends were introduced to Motown music that it turned into an all-out lifelong relationship. The Tierneys along with friends Toby Allen and Phil Burton have dedicated most of their career to performing the Detroit-born music as Human Nature. “When we started in high school, we weren’t familiar with Motown at all,” Andrew Tierney says. “We looked at the history of vocal groups and we were told by our mentor to check out Motown acts like the Four Tops and the Temptations. It was the groups in Motown that stood out to us as something we were just, I guess, inspired by. The sound they made, the way they performed, the choreography. This was our introduction to Motown. We studied the whole catalog.” Now Human Nature is one of Australia’s top acts and has released nine records, five of which went to No. 1 there. The quartet even piqued the interest of Motown legend Smokey Robinson, who recorded “Get Ready” with the four guys and landed Human Nature its gig in Las Vegas. A part of it research, Human Nature visited Hitsville U.S.A. in Detroit in between the release of its first album and the recording of the second. “We were living in Australia still and we made our first Motown record and we were making a follow up to that,” says

Tierney, whose group now calls Las Vegas its homebase. “We wanted to grow up knowing the legacy of Motown and had never been. We should pay homage and go to Hitsville. We spent some time there. Martha Reeves took us through Hitsville and showed us what was going on in the room. It was amazing that so much creativity came out of a humble little house.” It even amazes some of Human Nature’s fans, some of whom say they think they’re not big fans of Motown. “Everyone loves the music—even if they don’t know it,” says Tierney of Motown music. “They’ll hear a song, start tapping their feet and say, ‘I love that song.’ “We had a career of our own doing original songs and covering other music sounds as well. To add Motown to our catalog of music is a blessing. To do something we do well and be known for it is something we really treasure.” Now Arizona audiences can treasure it as well when Human Nature makes its Grand Canyon State debut with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra Friday, January 15, Saturday, January 16, and Wednesday, January 27, at Symphony Hall. “We were asked by the Phoenix Symphony to guest with them and we jumped at the chance,” he says “They had seen our show in Vegas and we told them about performing with orchestras before and so it just kind of made a lot of sense. “Playing with the Phoenix Symphony is going to be amazing. We’ve been lucky enough to perform with the symphony in Australia. This is the first

time in the States. We’re really excited about it.” During its show, Human Nature will perform Motown songs and touch on other tracks from the 1950s and 1960s. “We’re going to go in and out and around of Motown and have some fun,” Tierney says. Outside of Motown, Human Nature has had the opportunity to perform with Sir George Martin, The Beatles’ original producer. “We did a song just with him and the orchestra at the time,” Tierney says. “He said, ‘I’d like to introduce this group called Human Nature. And you know I’ve worked with another great group as well—and they didn’t do too bad with the vocals. I’m hoping Human Nature will keep the legacy alive.’ “It was fun that he put that challenge down to us. To sing Beatles songs to the man who produced the records and had such an insight to the musicality to it was really amazing.” But it’s Motown music that’s Human Nature’s niche. “The music in Motown is timeless,” he says. “We’re happy to be a small part in keeping alive the music that was created by Hitsville back in the day.”

Human Nature

Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second Street, Phoenix, 602.262.6225, phoenixsymphony.org, 7:30 p.m. Friday, January 15, and Saturday, January 16, and 2 p.m. Wednesday, January 27, starts at $18

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

BREAKING ‘STEREOTYPES’ Black Violin blends hip-hop and classical in new album

Damir Lolic » The Entertainer!

ong before the duo graced the Broadway stage, Black Violin’s classically trained aficionados, violist Wil Baptiste and violinist Kev Marcus, stumbled upon orchestra class. “I wanted to play the saxophone, but they put me in the wrong class,” reveals Baptiste during a recent phone interview. “Kev’s mom enrolled him in a musical program over the summer and violin class was the only one with spots available.” After meeting in high school, the two Florida-based musicians forged an unmatched chemistry by simply taking what they were given and establishing what pundits are calling “genre-busting” music. Heavily influenced by jazz, bluegrass and funk, but equally adroit in Mozart and Beethoven, Black Violin set out to do something many wouldn’t dare. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

“Growing up in hip hop and just so happened to play the violin, we realized that jazz and the blues helped cultivate the urban culture so it was a natural for us to fuse it all,” he says. Their penchant for doing something different has led them to earn the Legend title at the famed Apollo Theatre in New York. By March 2009, only a year after the release of its debut album, Black Violin was on Broadway performing pop covers by Akon, Lady Gaga and The Fugees. Since then, the duo has had the opportunity to work with major leaguers like Aerosmith, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. Receiving worldwide acclaim captivating audiences, Baptiste says he feels as though they’ve come a long way since the debut of their 2008 self-titled album. “We’ve grown tremendously and touring has played a large part in that process,” he said. “Coming up as two black guys playing the violin in the club

it looked insane. Sometimes people were jiving and sometimes they didn’t know what to think, but either way we kept moving and improving.” At the root of Black Violin’s clover is an undying work ethic. The band played 160 shows alone last year. Touring the country to gain notoriety for their latest project titled “Stereotypes,” the maestros are joined on stage by their longtime leader of ceremonies DJ TK, who plays the role of hype man in addition to supplying the duo with a rhythm and beat. The final ingredient is Baptiste providing vocals to the show that truly completes the exclusive atmosphere. Being socially conscious musicians, the duo’s message is deeper than instrumentals, Baptiste explains. “Nowadays with all the craziness going on, everybody needs a common ground and I feel like we bring that,” he says. “Something kind of like baseball in

the ‘70s in a sense that all races can come together to root for one city or team.” Baptiste wants people to leave Black Violin shows feeling more optimistic and he encourages fans to interact during the spectacle. “When you come to a Black Violin concert, we want you to leave all the issues of the world behind and have a great time,” he said. “We encourage the fans to yell out, scream out—whatever you’re feeling just express it.”

Black Violin

Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, 480.782.2680, chandlercenter.org, Friday, January 15, 7:30 p.m., $24 to $38

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANAURY 2016

THE YOUNGSTER

FROLIC » DISCOVER » IMAGINE » FAMILY » FUN » CONNECT

‘SPARKTACULAR’ PERFORMANCE ArcAttack electrifies with a mashup of art and science

he electrifying performance group ArcAttack combines its love of rock music and its love of science in a show full of high-tech wizardry. Part rock concert, part science experiment, the “sparktacular” performance is perfect for the whole family, especially those with young budding artists or science enthusiasts. In the show, the creators of ArcAttack unveil the science behind two custom engineered hand-built Tesla Coils that throw out electrical arcs up to 12 feet long, each one acting as an instrument with a sound reminiscent of the early days of the synthesizer. A robotic drum set accompanies the display—its high power LEDs flashing bright colors with the stroke of each mechanically actuated stick. ArcAttack invites the audience to explore concepts such as electricity, voltage and current, magnetism, robotics and lightning through a show that’s both entertaining and interactive. The audience is engaged from start to finish as the group’s trusty, completely automated robot drummer King Beat introduces the audience to the show.

ArcAttack

Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main Street, Mesa, 480.644.6500, mesaartscenter.com, Sunday, January 24, 3 p.m., $27 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

COMING TO LIFE

Disney On Ice presents ‘Frozen’ midmonth

THE FUNNEL CAKE BLOG: WHAT’S NEW IN SoCAL

CALLING ALL

MUGGLES

Universal Studios Hollywood welcomes Harry Potter in April Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer!

U E

very now and then there is a movie that becomes an industry all on its own. Disney’s animated film “Frozen,” which debuted in November 2013, is one of those films. The flick is the top grossing animated movie of all time and raked in $1.219 billion at the box office worldwide. With a snowy setting and family-friendly plot, “Frozen” made the ideal choice for a Disney On Ice adaptation—and local fans can see the sure-to-be-sold-out show from January 13-18 at the Talking Stick Resort Arena. “In our more than 30 years of producing Disney On Ice shows, Feld Entertainment has been waiting for a film like this,” says producer Nicole Feld. “While it might seem obvious that ‘Frozen’ is well suited for the ice, this Disney On Ice production will touch audiences emotionally through innovative show elements and world-class skating.” The ice skating production follows the plot of the popular movie, including several of the now-classic songs. In addition to the familiar plotline, “Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse take the audience through the magical story based in Arendelle, with special appearances by beloved Disney Princesses and favorite characters from Disney/Pixar’s ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Finding Nemo’ and Disney’s ‘The Lion King,’” according to staff at Feld Entertainment, the show’s production company.

Disney on Ice presents Frozen

“Frozen is such a phenomenon. Everyone, not just the kids, but the moms and dads [and] grandparents all know the songs from the movie and sing along during the show,” says Julie Pritchard, a skater in the show. “Putting ‘Frozen’ on ice is just the perfect entity and adds a new dynamic to the storytelling.” According to show producers, the set design during the Disney On Ice adaptation is not to be missed as props will scale high into the air and state-of-the-art special effects will complement powerful skating. “It’s such an honor to be part of this production. It’s so huge! We have fabulous special effects, an amazing set and awesome choreography,” Pritchard says. “The best thing though has to be going out and performing and hearing the audience’s reactions. It’s pretty incredible.” And, for those who never caught Frozen Fever, the show should still be entertaining, too, Pritchard adds. “We tell the whole story of ‘Frozen’ so you can come along to see the show without having seen the movie,” she explains. “Plus we have a fabulous opening number where Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy help introduce some of your other favorite Disney characters.” Director Patty Vincent adds, “Our goal is to showcase these heartwarming characters in a way that allows the audience to cheer and sing along throughout this emotional journey.”

Talking Stick Resort Arena, 201 E. Jefferson Street, Phoenix, 800.745.3000, ticketmaster.com, various times, January 13 through January 18, $29 to $94. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Wizardwear and Filch’s Emporium of Confiscated Goods. Grab lunch or dinner and sample traditional British foods inside Three Broomsticks and Hog’s Head Pub. Grab a Butterbeer or try Pumpkin Juice. While the sights, sounds, food and drink may be enough to keep you entertained, the highlight of the expansion lies within the walls of Hogwarts. “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” will be an immersive, visually impressive and state-of-the-art ride. The attraction, built on a robotics ride system, will take guests from the classrooms and corridors of Hogwarts through an elevated adventure. If you have visited the Harry Potter ride at Islands of Adventure in Orlando, you will notice a visible addition to the Hollywood version of the attraction; hyper-realistic 3-D-HD technology. Guests will be given Quidditch-inspired goggles to wear during the journey. Outside Hogwarts grab a ride on the “Flight of the Hippogriff, which is a family-style rollercoaster, the first of its kind at the Hollywood theme park. Choose a wand at Ollivanders, listen to the Frog Choir, and watch a colorful procession at the “Triwizard Spirit Rally.” Take an early virtual tour at www. wizardingworldhollywood.com UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD

Michelle Talsma Everson » The Entertainer!

niversal Studios Hollywood has been undergoing a $1.6 billion expansion project, which has included new “Despicable Me”-themed rides and attractions. A new back-lot “Fast & Furious” attraction on the world-famous Studio Tour and a new immersive Springfield, which accompanies the long-standing “The Simpsons Ride.” The highlight of the project is the massive addition of “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.” Construction has been progressing rapidly, with fans posing for pictures in front of work walls for months. In early December, the park literally lit up the night’s sky with an opening date announcement. Start making your travel plans now for April 7 Author J.K. Rowling’s stories and characters will be brought to life, with incredible detail. Upon entering Hogsmeade, guests will immediately notice Hogwarts towering in the skyline, which can actually be seen from miles away. After you walk under the entry arch, stroll along cobblestone streets and see snow-capped buildings. You can visit numerous shops and dining establishments, straight out of the novels. Shop until you drop at eight retail venues that will immediately immerse you into Harry Potter’s world. Visit Honeydukes, Ollivanders, Owl Post, Zonko’s Joke Shop, Wiseacre’s Wizarding Equipment, Dervish and Banges, Gladrags

For photos and updates from Universal Studios and across Southern California, visit facebook.com/theFUNnelCakeBlog

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2015

FAMILY CIRCUS

Zoppè: An Italian Family Circus brings 173 years of clowning around to the Valley Napoline and Ermenegilda’s generations of grandchildren are here to bring their unique Italian heritage and nd you thought your family talent to the stage, or rather under the big was a circus... top tent. The Zoppè Family The show features their Old-World Circus presents its one-ring Italian traditions throughout acts in daring circus show in a classic 500acrobatics, equestrian showmanship, seat white tent right here in the Valley this canine entertainment, clowning, and of month. course, audience participation. The family Since 1842, the Zoppè family circus has even gained plenty of acclaim has been entertaining generation after from the likes of The New York Times, generation with its unique European ABC News and CBS. family tradition of circus performance. Zoppè is a proud, traditional circus Over 100 years ago in Budapest, Hungary, of acrobats leaping from horses and small the Zoppè family circus began when a dogs dressed in bright clothes intent on French street performer, Napoline Zoppè, making your circus experience dreams fell in love with an equestrian ballerina a reality. This is the authentic circus named Ermenegilda. But Ermenegilda’s experience you have been waiting for! father disapproved of their relationship Stop clowning around and see for so Zoppè and the ballerina ran away to yourself what keeps Zoppè Family Circus Venice, Italy and founded the circus that ArizonaOpry-ad-ENTERTAINER-halfpg-horiz-2015-11-22_FINAL.pdf 1 11/13/15 2:43 crazy—and crazy unique. is still loved today. Leah Goldberg » The Entertainer!

Zoppé: An Italian Family Circus

Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, 480.782.2680, chandlercenter.org, Saturday, December 26 through PM Saturday, January 2, times vary, prices vary

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

S NONSTOP

NERDY

Get your ﬁll of everything geek at Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest Justin Stabley » The Entertainer!

ince Arizona just can’t get enough of Phoenix Comicon, the nerd juggernaut decided to add Fan Fest last year, featuring some of the celebs, vendors and and artists that make Phoenix Comicon special. Now in its second year, Fan Fest is bigger than ever, and it’s making its triumphant return on December 4 through 6. Sword demonstrations will be held by several groups, including Rapier Combat with the Society for Creative Anachronism and Medieval Combat with the Kingdom of Umbria. Ye olde sword fights not your thing? Whether you’re inclined towards the Light Side or the Dark Side, there will be Lightsaber dueling with the Vanguard Saber Academy, where you and your kids can learn the basics of The Force. Of course, a convention would be lacking without a few cosplayers. There will be cosplay meetups and fashion shows every day for almost every possible category, from Star Wars to Dragon Age. Friday evening will be rounded off with a cosplay dance off, where the staff picks the music and the contestants have to strut their stuff. There will also be costume contests on Saturday and Sunday, where the winner is determined by audience applause. For more refined competition, there will be steampunk Tea Dueling, where gentlemen and gentlewomen attempt to consume biscuits and sip tea as elegantly as they can. This is a spectator sport with class. Film buffs won’t be left out since Fan Fest is hosting a brand new indie zombie film called “I Am Alone,” starring Gareth David-Lloyd, who will be present to answer questions about the film and his other acting credits. For lovers of the brain dead, you can answer the question, “Can You Survive the Horde?” This interactive obstacle course, brought to you by Umbrella Corps, Continues on p. 18

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

challenges you to make your way through unspeakable zombie terror. The other obstacle course at Fan Fest belongs to Scottsdale Parkour, who will host live demonstrations of their free-running skill and teach you safe and effective techniques. The event will be themed for “Assassin’s Creed,” “Tron” or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” depending on the day. For some holiday spirit, KNTR presents Nerdy St. Nick all weekend. If you’re tired of the same old Santa Claus, then why not try Bat Claus or Captain Ameri-Claus? Along with others, these Clauses are taking wishlists for the big man himself. Along with the panels, there will be guest appearances by some of the biggest names in film and television.

Karen Gillan

Karen Gillan was put on the map as Amy Pond, the spunky redhead companion to Matt Smith’s “Doctor Who.” She also plays Gamora’s rival sister, Nebula, in Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Because of all her nerd cred, we’re willing to forgive the sin that was “Selfie.” Her panel will be on Sunday and she will be doing signings Saturday and Sunday.

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Sean Maher

Best-known from the one-season phenomenon, “Firefly,” as well as other shows like “The Mentalist” and “Warehouse 13,” Sean Maher will have a spotlight panel on Saturday with signing opportunities all weekend.

The ‘Supernatural’ Gang

There will be several panels with stars from “Supernatural.” Alaina Huffman, who played Abaddon, and Juilan Richings, who played Death, will have their own respective panels as well as a group panel on Sunday.

And More!

Other special guests include Denise Crosby who played Tasha Yar in “Star Trek TNG,” Dirk Benedict from the original “Battlestar Galactica,” Tom Cook who animated many ‘80s cartoons, and many more.

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2015

THE ARTIST

Arts Calendar 34 Zoppè Family Circus 41 WaistWatchers: The Musical! 38

YOU WON’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES

Carnival of Illusion delights magic’s disbelievers Leah Goldberg » The Entertainer!

tep right up and experience all of the “magic, mystery and oooh la la” at Arizona’s longest-running theater show in history, Carnival of Illusion. This spectacular night of magic effects intertwined with global adventures is all wrapped up in a Vaudeville-inspired road show. Carnival of Illusion is presented by Roland Sarlot and Susan Eyed, an illusionist/magician duo with an extended background in magic. Sarlot and Eyed teamed up in 2009 to create the Carnival of Illusion, selling out nearly every show for the next five years. During their first year, Sarlot and Eyed were recipients for the “Gwynne Excellence in Magic” award at Abbott’s Magic Get-Together, the oldest magic convention in the United States. Later in their careers, the magician duo received “Featured Performer” status at the World Famous Hollywood Magic Castle. Throughout the show you can expect welcomed audience participation in an intimate setting all without a raised stage. This way you can experience the magic up

close and personal. The magic show is for only ages 12 and up, but the performance is appropriate for all other ages and is clean, timeless fun. Both Sarlot and Eyed have quite a few tricks up their sleeves that by the end of the night you will start questioning the unimaginable. Buy your tickets now to see The Carnival of Illusion for an experience that will surely excite any fan of the impossible.

Carnival of Illusion

Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main Street, Mesa, 480.644.6500, mesaartscenter.com, Saturday, December 12 and Saturday, December 19, times vary, $15-$60 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

LAUGH OFF THE INCHES

YOU CHOOSE THE SHOW THEY CHOOSE THE DATE

t’s the eternal struggle. Will you choose the pizza or the Pilates? The cake or the crunches? In a beauty and fitnessobsessed world filled with delicious, fattening things to eat, the decisions can be tough. That’s where Alan Jacobson’s “WaistWatchers: The Musical!” picks up. Get to know a group of women at Cook’s Women’s Gym as they tackle the subjects of aging, dieting, weight, sex and exercise, undertaking parodies of 25 pop songs, from “Botox Queen” (to the tune of Abba’s “Dancing Queen”), to “Viagra” (to the tune of “Maria” from “West Side Story”), prepare to be in stitches throughout the 90-minute performance. The battle of the bulge has never

Sponsored by:

(602) 253.8188 | www.VYT.com /valleyyouththeatre

@VYTPhoenix

VYTPHOENIX

GEORGE WENTZLER

WaistWatchers: The Musical! makes losing weight witty

been such a riot. Who needs to be thin and pretty when you have funny friends like these? The show has recieved rave reviews from the likes of BroadwayWorld.com, which said of the show “Be prepared to laugh off a few pounds!” Catch the show in all of its soulbaring glory at Herberger Theater Center through January 24.

Herberger Theater Center

222 E. Monroe Street, Phoenix, playhouseinfo.com, Wednesday, December 23 through Sunday, January 24, times vary, $43-$53

vytphoenix

LIKE US! FOLLOW US! WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

HOLIDAY ART

The top holiday arts events to spread winter cheer Feel that chill in the air? That means holiday arts season is upon us, and there are events a-plenty. It might be cool outside, but the festivity of these classic shows, exhibits and events will have you feeling oh-so-warm.

The Night Before Christmas A Christmas Carol

THROUGH DECEMBER 24 It’s the classic story from Charles Dickens live on stage. Relive the timeless tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his night of Christmas miracles told by the performers of the Arizona Broadway Theatre. Arizona Broadway Theatre, 7701 W. Paradise Lane, Peoria, 623.776.8400, times vary, $56-$85

Miracle on 34th Street

THROUGH JANUARY 10 Scottsdale Desert Stages presents this charming family play based on the old 1940s film. A small girl’s belief is put to the test in the trial of the century, when Macy’s Santa claims to be the real life St. Nick. Desert Stages Theatre, 4720 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, desertstages.com, 480.483.1664, 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m., $25

A Bloody Mary Christmas

DECEMBER 3 THROUGH 17 Tired of the same old family-friendly holiday fare? Come see the most irreverent and bawdy Christmas musical ever at Space 55. A Bloody Mary Christmas is about three drunken retirees fighting to save their condo from the heartless homeowner’s association. It’s a rollicking good time, but leave the kids at home. Space 55, 636 E. Pierce Street, Phoenix, space55.org, 8 p.m., donations accepted

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

A Winnie the Pooh Christmas Tail

DECEMBER 4 THROUGH 23 Visit all of your favorite characters as they play and explore in the snowcovered Hundred Acre Wood. It’s Valley Youth Theatre’s 20th anniversary of this annual holiday classic and the tradition is just as delightful as ever. Valley Youth Theatre, 525 N. First Street, Phoenix, 602.253.8188, vyt.com, times vary, $18

Black Nativity

DECEMBER 4 THROUGH 20 The legendary stage event by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes will be performed by the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center, featuring a joyous company of actors, singers, and dancers delivering an inspiring message of hope and liberation. Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center, 1333 E. Washington Street, Phoenix, 602.258.8128, blacktheatretroupe.org, times vary, $35

Holiday Pops

DECEMBER 1 THROUGH 6 Sing along to all the classic hits with the Phoenix Symphony. The hugely popular musical event will fill you with holiday cheer as Guest Conductor Stuart Sanchez leads the Phoenix Symphony and the chorus through the best songs of the season. Phoenix Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second Street, Phoenix, 602.262.6225, times vary, $18-$83

DECEMBER 2 THROUGH 27 Enjoy a variety of stories, songs, and an amazing array of handcrafted puppets at the Great Arizona Puppet Theater. Great Arizona Puppet Theater, 302 W. Latham Street, Phoenix, 602.262.2050, azpuppets.org, 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., $10

Handel’s Messiah

DECEMBER 9 THROUGH 13 Phoenix Symphony once again brings the holiday spirit to the Valley with a celebration of the life and death of Jesus Christ. Handel’s Messiah will play in churches and halls all around the area in addition to Phoenix Symphony Hall. See website for times and locations, phoenixsymphony.org, $29-$49

A Very Electric Christmas

DECEMBER 6 Lightwire Theater presents a show like you’ve never seen before. Using glowing lights as puppets and costumes accompanied by a variety of music, A Very Electric Christmas is a magical experience that will brighten up your season. Scottsdale Center for the Arts, 7380 E. Second Street, Scottsdale, 480.499.8587, scottsdaleperformingarts.com, 2 p.m., $29-$49

25th Annual Frances Smith Cohen’s Snow Queen

DECEMBER 5 THROUGH 20 Witness a magical retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s original story about a young girl searching for her lost brother. The Snow Queen is beautifully told through dance and musical accompaniment by Sergei Prokofiev. Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe, Phoenix, herbergertheater. org, 602.252.8497, times vary, $28

Ballet Arizona’s ‘The Nutcracker’

DECEMBER 11 THROUGH 27 The most famous ballet ever made is coming to the Valley for its annual return. Ballet Arizona’s “The Nutcracker” will light up the stage with over 150 performers and hundreds of dazzling costumes. Symphony Hall, 75 N. 2nd Street, Phoenix, balletaz.org, 602.381.0184, times vary, $15-$164

37th Annual Las Noches de las Luminarias

DECEMBER 27 THROUGH 31 For the last half of December, The Desert Botanical Garden will light up with thousands of Luminaria candles lining the pathways of the park. Travelers along the path will find various musical performances from choirs, bell ringers and traditional mariachi bands. Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, 480.941.1225, dbg.org 5:30 p.m., $22

THE POLITICAL FIELD

Politics are a game to satirists The Capitol Steps

Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

rimary season—especially this one—is always interesting for political satirists The Capitol Steps. It’s a time when the Donald Trumps come out of the woodwork, and other candidates, like Hillary Clinton, re-emerge. “This primary season happened earlier than others,” says founding member Elaina Newport. “This time, four years ago, we were just starting to see the Herman Cains and the new candidates emerge. This year, we already have 16, 17 on the Republican side.” The Capitol Steps, which performs Friday, November 27, and Saturday, November 28, at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, is never hurting for material, Newport says.

“It’s so fun,” she says. “It’s kind of like every time you think there isn’t anything funny, suddenly Donald Trump announces his run for the presidency or someone tweets his underwear.” The group formed in 1981 when it came together to perform at a Christmas party for its employer, Charles Percy of Illinois. “The joke that we’ve made is, we couldn’t do a traditional nativity scene because we work in the senate,” he says. “There was no one to play three wise men or a virgin. “We were invited to perform at the White House. We just basically thought, at first, we would do this for one party. But nobody has told us to stop. Thirtyfour years later this Christmas, The

Capitol Steps is still going.” Ironically, the complaints about the show have been few and far between, she says. The politicians rather like being the butt of jokes. “The politicians have invited us to perform,” Newport says. “They’re good sports. I think they’re almost flattered. I think the most angry anybody ever got was one senator was upset because we didn’t have a song about him. He was in the audience and said, ‘What about me?’ I told him, if you get in a scandal, we’ll think about it.” One of Newport’s favorite topics was Ronald Reagan because of his history as an actor. “He brought this whole cast of characters with him,” Newport says. “We

had a song called ‘Mine Every Mountain’ because he had these environmental policies. He was hilarious and a good sport.” She called Bill and Hillary Clinton, though, “the gifts to comedians.” “I couldn’t have made up those stories,” she says with a laugh. “Comedy is exaggeration, but he was so funny anyway. He’s was such a larger-than-life figure. The scandals he got in, you couldn’t make up.”

The Capitol Steps

Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 E. Second Street, Scottsdale, 480.499.8587, scottsdaleperformingarts. org, Friday, November 27, and Saturday, November 28, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., $45-$69

ARIZONA EVENT CENTER Food and Drink Specials For All Events!

NOV. 6TH

NOV. 7TH

NOV. 21ST NOV. 27TH NOV. 28TH NOV. 28TH

1300 S. Country Club Dr., Mesa | 480.779.7716 | AZEventCenter.com To Buy Tickets Go To: AzEventCenter.com WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

THE ARTIST

Arts Calendar 32 A Crafty Christmas 36

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUM

FRIDA, FREED Frida Kahlo’s personal items and photos on display at the Heard Museum

Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer!

rida Kahlo was an influential Mexican painter who was best known for her colorful and authentic self-portraits. She married to fellow famous painter, Diego Rivera, and was a strong feminist icon in the early 20th century until her death in 1954. Kahlo started painting to pass the time when a bus accident in her childhood left her bedridden for months at a time. The Heard Museum is presenting the “Frida Kahlo—Her Photos” exhibition, curated by Mexican photographer and photo historian,Pablo Ortiz Monasterio from Saturday, October 31, through Monday, February 8, and our unibrow is sprouting at the thought. The collection by the Frida Kahlo Museum features over 240 images that

are part of the Blue House Archive. The photographs, along with some of Kahlo’s personal items were kept away in a room until 2007 inside of the Blue House where she lived for most of her life. The photos are organized into subjects such as The Origins, The Blue House, Politics, Revolutions and Diego, Her Broken Body, Frida’s Loves and Photography to commemorate significant happenings in her life. The exhibit will allow visitors to take a closer look inside the famous painter’s life. The photographers include Man Ray, Martin Munkácsi, Edward Weston, Nickolas Muray, Lola Alvarez Bravo and many others. The collection illustrates Kahlo through her early childhood all the way to her life as an artist. Through the photos, visitors can learn about Kahlo from a whole new perspective.

Frida Kahlo—Her Photos

Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, 602.252.8840, heard.org, through Monday, February 8, available during museum hours, free with museum admission

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

THE YOUNGSTER

FROLIC » DISCOVER » IMAGINE » FAMILY » FUN » CONNECT

UNDER THE BIG TOP Circus Vargas has it all— except for animals Justin Stabley » The Entertainer!

here’s a kind of magic that can only be found at the circus, and while there aren’t too many left today, the few that tour are a wonder to

behold. Circus Vargas, one of the world’s biggest traveling circuses still using a big top tent, is marching down to Glendale and Scottsdale throughout November to bring their dazzling show to you. This year, Circus Vargas is touring Arlequin, the story of a boy who dreams of joining the circus. When night falls, he finds colorful characters filling his sleep including the magical Arlequin, a harlequin who shows him the beauty and wonder of the big top.

The show features Upside Down acrobatics with Monica Neves, who performs over 30 feet in the air without a net! A troupe of young men will bounce, leap and twist on large trampolines. Brothers Erick and Jayson Dominguez will challenge the wheel of death, a terrifying 35-foot revolving pendulum without harnesses or safety nets! In addition to magnificent acrobatics, Alex Acero, the Ambassador of Laughter, will be clowning around and turning frowns upside down with his whimsical clown display. The young illusionist Patrick Gable will also be there to stun the audience with his extravaganza of magical proportions. There are many more performances

during the show including Flying Trapeze and the Globe of Death. No matter your circus style preference of choice, Circus Vargas has it. That is, unless you’re looking for animals. Circus Vargas has taken a cruelty-free pledge, focusing on the unique abilities of humans, not animals. Experience the old-time magic of the circus brought to life for modern times.

Circus Vargas

The Pavilions at Talking Stick, 9175 E. Indian Bend Road, Scottsdale, through Sunday, November 15, times vary, circusvargas.com, $15-$70

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2015

THE ARTIST

Carefree Fine Art & Wine Festival 34 October’s Best Arts Events 30 Pickin in the Vines 35

YOU’RE A WIZARD!

Get your Halloween on ‘Harry Potter’ style

Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer!

itches, wizards and muggles of all ages are welcome to hop aboard the Hogwarts Express and experience a magical 90-minute long performance featuring the unforgettable music from the “Harry Potter” films, presented by the Valley’s premier symphony, Phoenix Symphony.

The movies, based on the award-winning novels by J.K Rowling, tell the story of a young wizard and his friends attending the magical school of Hogwarts. Over the span of 10 years they battle death eaters, magical dragons and dark wizards to save the wizarding world. The concert has garnered so much popularity that they decided to add three different performances this year. While the Friday, October 16 show is already sold out, there are still limited tickets available for the Thursday, October 15 show at the Orpheum Theatre and a recently-added show at Ikeda Theatre at the Mesa Arts Center on Sunday, October 18. Tickets prices range from $29 to $69.

Whether you’re in Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor or Slytherin, everyone is encouraged to come early dressed in their finest wizarding attire. The best costumes will be awarded with prizes before the show starts. If you didn’t receive your Hogwarts acceptance letter, you can still get tickets to this spectacular performance. Due to popularity, tickets are selling out quick. Grab yours today for a one-of-a-kind musical experience.

Orpheum Theatre

203 W. Adams Street, Phoenix, 602.262.7272, phoenixsymphony. org, dates vary, times vary, $29-$69 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

ART FROM

THE VINE

Careefree Fine Art & Wine Festival blends art and wine for a creative good time

rizona’s largest wine-tasting event is back for the chilly winter days to come. Carefree’s annual 22nd Fine Art and Wine Festival will be featuring a whole culture of art, music and the stunning view of the Sonoran Desert backdrop of Carefree alongside wine, glorious wine! The festival will offer locals a chance to taste domestic and imported wines for just $10. At this price, you receive

an engraved souvenir wine glass and six tasting tickets. To tie in the whole experience, there is an abundance of fine art and live musical entertainment. Festival goers can take in the sights, tastes and sounds with artwork from this year’s featured artist, Michael McKee. As part of the Thunderbird Artists, a community dedicated to giving emerging artists a platform to display and sell their art, McKee has been an accomplished artist for the past 12 years.

The Carefree streets will close during the time of this elegant event to make enough room for more than 160 artists who will have 5,000 original masterpieces of fine art. These works of art will include small to life-sized bronze sculptures, metal clay, wood, glass and stone. There will also be displays of hand crafted jewelry, photography, pottery and batiks, a technique of wax resisting dye applied to cloth originating in the different cultures of Malaysia Singapore, India and more.

All of the artwork available is diverse in their concepts whether they are traditional to contemporary, abstract, floral or wildlife centered. Each piece originates from different cultures such as Southwest, European, African and Native American art. The prices and subject matters will also vary so that everyone who attends the festival will have plenty of options to choose from. While you are at the festival, you can even visit the local galleries, boutiques and cafes in the Carefree area, too. Here you can utilize your time to take in as much fine dining and artwork as possible in the beauty of our desert. Explore your senses for taste, sight, sound and pure bliss at the 22nd Annual Carefree Fine Art and Wine Festival.

22nd Annual Carefree Fine Art & Wine Festival

Downtown Carefree, 101 Easy Street, Carefree, 480.837.5637, thunderbirdartists.com, Friday, November 6 through Sunday, November 8, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., $3

2015 - 2016 SEASON

The award-winning Phoenix Boys Choir brings the brightest young voices of our city together for a spectacular season of music.

BOY, CAN THEY SING!

NOV 6-8

CAREFREE

FINE ART & WINE FESTIVAL 101 Easy Street, Carefree

Sip fine wines and stroll throughout award-winning artists and accomplished musicians. Sculpture & Wine Festival In Fountain Hills • Jan 15-17 Carefree Fine Art & Wine Festival • Jan 29-31 3-Day Festivals: Admission $3 • Held Outdoors • 10am-5pm

M E E T

T H E

A R T I S T S

Arizona Fine Art EXPO • Jan 22-Apr 3 10-week Expo Season Pass $10; $8 for Military & Seniors • Open Daily 10am-6pm; Rain or Shine. Call 480-837-7163 for info

ThunderbirdArtists.com • 480-837-5637 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Season Opening Concert Sunday November 1 at 3:00 p.m.

SONGS FOR OUR HEROES

VISION FOR PEACE* March 4 – 5, 2016

THE HAPPIEST SONGS ON EARTH* May 7, 2016

Free monthly concerts! Thursdays at 6:00 p.m.

WINTER WONDERLAND* December 12 – 20, 2015

*Subscrib to the Pho e Boys Cho enix ir and SAVE! Ju

st $75 for a full season pa ckage. Sea T

VISIT PHOENIXBOYSCHOIR.ORG OR CALL 602-264-5328 Check the website for performance locations and details.

son icket Deadl ine for savi ngs ends on O ct. 31.

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2015

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATER » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

Mural Art 26 The Best Arts Events in September 20 Ballet Under the Stars 24

ARTS CENTER, INDEED

Chandler Center for the Arts brings the best in arts culture to the East Valley this season Justin Stabley» The Entertainer!

rts season is back, and it’s time to get out there and celebrate all that is creative. And this year, Chandler Center for the Arts is doing it up big! The fall and winter season for Chandler Center for the Arts promises to be as ambitious and enjoyable as their previous years, if not bigger and better. Along with their dependable symphony series, there will be many other musical shows. In collaboration with Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, the center presents Plugged In on September 12, a showcase of the best bands and soloists of the youth music school. On the more classical front, the Russian Grand Ballet, made up of top dancers of the nation, is bringing their rendition of the world’s most famous ballet, “Swan Lake.” The performance, held on October 2, is sure to be dazzling.

For more local flavor, Chandler’s 16th Annual Mariachi Festival on October 3 highlights the vibrant music and dances of Mexico. Hype yourself up for the holiday season when Ballet Etudes presents Tchaikovsky’s other most-famous ballet, “The Nutcracker.” Clara’s magical journey, performed on November 27, is the perfect family show to discover the spirit of the season. On December 22, the distant drums of the circus will usher in the end of the year. Zoppé: An Italian Family Circus has brought wonder to audiences since 1842, and continues today. Get your tickets and get excited! Your fill of arts season culture is coming at you fast.

Chandler Center for the Arts 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, 480.782.2680, chandlercenter.org

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

GET FANCY FOR FREE Ballet Under the Stars returns for outdoor, no-cost series

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Leah Goldberg » The Entertainer!

right lights, beautiful weather, ornate costumes and the quiet tapping of ballet shoes is exactly what you can expect at Ballet Arizona’s Ballet Under the Stars, returning for yet another season this month. This annual tradition invites the local community to delight in an experience far different from any other ballet performance. The audience views the ballet under the dark Arizona sky, where they can witness an acclaimed performance—all for free! For many Arizona residents, this performance is their first exposure to live ballet, and it will certainly be one to remember. Ballet Arizona is under the direction of Ib Anderson, a former Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet and The Royal Danish Ballet. The School of Ballet Arizona is directed by Carlos Valcárcel, who has studied ballet his entire life. Guided by these two professionals, Ballet Arizona never ceases to impress Valley audiences. Each of the five performances will also feature a performance by Class

Act, one of Ballet Arizona’s education and outreach programs. Class Act gives local elementary school students the opportunity to study ballet and create a dance with assistance from the professional dancers of Ballet Arizona. All performances will begin 7 p.m. in different locations throughout the Valley, including Thursday, September 24 at Beardsley Park in Sun City West; Friday, September 25 at Estrella Lakeside Amphitheater in Goodyear; Saturday, September 26 at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix; Thursday, October 1 at Tempe Center for the Arts Amphitheater in Tempe; and Friday, October 2 at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills. While performances are free, each of these events costs $50,000 to produce. Donations are suggested but not required.

Ballet Under the Stars

Multiple locations throughout the Valley, 602.381.1096, balletaz. org, Thursday, September 24 through Friday, October 2, times vary, free

BREAKING DOWN

WALLS Mural artists bust barriers in Downtown Phoenix

The moment I stop getting scared is the moment I should stop painting. You have to get scared. - Hugo Medina, mural artist

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2015

Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer!

hances are you’ve probably seen murals adorning the walls of many Downtown Phoenix establishments, but have you ever stopped to think about the faces behind the art? Hugo Medina is a painter, sculptor and works with metal fabrication. He is also one of the top muralists in Phoenix. He has seven murals in Downtown Phoenix alone and 40 total around the Valley, including the tribute to Wallace & Ladmo and the famous hands that adorn the Renaissance Hotel. He knew he wanted to be an artist at a young age. When he moved to the United States from Bolivia, he didn’t know the language. Art became his method of communicating with others, he says. While he enjoys working in the studio, he loves murals because they bring communities together. “I have two worlds you could say. Murals are very public and involve a lot of people. They’ve built an energy together, where my studio work is very intricate and personal. Murals are also a way of taking art out of the museum for everybody to see, instead of a select few that will go to galleries,” Medina says. Painting a mural is an adrenaline rush for Medina, who says he loves painting on large surfaces. The mural he painted at the Renaissance Hotel is 60 feet off the ground. He says being scared encourages him to try

new things with his art. “The moment I stop getting scared is the moment I should stop painting. You have to get scared. Just like when you’re working on a painting. If it’s too comfortable and you doing too much of the same thing, you don’t have emotion to it. You need that sense of fear,” Medina says. Carrie Marill is another Phoenix muralist who has been pursuing art her whole life. She moved to Phoenix in 2004 and loves the fact that Downtown has become a hub for the art community. “I love seeing the diversity of people and points of views. There [are] lots of open space and talented people who want to share their visual world with others,” Marill says. The first step to beginning a mural is figuring out how it can complement not just the building, but the community as well, Marill says. “I look at the building for a long time and see how it functions in the community— I let intuition be the guide and wait for the right image to take shape in my imagination,” Marill says. Her first mural was the bicyclist, “Pat,” on the Phoenix Flower Distribution building on Roosevelt and Second Street. This iconic Roosevelt Row mural was part of the Phoenix Rejuvenation project in 2010. Marill wanted to pay homage to the late Margaret Kilgallen, a San Francisco contemporary artist who painted a bicyclist mural in Los Angeles that was torn down during the Los Angeles County Museum of Art remodel.

She incorporated elements that were relevant for Downtown at the time, including the growing food scene, the public library, the increase in bicycle usage and the flower shop on which the mural was painted. “Kilgallen expressed a love for seeing the hand out in the world—so seeing the work of so many hands creating a mural, I hoped she’d have appreciated that,” Marill says. Marill feels most inspired by work made by women at home like quilts, weavings, rugs and embroidery. “Folk art from around the world inspires me like nothing else. I am a pattern and color seeker and folk art boldly revels in color and pattern,” Marill says. Her infatuation with color and pattern motivated her second mural, “For the Love of Color,” on the back of Combine Studios. “I collect colorful things and had a hand crocheted patterned piece hanging in my son’s room and one day saw it in a way I hadn’t seen before and re-imagined it giant up on a wall and thought Combine’s back wall would be perfect,” Marill says. Muralist Karl Addison grew up in Phoenix but has shared his murals all over the world. Without murals, he would have never had the opportunity to travel to places like Europe, Tokyo, Moscow, Israel, Mexico and Southeast Asia, Addison says. He believes Phoenix is the perfect place for murals because the community is so accepting of public art.

“If Downtown keeps being active with the art scene in all capacity, [it’s] giving back to culture and helping define who and what Phoenix is all about. It’s interesting to promote a city locally, but also have it represented out in the world with its artists,” Addison says. Addison has four murals total in the Phoenix, three solo works and one collaboration. His first piece, “Francesca,” is located on McDowell and First Street. Addison got in contact with Roosevelt Row and they pointed him in the direction of Christ Nieto, a building owner in Downtown Phoenix. “We created a friendship and I have been lucky enough to work with him on a couple different projects,” Addison says. Murals are different from studio work because there are so many outside factors that go into planning them, Addison says. “In my process the building architecture takes a big part of inspiration, [it’s] the idea of painting with a wall instead of on top of it. Its’ a challenge mentally and physically to create work of art on this scale and size,” Addison says. If you are interested in becoming a skilled artist, Addison suggests making time to learn everything you can. “Work with other artists and be part of your local community. When you are trying to produce work, let yourself have a higher failure rate to learn from. Not every piece has to be a masterpiece or get a thousand likes on social media,” Addison says. WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

DID YOU KNOW? DaVinci’s Mona Lisa is 2 feet 6 inches by 1 foot 9 inches. » Work on St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, began in 1506. Construction took over a century, reaching completion in 1626. THE

KING LIVES

presents

Celebrate Elvis at kid-friendly weekend event at the MIM Alexa D’Angelo » The Entertainer!

Lyrics by Music by Tim Rice Andrew Lloyd Webber Presented through an exclusive arrangement with R & H Theatricals | www.rnh.com

Live On Stage at

Herberger Theater Center 222 E. Monroe St. | Phoenix

August 14 thru 30

HerbergerTheater.org | 602.252.8497

Fall Workshops Begin

September 19th, 2015

Registration is NOW OPEN! /valleyyouththeatre

@VYTPhoenix

his month at The MIM, things are getting all shook up! If you love the king of rock ‘n roll, The Musical Instrument Museum is hosting a weekend event in honor of the one, the only, Elvis. Watch the classic “Jailhouse Rock” on the big screen and celebrate The King with iconic Elvis items from the gift shop, an Elvis-themed scavenger hunt and a photobooth where you can strike a pose with the costumes and props of Elvis. For those more creative types, you’ll have a chance to make your own Elvis! It might not be able to sing “Falling in Love with You,” but it may slightly resemble him. Try your hand at the Elvis stick puppet, where kids and adults alike can get help from volunteer team members, who will guide you in the creation of a movable stick puppet and show you how to make

him play guitar and dance. Even the lunch menu reflects the late king of modern music, with down-home Southern treats served at the MIM’s Café Allegro. After lunch, commemorate the day with a caricature drawn by a local artist and participate in the Elvis quiz, a big team trivia game. The winner will receive a $25 MIM gift card. The King achieved superstardom and popular success in music, film and media in ways that nobody else had before or has since. As the final event of the day, you’ll be able to join Dr. Rich Walter, The MIM’s associate curator for North America, for a discussion of the unique circumstances that established Elvis as the superstar who pioneered a new pattern of pop culture that we still see in today’s celebrities. Take a trip down memory lane and look at everything Elvis Presley did for the world of music, and, well... the world in general!

Musical Icon: Elvis

The Musical Instrument Museum, 4725 E. Mayo Boulevard, Phoenix, 480.478.6000, mim.org, Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16, all day, free with museum admission

Oh NO! Racks Empty?

Scan Here

SubScribe Digitally for free!

The Entertainer! Digital Edition will be sent FREE to your inbox each month! Receive a FREE gift just for subscribing! No Obligation.

For Free Gift! WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JULY 2015

WITCHY WOMAN ‘Wicked’ examines the backstory of pop culture’s mostloathed witch

Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer!

efore Dorothy blew into the Land of Oz and defeated the Wicked Witch of the West, Oz was a very different place. In the re-imagined story of “Wicked,” the novel-turned-Broadway hit written by Gregory Maguire in 1995, we meet two young girls at Shiz University, Elphaba, a girl with green skin, and Glinda, the blonde beauty. These two opposites meet and become the best of friends. When society pushes them apart, the misunderstood Elphaba becomes an outcast and transforms into the Wicked Witch of the West while Glinda the Good receives all the love from the townspeople. This critically-acclaimed Broadway musical has gained wild success since its debut in 2003. The original stars of the show include well-known names such as Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda.

It is the eleventh longest-running show in Broadway history and has won three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards and a Grammy Award for its album. You can experience the magic for yourself when “Wicked” returns to the ASU Gammage yet again! The show is returning by popular demand, and with famed songs like “Popular” and “Defying Gravity,” it’s easy to see why. Performances will begin Wednesday, August 26 and run through Sunday, October 4, with tickets varying from $30 to $150. Tickets sell out fast, so grab yours before it’s too late!

ASU Gammage

1200 S. Forest Avenue, Tempe, 480.965.3434, asugammage. com, Wednesday, August 26 through Sunday, October 4, times vary, $30-$150 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE AUGUST 2015

SHATTERED EXPECTATIONS Local Lindsey Stirling followed her naivety to stardom Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

hen a young Lindsey Stirling, growing up in Gilbert, shared that she wanted to meld the sound of her violin with electronic music, others tried to dissuade her. But the 2005 Mesquite High School graduate soon learned that being different has been “a great thing.” “When I started, I kept being told that I was too different and there wasn’t a market for what I was doing because it was too outside the box,” she says. “I found that what people thought would be my greatest demise is my greatest advocate. I’m the only one who’s doing what I’m doing and it’s worked out well.” Thanks to her talents, 28-year-old Stirling has been included in Forbes’ “30 Under 30 In Music: The Class Of 2015.” Her song with Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, “Shatter Me,” hit No. 2 on The Billboard 200 album chart, and she has more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube. “I think it’s cool doing things the YouTube way,” she explains. “It allows you to become connected to the fans on a personal level. They feel like they’re part of my journey more so, rather than just relying on label or radio to make things happen for me. By watching my videos and sharing them, they’re a part of my story.” Her list of accolades grew when she was given the Billboard Music Award for Top Dance/Electronic Album for “Shatter Me,” against such stiff competition as Avicii, Calvin Harris, Disclosure and Skrillex. “It was very exciting,” Stirling says. “It was very exciting. I was nominated with some of my idols. I love Skrillex. He introduced me to dub step in the first place. I love Calvin Harris. To be nominated with them was a huge honor.

When I won I was so shocked and excited.” Due to her busy schedule, she hasn’t had time to really cherish her award. “I’ve been on tour ever since I got it,” she exclaims. “I had to send it home with my manager, but I’m definitely going to put it on my little mantle next to my bed. It’ll keep me motivated and excited.”

FOLLOWING HER DREAM

Stirling has always been fascinated with dance and violin. She told her parents she wanted to do both, but they said she had to choose one. Stirling chose the violin, but slowly incorporated dancing in her performance. She explains that it’s “unnatural” to play violin and dance; it took a lot of practice to nail that part of her performance. Pursuing a career in music since just after high school, Stirling says she’s glad that she went in with her eyes shut. “I had no idea what was ahead,” Stirling explains. “I had no idea it was going to be an up and down journey. I was naïve as to how hard it would be. The naivety kept me excited and going. Every single step was a big and exciting step. Rather than just looking up to see how far the climb was, I was just excited about every little foot hole that I found—every bit. In a way, it was a blessing in disguise that I didn’t know what was ahead.”

COMING HOME

Stirling will reunite with her family when she performs a hometown show at the Comerica Theatre in Phoenix on Thursday, August 13. “I can’t wait to come back,” she says. “It’s so fun. I get to have my parents come and my friends come. There’s something special about going to your hometown

and playing in front of friends, peers and family members.” Performing in Phoenix or Provo, Utah, where she attended Brigham Young University, is stressful for Stirling. “Whenever you have family or friends coming out, there’s definitely extra pressure. You want to do your best in front of the people you care about or people you love or love you.” Stirling plans on indulging in the comforts of home while she’s in the Valley. “I love to go to Café Rio,” she says with a giggle. “That’s one of my favorite places. I love to go home and go to my parents’ house. They still live in the house where I grew up. I love to sleep in my old bedroom, have my mom’s home cooking, play[ing] games. I get to see the family dog. I love that.” Like the rest of her tour, her Phoenix show will include a premiere of the song “Firefly,” which will offer a surprise for fans. “It’s really different,” she says. “I actually sing on it. I never sing. My fans have been asking me to sing for forever. They wanted me to write a song that I can sing. I decided to give the people what they want.” She admits that it was nerve-wracking. “I was so nervous before the first show,” she says. “Nobody’s expecting this. I never sing live. So it was definitely scary. My fans are so supportive, though. They cheer me on every single night when I sing. It’s cool.”

Lindsey Stirling w/Lights

Comerica Theatre, 400 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, 800.745.3000, comericatheatre.com, Thursday, August 13, 7:30 p.m., $39-$49 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JULY 2015

TOO CUTE!

Hello Kitty brings her friends to town for an uberadorable live experience Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

ith a touch of innocence and some “super cute” friends, Hello Kitty is bringing her festival to Gila River Arena from Friday, August 21, to Sunday, August 23. “Hello Kitty’s Supercute Friendship Festival” is the first traveling show of its kind for the Sanrio character and her friends, including My Melody, BadtzMaru, Keroppi, Chococat, Dear Daniel and Purin. The event brings multiple stage shows, photo opportunities and surprises. The bowl of Gila River Arena will be transformed into a Hello Kitty-con of sorts. Merchandise will be available in the concourse. “It’s going to be ‘super cute,’ that’s for sure,” says Hello Kitty’s friend, Piper, in character. “It’s really more than just a show. We do have two stages and we’ll have live performances on them. We also have exclusive Sanrio-inspired fashions that you can walk around and see.” The event will also include DJdriven dance sequences, interactive exhibits, animation, art and eventexclusive collectibles. “Badtz-Maru has a motorcycle shop at the festival,” Piper explains. “You can take a picture on his bike and even hear what he’s working on. My Melody has a bakery were you can actually smell the cookies. Hello Kitty has a drive-in movie theater where you can smell the popcorn.” The “Share a Smile” exhibit will allow patrons to take a photo with a “super cute background with Sanrio friends,” Piper explains. “You can instantly upload it on social media. The best part of it is there’s

a button you can push at the photo op. It keeps track of how many smiles are shared. We’re going to start at zero and, by the time we get to Phoenix, I can’t wait to see how many smiles have been shared.” Kids and adults alike can meet the characters when they walk around Gila River Arena. “They can take photos, get up close and personal with Sanrio friends,” she says. “It’s great for so many ages. If you’re a kid who likes Hello Kitty, you can come and see the bright colors. “Kids can color on a Hello Kitty coloring page and you can get your face painted. If you’re an adult, you can come and have a great time, too. The shows are based in hop-hop. We also get to feature a great Sanrio friend who’s rarely seen in public. That’s a little surprise that we’re excited to share with lifelong Sanrio and Hello Kitty fans.” Piper says this is exactly what the country needs right now. “You can share in her innocence,” she says. “She really allows you to be a kid at any age. She brings a smile to different faces. That’s an important thing to have in the world right now.”

Hello Kitty’s Supercute Friendship Festival

Gila River Arena, 9400 W. Maryland Avenue, Glendale, 800.745.3000, ticketmaster.com, Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August 23, times vary, prices vary WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JUNE 2015

ALL DRESSED UP

Eddie Izzard is bringing his unabashed attitude to town, whether you like it or not Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

onning high heels and pontificating about human sacrifice, English comedian Eddie Izzard doesn’t hold back on stage. A selfdescribed transgendered person (“A lesbian trapped in a man’s body,” he’s been known to say.), the 53-year-old Izzard says his comedic appeal is wide ranging—and he doesn’t care about those who don’t get it. “Human beings are so universal,” Izzard says via telephone. “Someone falls over, you go over and help them and they say thank you. You’re on holiday and you know the same thing is going to happen. I talk about human sacrifice. That’s universal.” “If they don’t get my humor, I just don’t play to those people.” Izzard is bringing his massive “Force Majeure” world tour back to Arizona, this time for two shows at the Orpheum Theatre, Tuesday, June 2 and Wednesday, June 3. It follows his 2014 run of U.S. tour dates where he performed 50 shows in 32 cities in 64 days. The jaunt is his most extensive to date, playing everywhere from Arizona to Kathmandu. Adding to his impressive resume, Izzard performed his show in France entirely in French, and in Berlin he spoke German. He plans to master Spanish, Russian and Arabic. “I’m getting into my fourth language,” says Izzard, who was born in the Colony of Aden in the south of contemporary Yemen. “I encourage other people to do this as well. Come on, compete with me. Let’s all go to multiple languages and play 27 countries. I think Jared Leto’s band 30 Seconds to Mars has played 51 countries. So that’s where the bar is set. I’m going to beat that.” These accomplishments are top notch. Dubbed by The London Sunday Times as “The greatest British standup comedian of his generation,” Izzard isn’t fazed by that.

“It only puts pressure on you if your ego’s not up to it, I’m afraid,” Izzard says. “I don’t feel it’s a pressure. If I wasn’t working so intensively, it would be a pressure.” Izzard made such a name for himself that he also found a successful second career as an actor, appearing in films like “Velvet Goldmine” and shows like “Hannibal” and “Powers,” the first series broadcast on the PlayStation Network. Izzard works hard at what he does and doesn’t take exception to anyone questionings his beliefs. “I’m transgender,” he says. “Some people have a big issue about that. I say to them everyone’s given genetic cards at the beginning of life. “If you believe in a god, god’s handing out these cards. I don’t believe in a god. I believe they’re given out on some sort of random inherent thing that comes through luck, sperm and egg.” Izzard says he knew as early on about his sexual disposition. “I’m honest. I’m upfront. This is true,” he says. “I knew when I was 4 years old. It’s my life and this is who I am. “We get obsessed about (sexuality). We’re brought up girls and we’re brought up boys. We’re at a school for girls or at a changing room for girls. We say, ‘Nice cat’ or ‘Nice dog.’ We don’t say, ‘Nice boy cat’ or ‘Nice boy dog.’ We have no clue at any point in their life what they are. We just don’t know. I think cats and dogs say, ‘Nice human.’ They don’t say, ‘Oh, it has long hair, so it must be a girl or it could be a hippie,’ depending on the era. We get obsessed it. Everyone should calm down and say we’re all humans. I’m being honest and truthful about it. If we’re not being honest about ourselves, well what’s the point?”

Eddie Izzard

Orpheum Theatre, 203 W. Adams, Phoenix, 602.534.5600, phoenix.ticketforce.com, orpheumtheatrephx.com, Tuesday, June 2 and Wednesday, June 3, 8 p.m., $47-$69 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE APRIL 2015

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATRE » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

The Best Arts Events in April 34 Lisa Loeb 36

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS FROM ANOTHER ERA

‘In the Mood’ will bring you back in time Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer!

et “In the Mood” for this timeless performance! The In the Mood touring show has been swingin’ into countries around the world for over 21 years. The show is coming to Mesa Arts Center to share some iconic 1930s to ’40s moments through song and dance. Go back to “America’s Swing Era,” with music legends like Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra. This show will take you back to when thousands of young Americans were drafted to fight for America during WWII. As a result, a style of music was created that brought hope and optimism to our country.

Intricate costumes, choreographed dances, talented singers and live big band music will grace the stage to give audiences a genuine 1940s experience. The band, along with the performers, plays a huge part in setting the scene. “I like to say that the band is the seventh principal in the show. Their emotional connection to the music is just as important as the singers/dancers,” Alex Sanchez, choreographer and director, told The Boston Globe. Sanchez works to make sure the performers understand what it was like to be a young person during the depression so that they can convey an authentic performance for the audience. Vic Schoen, the main arranger of the show, played a huge part in its success. Schoen created music for the Andrews Sisters and was the Music Director for

Paramount Pictures and Universal. Although he has since passed, his presence lives on through his musical arrangements. Songs from the show include classics such as “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Sing, Sing, Sing,” and of course, “In the Mood.” The American Swing Era will come to life on stage for all generations to enjoy. With live music, singing and dancing, In the Mood celebrates a time when something as simple as music brought people together.

In the Mood

Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main Street, Mesa, 480.644.6500, mesaartscenter.com, Tuesday, April 7 through Sunday, April 12, times vary, $34-$59

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

BAD HUMAN! NO TREAT!

Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

Dog Whisperer visits to train ‘bad people’

esar Millan subscribes to the mantra that “There are no bad dogs, just bad people.” As the original host of the hit TV series “Dog Whisperer,” he’s seen first hand the truth in that statement. Fans will witness it, too, Millan says, when he makes an appearance with a few pups—untrained pound dogs—at the Chandler Center for the Arts on Saturday, March 7. “The only thing that’s wrong with the (pound) dog is that he was abandoned by a human,” Millan says. “At one point, he was a puppy and everybody loved him. Then he grew up and nobody wanted him.” Through humor, Millan teaches doggy parents how to handle problems with their furry friends. With all the problems in the world, he says, the “one thing we can eradicate is having a problem with dogs.” The key to having well-behaved dogs is discipline. Millan says it’s a common misunderstanding that owners shouldn’t spoil their dogs. “Of course spoil your dog,” he says emphatically. “But let it work for it. I’m not saying do not buy dog toys, do not give your dog a birthday party.” Dogs—like owners—need to understand the benefits of working for goodies. For example, Super Bowl

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

contenders are disciplined in their workouts. “There’s no Super Bowl without exercise discipline,” he says. “There’s no great team without a team leader, which is the coach, and then there’s Tom Brady.” If dogs are not disciplined, they take control of the household. “Dominance is exhibited by urination, to remind which scent is in the house,” Millan explains. “He uses his urine. People love dogs but they don’t understand them. I teach people to have great outcomes.” And those outcomes can be absorbed not only by canine lovers, but cat people as well. “You don’t even have to have a dog to come and watch my show,” Millan says. “There are four kinds of people—dog lovers, people who are afraid of dogs, people who don’t like dogs and people who abuse the dogs. My concert is for everybody because everybody will benefit.” The live experience is what allows people to “really get it,” Millan explains. “The TV makes you a fan,” he says. “Once you see it live, it makes you a believer. You’re a witness. You see me changing a dog from one hand to another hand. “I explain things in a more detailed manner—obviously much funnier. I have a platform. I’m on stage. I’m alive. I have that direction with the audience. It’s an organic feeling that television can’t give you. Like it or not, the live experience is a great way of communicating.” Millan is now the star of “Cesar 911” on NatGeo Wild. He travels to different neighborhoods using his expertise to bring balance to dogs and the community. At his personal appearances like the one at the Chandler Center for the Arts, Millan says he is able to expound on theories he touches on in his show. “Obviously, people love the live transformations,” he says. “We definitely bring dogs on stage; dogs that belong to that part of the country. Many times we use shelter dogs so people can see they’re not broken.” His goal in any medium is to help the United States and the world understand that there’s no such thing as problems with dogs. “We don’t have an understanding about how to raise a dog properly and the commitment that it takes. Thirteen years is a long time commitment. Most people want a perfect dog, but they don’t want to act as a perfect human. How can you ask for perfection when you don’t give the same?”

Cesar Millan Live!

Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, 480.782.2674, chandlercenter. org, Saturday, March 7, 7:30 p.m., $48-$125

IT’S NOT ALL

BACON & MASCULINITY Nick Offerman shows his softer side with wife Megan Mullally in ‘Summer of 69: No Apostrophe’

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE APRIL 2015

Breanne DeMore » The Entertainer!

or seven seasons, Nick Offerman, as the character Ron Swanson, personified all that is man on the hugely popular NBC show “Parks and Recreation,” which aired its last episode on February 24. Mustachioed and always dressed in a collared polo shirt and pleated khaki pants, Offerman’s character provided memorable one-liners and statements about how a free-thinking man should act such as “Fishing relaxes me. It’s like yoga, except I still get to kill something.” He also gave sound, though riotous advice such as “Never half-ass two things—whole ass one thing.” Offerman is not his whiskey-guzzling, breakfast food-obsessed counterpart, but one can’t help but notice more than a few similarities between the two men. “I think the writers are so brilliant and they took aspects of me and wrote them in a much larger, cartoon-y way. So I do love meat. I do love brunettes in the shape of [my wife] Megan Mullally. I love wood-working. And they took all of

I had a lot of fun assuming the constipated rictus that was Ron’s face, but having done that for 125 episodes, now I’m looking forward to doing things like smiling and showing my teeth...

those attributes and wrote them in a much funnier way than I do them in my life,” he laughs. Offerman is also quick to point out the differences between his character and himself. For instance, he actually enjoys the company of others while his character lives alone in the woods in a cabin that he built himself. “I had a lot of fun assuming the constipated rictus that was Ron’s face, but having done that for 125 episodes, now I’m looking forward to doing things like smiling and showing my teeth [and] mincing about the room without having to be a combination of John Wayne and an oak tree.” However, it’s clear that Offerman looks back on his time as Swanson with as much fondness as fans do. “It’s just an absolutely life-changing, epic experience. It opened the world of opportunity to the entire cast and writing staff and so, we’re a bunch of lucky stiffs who were handed a very beautiful carpet ride for seven years,” he says. Offerman is also able to perfectly capture why fans of the show stayed so loyal for seven years and were so desperately sad to see it go. “There is a way to exist in that [entertainment field] spreading love and not giving in to things like fashion and cynicism. And so, that is my strongest takeaway—the way that we can be very funny while still saying ‘I love you,’” he says. Now Offerman is coming to Phoenix with wife Mullally, who fans will recognize from her unforgettable performance as Karen Walker on the early ‘00s show “Will & Grace.” The two have worked together before on one another’s projects, but this show is a direct collaboration between the two. “We had done some touring separately… and we began to kind of stick our chocolate into each other’s peanut butter, as it were. The one drag about touring was that we were away from each other… and we were missing each other. So we said, ‘Let’s come up with a way to tour together.’ And here it is.” The show, called “The Summer of 69: No Apostrophe,” is a hilarious though risqué peek into the couple’s relationship.

(“There will be a lot of sexual education taking place both in word and deed,” jokes Offerman.) Through jokes, songs and skits, Offerman and Mullally will explain how they have maintained their marriage of over 10 years. “We have a handful of very enjoyable songs including a musical rendition of our wedding vows, and it’s kind of like a good ole fashioned show-biz couple [show]. There [are] elements of ‘Sonny and Cher,’ or ‘Captain and Tennille’ or even ‘Nichols and May.’ But we’re getting up to lovebased hi-jinks all over the stage,” explains Offerman. Although they have been married since 2003, Offerman and Mullally are never short of loving words about the other and are still very much able to surprise and impress one another. In fact, Offerman is amazed at what a truly great touring companion she is. “She is a lady and I am a man, so there’s an element of protection in our relationship. When we tour and we go on these long road trips, because we like to drive between cities, she’s delightfully accommodating. I’m very grateful that she’s not a big griper,” he says. After touring through the rest of the weather-beaten country, Offerman is excited to come to Arizona to play. Our beautiful state has served for multiple romantic getaways for the couple, though neither of them has ever played here. “One of our favorite things about touring is just that tangible experience of getting to commune with the citizenry in a big room in the flesh and blood,” he says. “Given all of the places that we’re visiting on this tour, I think Phoenix is gonna feel like a little bit of a vacation.”

Nick Offerman & Megan Mullally in ‘Summer of 69: No Apostrophe’ Comerica Theatre, 400 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, 602.379.2800, comericatheatre.com, Thursday, April 23, 8 p.m., $40

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MARCH 2015

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATRE » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

The Best Arts Events in March 26 Art Detour 29

THE LONGEST

15 MINUTES Take a peek into the quirky mind of Andy Warhol Jasmine Kemper » The Entertainer!

ndy Warhol is a major influence to 20th century contemporary art and has shaped much of what we consider to be modern art to this day. His obsession with bright colors, satirized commercial goods and celebrity worship brought his subjects to life on a canvas in way that was simply unique to the time. Thanks to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his works are making their way to Phoenix for the first time. The Phoenix Art Museum will be featuring the exhibit, “Andy Warhol: Portraits,” from March 4 to June 21. The exhibition will include about 200 portraits, drawings and paintings created by the artist spanning from the 1940s to the 1980s. The works include his infamous portraits of celebrity icons, including those of Marilyn Monroe, Prince, Sylvester Stallone and many more. Also included in the

exhibit will be self-portraits of the artist created by silkscreen printing, Polaroids of Warhol dressed in drag and many other unconventional displays. Take a peek inside his personal life with family photographs depicting a younger version of the artist. Warhol’s versatility in the art world allowed him to experiment with a variety of mediums when he created his art including drawing, film, music, silk screening and sculpture. Even after his death, Warhol remains a symbol for modern art and has influenced others to think imaginatively outside of the box.

Phoenix Art Museum

1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, 602.257.1222, phxart.org, Wednesday, March 4, through, Sunday, June 21, museum hours vary, $15

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MARCH 2015

THE YOUNGSTER

FROLIC » DISCOVER » IMAGINE » FAMILY » FUN » CONNECT

LEGOLAND Discovery Center 78 New in SoCal 78 The Best Family Events in March 79

WE NEED A

HERO

Hayli Metter » The Entertainer!

arvel Universe Live! pits good against evil in an epic, athletic show For those who can’t bear to sit around and wait for the next Thor or Captain America movie, fear not! Marvel has a solution. Marvel Universe Live! is everything you and the family love about the comic company’s superhero movies wrapped into one massive, exciting performance, coming to Phoenix March 5 through 8. The performance features action, exciting stunts, incredible costumes and a thrilling tale for kids of all ages who get to see their favorite characters in combat. The cast consists of everyone from X Games athletes to martial arts professionals who replicate the famous stunts and acts seen in the movies. There’s smoke, impressive visuals and an upbeat atmosphere as the characters each face off in a race to find the lost fragments, with the hopes of either saving the universe or destroying it all together. The show features over 25 of Marvel’s famous characters, including Iron Man, Captain America, Spiderman, Thor, and his infamous evil brother, Loki. After Thor

destroys the most coveted and powerful source in the universe, the Cosmic Cube, to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, Loki decides to set out on his mission to replicate its powers—a mission that, if successful, could lead to the destruction of Earth, and maybe even the entire universe. So the heroes team up, the Avengers included, to find the lost fragments of the Cosmic Cube and unite them in hopes of stopping Loki from his mission of retrieving them himself. However, as the show continues, it seems that Loki isn’t the only villain the heroes must face—reinforcements arrive, featuring other Marvel villains like Green Goblin, Red Skull, Doctor Octopus, and more who all look to reunite the fragments for their own villainous quests. See which side will reign supreme with the whole family this month!

Talking Stick Resort Arena

201 E. Jefferson Street, Phoenix, 602.379.2000, talkingstickresortarena.com, Thursday, March 5 through Sunday, March 8, times vary, prices vary WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S GOOD

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2015

TO BE

KING

The Arizona Renaissance Festival’s reigning monarch speaks Christina Caldwell » The Entertainer!

ehind King William, reigning monarch of the Arizona Renaissance Festival’s fictional land of Fairhaven, there’s a guy who’s just as busy as a real king. 37-year-old Tempe resident Levi Michael Haapala ascended to the throne in 2011, when the longtime king of the fest left and opened up the spot. For three years prior, Haapala played the fest’s Friar Tuck, perfecting his jolly laugh and keeping his eye on the throne. To some, working at the Renaissance Festival might hardly seem like work, but the king’s demanding schedule is Haapala’s real life work schedule. Attending jousts, parades and pleasure feasts (where he doesn’t actually get to drink) are all part of the jammed-packed schedule of the lord of the land. Luckily, his real-life fiancé and infant son, clad in his own medieval getup on his mom’s hip, also work at the festival for when he needs to work those long, hard weekends. But it’s pretty good to be the king, as we discussed with our cover model in character as King William. The Entertainer!: How did you ascend to the throne? Did you have to steal it or did you inherit it? King William: [Laughs] Sadly enough

I earned it because my older brother, Richard, died in a jousting performance. I was a second son. What is the most brutal joust you’ve ever seen during your reign? It was two years ago upon the field of Fairhaven. I believe it was The Italian who was knocked off his horse and broke his ankle. He came off his horse and landed horribly. What kind of king would you say you are? How do you reign? With a fair hand. As a second son, you usually either go to the clergy or into the military, and I went into the military. I served with both freeman and peasants upon the field, and I’ve grown an understanding and a liking for how they do life. So I try to keep what I learned through my military experience in how to help the people of my country. I was at the Renaissance Festival last year and I had the opportunity to have mead for the first time. It definitely wasn’t for me. Does anyone actually like mead? [Laughs] Then you’ve had the wrong mead. Mead is actually well done if done correctly. I know a Viking who does this

wonderful, wonderful mead, and it’s an odd yellow color, but the flavor on it is phenomenal. You have the find the right mead. Like the quest for anything—you have to kiss many toads before you find your prince. You have to have many meads before you find the right one. If you had to pick between eating turkey legs or drinking beer for the rest of your life, which do you pick? [Laughs] Turkey legs that have been soaked in beer. Good thinking! They’d have to be freshly soaked in beer to have any alcohol content, though. They’d have to be soaked for as long as possible so they absorb as much as they could. What does the average day look like for you as the king? Very, very busy. In the morning, other than my sword training and continued lessons, I [meet] with other leaders from other villages, I have other political issues to deal with with other countries.

I regrettably get to see very little of my children, as most of them are fully grown and gone. It is very, very busy. You’d think you could sit on the throne all day and do nothing, but that is far, far from the truth. Let’s play a quick game of kiss/ marry/kill. I’m going to name three personalities from Fairhaven and you have to kiss one, marry one and kill one. So kiss/marry/kill—Ded Bob, the guy who plays the bells from Cast in Bronze and the ladies of Hey Nunnie Nunnie. Let’s kill Ded Bob because he is already dead, so it wouldn’t stop him. I’d have to say the nuns belong to the good lord above, and I’m not about to steal our lord God’s wives from him, so perhaps kiss the hand or, if permitted, on the cheek of the nuns. Which regrettably leaves me marrying the [player] of the bells, but as long as he sticks with the bells, I’m sure we could work something out. He’s very mysterious with his mask! I see the appeal.

The Arizona Renaissance Festival

US-60 east of Apache Junction, Gold Canyon, 520.463.2600, royalfaires. com, Saturday, February 7 through Sunday, March 21, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., $22 adults, $19 seniors, $12 children 5-12, free for children 5 and younger

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2015

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATRE » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

Steve Solomon’s family therapy 29 Arts calendar 24

PRESIDENTIAL HYPOTHETICAL

Arizona Theatre Company looks into the ‘what if’ of when five former presidents meet Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer! am’s “Runaway Jury,” which starred John Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. Directing “Five Presidents” is Mark Clements, who returns to Arizona Theatre Company where he directed “Clybourne Park.” Clements is the Artistic Director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater, having begun his tenure there with the 2010/11 Season. He is an award-winning international theatre director whose work has appeared in over 100 major theatres throughout Europe and the United States. Broadway and television veterans John Bolger (Gerald Ford), Mark Jacoby (George H.W. Bush), Martin L’Herault (Jimmy Carter), Steve Sheridan (Ronald Reagan), Brit Whittle (Bill Clinton) and Reese Madigan (Special Agent Michael Kirby) round out the cast. Each season of homegrown productions presented by Arizona Theatre Company reflects the rich variety of world drama, from classics to contemporary plays, from musicals to new work. Join Arizona Theatre Company at the Herberger Theater for a humanizing and unforgettable look at five great men trying to find relevance after being the most powerful people in the world.

TIM FULLER

n often under-appreciated American holiday is President’s Day. Yes, we all enjoy a day off from work, but few actually celebrate the day commemorating those that have led this great country, other than getting to sleep in a few extra hours. Intentionally timed or not, Arizona Theatre Company is offering an exciting way to celebrate this month with the World Premiere of “Five Presidents,” running Thursday, February 5 through Sunday, February 22. A production by Emmy Award-winning writer Rick Cleveland, “Five Presidents” is a peek at what might have happened when the five living presidents gathered at the funeral of Richard Nixon in 1994. Cleveland has made a career of crafting dramatic worlds. His television credits include “The West Wing,” “Six Feet Under,” “Mad Men,” “Nurse Jackie,” and “House of Cards.” Cleveland’s stage play, “Jerry and Tom,” was adapted into a feature film and was an official selection at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the motion picture adaptation of John Grish-

Mark Jacoby, Martin L’Herault, John Bolger and Brit Whittle in Arizona Theatre Company’s “Five Presidents”

“Five Presidents” presented by Arizona Theatre Company Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe Street, Phoenix, 602.256.6899, arizonatheatre.org

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

FAMILY THERAPY

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2015

THE HIT NEW YORK COMEDY COMES TO PHOENIX!

From the Creator of My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish & I’m in Therapy!

Philip Roger Roy and Dana Matthow Present

Steve Solomon mixes his Jewish and Italian heritages in another hit show Breanne DeMore » The Entertainer!

Starring STEVE SOLOMON

The Author & New York Star of My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish & I’m In Therapy, is back with a hilarious new show featuring the best of his work, PLUS lots of new material. Join more than 750,000 people who have spent an evening of side-splitting laughter with one of America’s best story tellers & dialecticians, in a don’t miss “night of fun!”

“Steve Solomon brings down the house!” - Channel 9 TV (NY)

“Steve Solomon is a major talent and a wonderful comedian!” - WOR Talk Radio (NY)

“Perfect comedic timing.” - New York Post

rom the writer and star of “My Mother’s Italian, My father’s Jewish & I’m in Therapy” and “My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish & I’m STILL in Therapy” comes “Cannoli, Latkes & Guilt! The Therapy Continues…” Steve Solomon recalls hilarious stories from his childhood in a mixed heritage Italian/Jewish family in his trademark universal humor. With the ability to imitate and impersonate a wide variety of dialects and personalities, Solomon incorporates nearly 20 different characters and voices in his shows and is considered one of America’s best dialecticians. Expect for “Cannoli, Latkes & Guilt” to feature the very best bits of his earlier shows in addition to lots of priceless new pieces.

ENTERTAINER! DISCOUNT

His comedy may be universally loved—more than 750,000 people have seen his performances nationally and internationally—but don’t expect it to be politically correct. Solomon is well aware that his shows might cross the line, but explains that’s how he grew up and that is what keeps the people laughing night after night.

Steve Solomon’s “Cannoli, Latkes, & Guilt! The Therapy Continues…” Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe Street, Phoenix, 602.252.8497, playhouseinfo. com/herbergertheater, Wednesday, February 4 through Sunday, March 1, times vary, $43

$7.50 OFF EACH FULL PRICE TICKET Must Use Code: ENT2 and purchase by Feb. 20th. Not valid w/previously purchased, discounted or group tickets. Not valid Sat. 8 pm or Sunday 2 pm shows.

NOW PLAYING THRU MARCH 1ST! Tickets: $43-53 (Theater Fees May Apply) Showtimes: Wed 7, Thur 2 & 7, Fri 8, Sat 2 & 8, Sun 2 & 6

222 E. Monroe, Phoenix, AZ 85004 Box Office: 602-252-8497 Groups: 888-264-1788 www.PlayhouseInfo.com

Nation Beat’s Carnival Caravan featuring Cha Wa Tue., Feb. 19 | 7:30 p.m. | $34.50–$39.50 A vibrant intercultural collaboration that incorporates Brazilian, New Orleans, and related music, dance, and art to explore the cultural exchange between North and South America. To purchase tickets, visit MIM.org or call 480.478.6000

MUSIC THEATER

Located in the Musical Instrument Museum

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANUARY 2015

DANCING WITH

SELF-DEPRECATION Valentin Chmerkovskiy brings humor, sick moves to the Valley Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!

rofessional dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy considers meeting and greeting his fans one of the perks of his job. But when he and fellow “Dancing with the Stars” castmates tour this winter, he hopes to chat with a whole different demographic. “I’d like to meet all those people individually who didn’t vote for me to win this season and give them a handshake and ask them why,” Chmerkovskiy says with his typical dry sense of humor. The brother of former “DWTS” dancer Maksim, Chmerkovskiy took third place in season 19 with partner Janel Parrish of the TV show “Pretty Little Liars.” He is part of the “Dancing with the Stars” tour, which stops at Comerica Theatre in Phoenix for two shows on Sunday, February 8 at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. “It’s just fun,” he says about the tour. “You meet the audience and the show is very interactive. There are plenty of times I jump into the audience and dance with who knows who.”

Although he wished to not reveal many details, he did say that season 19 winner Alfonso Ribeiro of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” will narrate and perform in the show. “Witney Carson, his partner, who just won, she’s a super talented dancer,” says Chmerkovskiy, who also plays violin in the show. “And Emma (Slater) is a sweetheart. She’s amazing. Then you’ve got me. I’m a decent performer. OK looking, got an OK personality. Hopefully I can also contribute to the cast. It’s going to be a lot of fun.” “Dancing with the Stars” has proven to be challenging for the Ukraine-born Chmerkovskiy. It all starts with, what he calls, an “arranged marriage.” “You don’t know who you’re going to get,” he says. “Once you’re walking through that door to meet this person, you’re handcuffed to one another. You’re dependent on one another and you need one another for growth and individual success, at least for the show. It’s a very unusual process, but it’s an exciting one and a lot of fun.” He says he has to build his partners’ confidence and make them believe in

themselves. He considers himself to be a life coach of sorts, managing the stars from “A to Z”—making sure they eat right and avoid injuries. Chmerkovskiy is part psychiatrist, part psychologist. “I make sure their head is in the right place, to make sure the pressure of the live show doesn’t get to them, keep them cool headed,” he explains. “I have to be a coach, partner, mentor and ultimately a friend. These are all the things that we have to play on the show. That, sometimes, can get a little overwhelming. Hopefully it all comes together. I’m very grateful to be put in those situations. It makes me grow as a person. It allows me to help somebody else become a greater version of themselves.” Chmerkovskiy is modest when told it’s noble that he thinks of his partners above himself. “First of all, I have a responsibility to the person who took a chance on me or hired me,” he says. “I guess I have a little bit of an oldschool mentality and accountability and responsibility. When our casting director meets with people, with these celebrities, and she pairs them up and she says, ‘You

know what? We’re going to give you Val and I think you’re going to love him,’ I have to live up to that responsibility. “My partner is lost, excited, anxious, beautiful and frightened. They have no idea what’s going on.” Chmerkovskiy says he’s a representative of the show and the art. “I have the responsibility to champion not only ‘Dancing with the Stars’ but ballroom dancing in general. I take a lot of pride in that. I want to make this experience as great for them as possible. Maybe I was brought up that way. I’m at my best when I’m helping others. I look my best when I’m presenting my partners. That’s my outlook on things. I appreciate the credit I’m given for it, but ultimately, that’s the way I think it should be.”

“Dancing with the Stars: Live! Tour”

Comerica Theatre, 400 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, 800.745.3000, comericatheatre. com, Sunday, February 8, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., $28-$63

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANUARY 2015

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATRE » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

25 years of Celebration of Fine Art 30 Arts calendar 26

STARRY EYED

Scorpius Dance Theatre artistic director and choreographer on expanding the company’s inﬂuence

Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer!

corpius Dance Theatre’s founder, artistic director and choreographer, Lisa Starry, manages her company like a tight-knit family. Dancers enjoy working with her for that reason, while others simply respect her creativity and motivation. Her annual production, “A Vampire Tale,” is a highlight of the season among the arts community in Phoenix and is often referred to as the “‘Nutcracker’ of Halloween.” But there is more to Lisa and Scorpius than just that one production. The Entertainer!: What is your goal as a choreographer? Starry: My goal is to entertain people. Scorpius is best known for its highly accessible, full-length, themed productions such as our annual signature cult classic, “A Vampire Tale.” In addition, Scorpius is always creating edgy and inspiring repertory works that further showcase our artistry and entertainment abilities. Scorpius Dance produces “A Vampire Tale” every fall. What was the influence? Since I was a child, I’ve been a vampire fan. When I founded Scorpius Dance Theatre, I decided I wanted to create my own vampire story and put it on the stage. “A Vampire Tale” combines dance

and theater. Every season (for the past 11 years), we add or upgrade a scene, keeping the show fresh and exciting. Making a film about this story is still on my bucket list. Scorpius has other shows throughout the year. You have one coming up in February, correct? The February show is “An Unusual Love Story”... “David+Lisa.” While the main characters share the same names as my husband and me, the show is not about us. The production is inspired by a fact-based stage play and 1960s film by the same name. While taking a class at Cal-Arts, I was inspired to watch the film, and fell in love with the story. I originally staged David+Lisa in 2008, and due to audience demand, I’m bringing it back. What can audiences expect from David+Lisa? It is an intense fairy tale of sorts and tells the tale of two young adults who meet while in a treatment center for mental and psychological issues. An unlikely attachment is developed, and a love story unfolds between the volatile individuals. Scorpius is the first to abstract this story into the realm of contemporary dance, featuring dramatic, black and white staging and original music by Ryan Breen and Kristofer Hill.

What else does Scorpius Dance offer throughout the year besides your productions? Scorpius is busy all year performing at other events throughout the Valley and promoting the company to secure touring gigs in the U.S. and Europe. We also have dance and aerial arts studios, where we teach regular weekday/weekend modern dance and aerial arts classes for ages eight to adult.

When not working on your own productions, what is your favorite pastime? Where would we find you? I love to watch movies! During my free time, you can always find me at my favorite movie theater catching a new film. Also, I love to foster cats and help them find new homes. Learn more about Lisa Starry and Scorpius Dance at scorpiusdance.com WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

EN GARDE!

A FINE 25 YEARS Celebration of Fine Art gathers for quarter-century blowout Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer!

he event that has come to be known as the West’s premiere art show and working studio is celebrating its 25th anniversary. This year’s theme, “Celebrating 25 Years of Art in the Making,” will commemorate the history of the Celebration of Fine Art, which is steeped in tradition and passion. It takes place under the signature “big white tents,” featuring 40,000-square-feet of working studios and works of art by 100 top artists from across the country. The juried, invitational show has come to be recognized not only for its exceptional art, but also its welcoming experience and interactive atmosphere. “We’re excited to celebrate 25 years of art in the making,” says Susan Morrow Potje, co-owner and show director. “The show has become a very special venue for artists and art lovers alike. It’s a place where creativity and conceptualization are fueled by curiosity and connectivity. It’s where art comes to life before your eyes.” “The Celebration of Fine Art is

aptly named, it truly is a celebration,” says Marty Le Messurier, an artist also celebrating his 20th anniversary with the show. “It is a working studio ... where visitors are excited about seeing art being created every day. Many will come back countless times to watch the progress of a piece being created and feel they helped create it.” Styles at the show range from realistic to impressionistic, Western realism, abstract to contemporary. The outdoor sculpture garden will return with nearly 100 pieces of life-sized and monumental sculpture as well as a shared work space where visitors can see wood turning, welding, kiln firings, and bronze pouring demonstrations weekly.

Celebration of Fine Art,

Hayden Road and the Loop 101, Scottsdale, 480.443.7695, celebrateart.com, January 17 through March 29, $10 adults, $8 seniors and military

Avant-garde film series explores the unusual with a few famous names Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer! Phoenix Art Museum’s “Film Form/Film Art” series explores the diverse world of avant-garde cinema, screening many masterworks of the genre in their original, true 16mm prints and provides unprecedented opportunities for students of film, art and ethnography. On January 11, film program coordinator Perry Allen explores diverse avant-garde cinema through film excerpts and conversation. Films featured include work by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel, Maya Deren, Andy Warhol, Peter Hutton and Michael Fassbinder. On January 18, three master works of avant-garde cinema will be shown in their true, original 16mm format. “Dog Star Man (Prelude)” by Stan Brakhage manipulates the physical object of the celluloid film strip. “Meshes of the Afternoon” by Maya Deren manipulates typical narrative by using recurring images and fragmented timelines. “Scorpio Rising” by Kenneth Anger presents the camera as a machine. An Evening with Peter Hutton will feature a screening of “At Sea” on January 28. One of cinema’s most ardent and poetic portraitists of city and landscape comes to the Phoenix Art Museum for an evening of conversation and screening of his 2007 film. Declared the best avantgarde film of the decade, “At Sea” is ambitious and profound. A haunting meditation on human progress charting the life-cycle of a colossal container ship from creation through destruction, with a voyage across the Atlantic in between. The film will be screened in 16mm and will be followed by conversation and audience Q&A with the artist.

PHOENIX ART MUSEUM

January 11 through 18 1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, 602.257.1880, phxart.org

2P4H WRITTEN BY TED DYKSTRA & RICHARD GREENBLATT

2 PIANOS 4HANDS THE INTERNATIONAL SMASH HIT RETURNS TO PHOENIX

the purchase of a regular priced Dinner and Show ticket. ENTERTAIN ENTERT ENTER TAIN TAIN

• AZBROADWAY.ORG AZBROADWAY.ORG

•

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

JANUARY 14 - FEBRUARY 1 BOX OFFICE HOURS: M-F 12-6 PM 602.254.2151 • PHOENIXTHEATRE.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANUARY 2015

THE YOUNGSTER

FROLIC » DISCOVER » IMAGINE » FAMILY » FUN » CONNECT

The best family events in January 69 Fun in SoCal 68

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Zoppé Family Circus dazzles Arizona Dominique Del Grosso » The Entertainer!

ome one, come all! The Zoppé Family Circus is performing at Chandler Center for the Arts, and it’s bringing its most death-defying acts, most dazzling acrobatic feats and unique talents to the stage that are promised to touch the hearts of the audience. The Zoppé Family Circus is a show that’s made up of an Italian family, and it always has been. This circus began as all great stories should: when two people fell in love. In 1842, Napoline Zoppé, a young, French clown, was looking for work. He happened upon a plaza in Budapest, Hungary in search of work as a street performer. It was there that his heart fluttered at the sight of the statuesque ballerina, Ermenegilda. She had the type of grace that could woo the crowd and capture the hearts of all who watched with no words uttered. But most notably, it was Zoppé’s heart that no longer belonged to him alone, but to Ermenegilda from that moment forward. Unfortunately for Zoppé, being a street performer was not a profession that was regarded with prestige. And because of it, Ermenegilda’s father did not approve of their relationship. And even if it sounds too good to be true, the lovers conflict, but desire to be together gave them a reason to run away. Together, the lovers ran away to Venice, Italy, where they

created the Zoppé Family Circus. Since the beginning, the circus has been passed along from generation to generation surviving many obstacles. And although the circus has endured hardships and hiccups throughout decades gone by, it has always remained in the hands of the Zoppé family. Today, the Zoppé Family Circus features an intimate, one-ring show that has delighted audiences from across the globe. Always on the road, the Zoppé Family Circus still honors its Italian roots with old-world traditions in its performances. This circus isn’t a run-on-the-mill operation. The show is built on a central character and storyline. Starring Nino the Clown, the story unfolds as the audience will be mesmerized by acrobatics, equestrian showmanship and canine tricks. There is not a barrier between the performers and the audience at this event, as much audience participation is encouraged. The Nino the Clown character is played by Giovanni Zoppé, a sixthgeneration circus performer who was born and bred to take on this role, once of age. His character is said to touch the emotions and hearts of the crowd through actions, miming and tricks that have deep meaning. Only in town for a short period of time, this event is sure to be astonishingly brilliant. So without further ado, on with the show.

Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, 480.782.2680, zoppe.net, through Friday, January 2, times vary, $15-$32 The University of Arizona’s Reid Park, Corner of E. 22nd Street and S. Country Club Road, Tucson, zoppe. net, Friday, January 10 through Sunday, January 12, times vary, $15-$32

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

Esai Morales co-stars as Mr. Santillan in “Spare Parts,” based on the real story of four Carl Hayden Community High School Students that took on the MIT robotics club to win an underwater robotics competition. PHOTO BY GIULIANO BEKOR

WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE JANUARY 2015

Background

NO MORE Esai Morales looks to promote Latino talent in Phoenix-focused ‘Spare Parts’ Lynette Carrington » The Entertainer!

t’s a story from our own backyard, but it’s not one that’s often told. Prolific actor, producer, director and activist Esai Morales co-stars in upcoming film “Spare Parts,” which will be released January 16, based on a true Phoenix story that occurred in 2004. The film also stars George Lopez, Jamie Lee-Curtis and Marisa Tomei. It centers on Carl Hayden Community High School and its real life students, Oscar Vazquez, Cristian Arcega, Luis Aranda and Lorenzo Santillan—all teens from a poor part of town, some of whom were undocumented. The unlikely group of students, with nothing more than $800, used car parts and some guts, took on the prestigious MIT Robotics Club and won the Marine Advanced Technology Education Competition Underwater Robot Challenge. The film showcases several Hispanic artists in meaningful roles, including Morales, who portrays the father of student Lorenzo Santillan. He recognizes that there are few roles like this in Hollywood, so when he got a call from George Lopez, who also stars in the film, about the script, the story resonated with him. “That’s the shot in the arm that young people from those communities and others need to really see—that you can strive to do great things and actually

achieve them,” Morales says. “I was connected with the relationship with the son and the father and that whole dynamic,” he explains. “I got to meet the real Lorenzo and some of the people that we were portraying at the wrap party. It was a pleasure and an honor, because as much as I’ve done in my life, I look at other people and I’m floored and humbled by what they do in theirs.” Morales hopes that people take away

“We have to stop the negativity that is passed on down to our children and the neuroses,” he says. Morales is taking an active role in how Latinos are perceived in media, and not just with the roles he chooses. He founded National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts in 1997 with actors Sonia Braga, Jimmy Smits, Merel Julia and attorney Felix Sanchez to encourage increased presence of Latinos in media

That’s the shot in the arm that young people from those communities and others need to really see—that you can strive to do great things and actually achieve them. a positive message from “Spare Parts.” “I think it’s a multi-faceted message,” Morales says. “Number one, we’re people—people left in the background. We’re not monolithic. Not everybody speaks Spanish, not everybody is an immigrant and not everyone is an American.” The relationship between father and son in the film was also an important one that can serve as an example of what is possible with encouragement, Morales says.

and entertainment. The organization has provided scholarships in excess of $1 million to more than 350 Hispanic students who are pursuing graduate degrees in the arts. ”We started the organization to improve the quantity of our people— Latino Americans—who participate in this business,” Morales says. “The more that we support the students that excel in their studies we’ll be able to populate the industry with talented individuals.” WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATRE » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

Lindi “Hop’s” Vibrant Watercolors 19 The Best December Arts Events 16 Sugar Plum Fairy Stays on her Toes 22

THE DIVINE

DANCE

Shen Yun Performing Arts preserves its inspired history Breanne DeMore » The Entertainer!

tarted in 2006 in New York City by a group of classically trained Chinese artists, Shen Yun Performing Arts is a non-profit organization that has one wish: to revive the true, divinely inspired culture of China and share it with the world. The culture that they wish to revive is one of color, coexistence and respect and reverence for the arts. They wish to revive Shen Zhou, The Divine Land, the name that China was once dubbed. For 5,000 years this divine culture thrived in China and, although this tradition was nearly lost, Shen Yun is here to share it with the world. An explosion of color, energy and history, Shen Yun, meaning “the beauty of divine beings dancing,” seeks to share this glorious, artistic culture with millions across the globe. As performers, wearing stunning costumes full of color and mystery, dance

to a truly unique and thrilling blend of Eastern and Western music, they are able to tell a story, preserve the art of Chinese dance and explore the diversity of the ethnic groups contained within the border of China. Recognized for its distinctive elegance, Chinese dance is well known as being one of the most rigorous arts to learn. Once passed down among the people in imperial courts and ancient plays, the tradition of the classical Chinese dance was built on traditional aesthetics. As the dancers spin, flip and seemingly glide across the stage, the audience begins to question what is really possible. Performing at the Mesa Arts Center on February 11 and 12 and the Orpheum Theater on February 14 and 15, the dance troupe and symphony orchestra share their culture and message with the Valley.

Shen Yun

Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main Street, Mesa, 480.644.6500, mesaartscenter, Wednesday, February 11 and Thursday, February 12 Orpheum Theater, 203 W. Adams Street, Phoenix, 602.262.6225, Orpheum-theater.com, Saturday, February 14 and Sunday, February 15 WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

LINDI “HOP” ACROSS

WATERCOLOR ART Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer!

resh off a gallery show in the lobby of the FilmBar in Downtown Phoenix, Arizona native Lindi “Hop” Koprivnikar discusses her watercolor passion, which has been fueled by the Downtown Phoenix art scene.

The Entertainer!: How has the Phoenix art scene inspired your work? Koprivnikar: Being here in Phoenix for so long, I have seen a shift in the art scene. If you own a business in Downtown Phoenix with a free wall, you need to have a mural painted on it. It has changed a lot and is really inspiring. Pretty much any restaurant you go to in Downtown Phoenix has custom artwork. Seeing that made me want to get back into art and traditional media. Had you taken a break from creating art? I work part-time at an ad agency three days a week. The rest of the time I work for myself doing painting, or doing freelance. Once I started graphic design and stepped into the digital media world, I had stepped away from traditional media. It had been so long that people that knew me didn’t even know I could paint. I got back into [it] over the past year.

How do you describe your work? I tell people my art is a hodgepodge, like my hair color, it’s a bit out there, it’s a mix. In terms of graphic design my niche is branding, logo design. I also like to incorporate hands-on things into my art, so it’s not 100 percent digital. It’s a mashup of traditional graphic design and painting and drawing. What is your favorite medium to work with? My watercolors paintings were what was on display at Film Bar. That is my primary medium when I do fine art, or traditional art. I think it is a good workable medium. There are a lot of things you can do; acrylics, oils, etc… but for me watercolors is the most fun. You can bring art to life with just water. Surrealism is my focus. What has the response been to your work? Right when I got back into painting, I sold all three of my first paintings… to my complete shock. I have been asked to commission a few paintings here and there. So far, it has been pretty great. I also have an Etsy shop, so when a painting sells and people will still want it, I will recreate a digital print. Read more about Lindi and view her work at metanoiamethod.com

The Circus Is Coming To Town!

December 2014 13 Dmitri Matheny’s The Snowcat . . 11am 26-31 Zoppe Italian Family Circus . . . Times Vary

January 2015 1-4 16 18 25

Zoppe Italian Family Circus . . . Times Vary Alpin Hong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7:30pm African Children’s Choir . . . . . . . . . .3pm Travis Tritt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7pm

February 2015 7 The Midtown Men . . . . . . . . . . . 7:30pm 4 Stars From The Original Cast Of Jersey Boys 8 Of Legends and Lovers: Doc and Kate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3pm 14 Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana: The Soul of Flamenco . . . . . . . . 7:30pm 21 An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin 7:30pm 22 The World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra . . . . . . . . . 7:30pm

December 26 - January 4

March 2015 1 Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway . . . . . . . 7 Cesar Millan Live! . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Michael Londra’s Celtic Fire . . . . 20 Garibaldi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Paul Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2:30pm 7:30pm 2:30pm 7:30pm 7:30pm

www.ChandlerCenter.org • 480.782.2680 @ChandlerArts

/ChandlerCenterfortheArts

@ChandlerArts WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

EN POINTE

Life as the Sugar Plum Fairy

MICHELLE VAGI AS THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY

s a company dancer of Ballet Arizona since 2006, Michelle Vagi has been kept on her toes. She has originated featured roles in many of Ib Anderson, Ballet Arizona’s director, ballets, been chosen for soloist roles in Swan Lake, Napoli and The Sleeping Beauty, and is the company’s goto Sugar Plum Fairy for their production of The Nutcracker. Vagi, as sweet as she is talented, took the time out of her very busy rehearsal schedule to tell us about how she got started, what the life of a professional dancer is really like and what the Nutcracker means to her. The Entertainer!: What was your opinion on ballet when you were very little and what made you want to dance? Vagi: I liked ballet when I began taking lessons around age four, but I don’t think that I really was committed to it until I began performing in, funny enough, The Nutcracker as a mouse at age eight. After I got my first taste of WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM

ROSALIE O’CONNOR

Breanne DeMore » The Entertainer!

performing in a production, I guess you could say I was hooked. What has been the most difficult part about your life as a ballet dancer? The mental battles, without a doubt. I think my career has forced me to think a lot about why I dance (because I love to dance and not for the approval of others), and the things that are really important in life (loving people as opposed to my achievements). What is something that the average person might not know about the life of a professional ballet dancer? The amount of toe-tape we go through? [Laughs] I don’t know. Probably that our lives are not all about dance all the time. Most of us have things we like to do outside of dance. I am going to school right now for my Master’s and I know a lot of dancers have very interesting and colorful lives outside the studio. How does it feel to perform as a principal in such a legendary Ballet as The Nutcracker? It’s a lot of fun. Actually, I did always want to be Clara as a kid and I never got the

chance. But being the Sugar Plum Fairy has its kicks, too. [Laughs] It’s fun to get to perform this role knowing that it is iconic to any kid who knows The Nutcracker. I mean, I get to pretend I am the queen of a magic kingdom. How cool is that?

Ballet Arizona presents The Nutcracker with the Phoenix Symphony at Symphony Hall

75 N. Second Street, Phoenix, 602.381.1096, balletaz.org, Friday, December 12 through Sunday, December 28, times vary, prices vary

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2014

tHE artISt

CulTure » TheATre » DANCe » gAllery » DrAmA » ViSioN

Hot arts events 14 Zoolights 17 Circus Vargas 18

DanCE

Into tHE HolIDayS

Breanne DeMore » The Entertainer!

evered for its stunning ability to blend innovation and tradition, Ballet Arizona has long been dedicated to preserving classical dance while also appealing to younger generations. As the holidays approach, Ballet Arizona is embarking on a much-loved holiday tradition—“The Nutcracker.” The fantastical story of a little girl on Christmas Eve experiencing her toys, led by her new nutcracker, coming to life around her, this Russian ballet has been performed since 1892. A holiday favorite for all ages, “The Nutcracker” perfectly embodies the “Christmas magic” that we all look forward to this time of year. Ballet Arizona will have performances of the “The Nutcracker” from December 12 through December 28, but that isn’t your only way to experience the magical show this season.

On Sunday, November 16, Ballet Arizona will host The Nutcracker Festival, a family-friendly day of holiday fun. The School of Ballet Arizona and Ballet Arizona will perform at different times throughout the day. Each performance will include an appearance by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. Also included in the festival is a

holiday brunch, seasonal shopping from the Nutcracker Gift Shop and creation stations with Ballet Arizona, ChildsPlay, Children’s Museum of Phoenix, Heard Museum and Desert Botanical Garden. A global tradition, “The Nutcracker” by Ballet Arizona is a truly wonderful way to experience the magic of the holiday season with the whole family.

Ballet arizona

2836 e. Washington Street Phoenix, 602.381.0184 balletaz.org

JOIN US!

Gilbert Art Walk

15th!

45 W. Page Ave. • 9:00am to 1:00pm

NOvemBeR

Under the Water Tower • 1st & 3rd Saturdays

Nov. 1st, 15th, 29th, Dec. 6th, 13th, 20th, Jan. 3rd, 17th, 31st, Feb. 7th, 21st, Mar. 7th, 21st

www.GilbertArtWalk.com

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2014 presented by

2014/15 SEA SON Bad things happen when you hire an assassin in a dive bar.

Celebrate the Holidays with 3.8 Million Lights

Rigoletto NOV

by Giuseppe Verdi

ith unforgettable arias that are

synonymous with Italian

opera and a dramatic,

Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer!

twisting plot, Rigoletto ONE OF THE LARGEST holiday light shows in the country takes place

right here at the Phoenix Zoo. ZooLights is a local holiday tradition and is visited by as many as 300,000 each year to see the 3.8 million energy-friendly lights throughout the property. It takes a four-person crew approximately fourteen weeks to install, with the project beginning in mid-July and wrapping by the end of October. Every year new features are added, with a total of 700 displays. The Phoenix Zoo is a pioneer of sorts, being the ﬁrst to create and use large mesh nets to cover trees and shrubbery. ZooLights is one of the only venues to use such a wide variety of lighting techniques that include rope lights, LED lights, light strands, black light, ﬁber optics, lasers, strobes and lights programmed to music. In addition to the massive light display, visitors can meet Tortuga the Talking Galapagos Tortoise, say “hello” to Jengo the Talking Giraffe and enjoy two new Music in Motion shows featuring sounds from the movie “Polar Express” and Carol of the Bells by Artic Express. For a small additional fee, add one or all of the following: a 4-D Polar Express theatre experience, get an up close and personal encounter with sting rays, ride the carousel, or take a camel or wagon ride. Make ZooLights a part of your annual holiday traditions.

features dark assassins, a philandering Duke and the self-sacrificing Gilda. This

Sat 7:30 pm

lush production set in 16th century Mantua features baritone Michael Corvino as Rigoletto, who “brings a robust voice and disarming

Sun 2:00 pm

vulnerability to the role.” – The New York Times. Sung in Italian with English Supertitles

Et S tiCK at rt Sta

$25

Kenda Newbury’s

AZDance Group

azdance.org (480) 215-1916 full details

Phoenix SymPhony hall

www.azopera.org 602-266-7464 S E A SO N S P O N SO R S

ZoolIGHtS at pHoEnIX Zoo

November 24 through January 11 455 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, 602.273.1341, phxzoo.org, $10-$18

14 15 16

Fri 7:30 pm

O ffi c i a l A i rli ne

O f f i c i a l Hot e l

Official Piano

Let AZDance Group celebrate FAMILY with you

Sat., Dec. 6 @ CSFAC & Sun., Dec. 7 @ PVCC - A JOYOUS CHRISTMAS April / May 2015 - VISITING, world-premiere work about friendships & family AZDance Group is a professional dance company which integrates individuals with different abilities, at-risk & underprivileged teens, children & pre-professional dancers with our professional roster from around the country. AZDance is a non-proﬁt 501c(3) celebrating 10 years as a non-proﬁt & 13t years as a woman-owned business. We are proud to be an Albertsons Community Partner, please support us & use ID# 49001026031

all In tHE faMIly

Circus Vargas a family affair Randy Montgomery » The Entertainer!

C Circus Vargas Saturday, november 1 through Monday, november 3, times vary

desert Sky mall, 7611 W. Thomas Road, Phoenix

thursday, november 6 through Monday, november 10, times vary

Superstition Springs mall, 6555 e. Southern avenue, mesa

thursday, november 13 through Monday, november 24, times vary

Pavilions at Talking Stick, 9180 e. indian Bend Road, Scottsdale circusvargas.org, $20-$65

Join ABT for a BIG, BOLD and ALL BROADWAY 10th Anniversary Season! INCLUDING:

623.776.8400 • AZBROADWAY.ORG 7701 W. PARADISE LN. • PEORIA, AZ 85382

ircus Vargas is more than just your average circus show, and its owners and performers are out to prove that, one gaping mouth at a time. “We say Circus Vargas is not a show, it’s an experience,” says producer and co-owner Katya Quiroga. Circus Vargas will make its next appearance in the Valley during dates through November 24, with daredevils, magic, comedy and jugglers in tow. The show has been a tradition for spectacle-hungry families for more than four decades, but is a family tradition for the performers themselves. Circus Vargas has been kept alive by Quiroga and her husband through the years. “My family has a long history with Circus Vargas. When my parents were working in the show, I was only ten years old. I met my husband when he was a flying trapeze artist and I was a juggler. For us, it held a lot of childhood memories.” After several years with the circus, the couple left and traveled the world. The original owners retired and the circus had closed. “Fifteen years had gone by and Circus Vargas came up for sale,” Quiroga says. “We talked with our family and we did not want Circus Vargas to disappear. We wanted to ensure that the traditional circus stayed alive.” The new Circus Vargas keeps the old tradition alive while adding some unique new elements, complete with lights, sounds and falling snow. Every year the couple searches for the best acts in the world.

“Along with fun, we want to have an amazing show, with world-class acts. We travel the world looking for the best of the best and Agostino is one of those acts,” Quiroga says. Daredevil Agostino Provenzano Maltese performs the “Wheel of Death” act at each performance. This terrifyingly thrilling display takes place high atop the 30-foot cold steel revolving pendulum in a daring duel with destiny and gravity with no harnesses or safety nets. “My family has been in the circus for years,” Maltese says. “When I was a kid (13 years old) I saw a friend do [the Wheel of Death] act and I said ‘I want to do that.’” Maltese doesn’t let the danger scare him. Instead, he feeds off the energy of the crowd. “I try to make the audience feel what I do and feel my adrenaline. I love when people get involved. I look at them, I make them scream and yell. As a performer, that is our pay. When you are on stage and the audience screams, that is a beautiful thing.” Prior to each performance, audiences are invited to arrive 30-45 minutes early to enjoy an interactive, pre-show experience. Afterwards, performers offer a meet and greet, take photos and sign autographs. Audience members can ask questions and get a feeling of what Circus Vargas is all about. “Circus Vargas is about coming and having a good time. You can take your 2-year-old, or your 80-year-old grandma, and it’s very up close and personal.”

MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY Pro creep Rob Zombie terrorizes patrons— and himself—at Scottsdale haunt Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer! Tim Sealy » Photography

earing a “Jaws” T-shirt, tattered jeans, denim jacket and well-worn sunglasses, Rob Zombie retreats to an air-conditioned trailer near his trio of haunted houses and mazes inside Scottsdale’s WestWorld. He realizes that Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare is sweltering, but, before the attractions opened to the public, Zombie went through them to see first-hand if it’s up to snuff. “I just got here today,” he says on September 18, one day before the haunt’s grand opening and concert. “I’m seeing everything in person for the first time. So far it’s better than I thought it would be.

We did it last year, and this year they’re taking it even further. “[The staff is] building these facades. There’s a little play that goes on as people are standing in line. There’s all kinds of different things. It’s so much more elaborate than last year.” Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare is a mélange of horrors, all inspired by his films. Fans will take the “sensory-deprived journey” through The Lords of Salem in Total Black Out, before visiting the intense debut of Captain Spaulding’s Clown School in 3-D and The Devil’s Rejects. Zombie admits that even he’s a little leery about The Lords of Salem in Total Black Out, a maze that requires visitors wear bags over their heads. “That was Steve’s idea,” he says with

a laugh about Arizona-bred co-producer Steve Kopelman. Last year, when Great American Nightmare made its debut, Kopelman told Zombie that fans were going to “love it.” “He’s right. People are loving it,” he says. “To me it sounds horrible. My wife is like, ‘I am not putting a bag over my head.’ But people are loving it. It’s so weird.” Zombie’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, has appeared in his films. Meanwhile, Kopelman has his own rationalization. “Because it is a Rob Zombie event, it’s gotta be far superior than anything else in the marketplace,” he says, adding that these attractions are more than “people just jumping out at you.” “The challenge is trying to make it as true to the movie as possible. We kind of look at these attractions as ‘immersive

HouseOverof20000 Screams & Wicked Dreams opens Sept. 26th at 7pm sq ft of horror with 20’ monsters and a serial killer on the loose inside! COME AND SEE IF YOU CAN SURVIVE CLYDE!!

LOCATED AT:

2810 W Thunderbird Road Phoenix, AZ 85053

FOR TICKETS GO TO:

www.houseofscreamsaz.com

AS studentsU $5 off get the dooat with ID r .

A portion of our ticket sales will be donated to: Alice Cooper’s THE ROCK teen center and to Bosom Buddies of AZ, a local breast cancer support charity.

THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2014

THE ARTIST

CULTURE » THEATRE » DANCE » GALLERY » DRAMA » VISION

‘Memphis’ 18

Opera’s Hispanic Heritage 21 Swan Lake 20 Fall Arts Calendar 18

CARNIVAL OF ILLUSION

AN EVENING OF OLD WORLD MAGIC CARNIVAL OF ILLUSION

Randy Montgomery The Entertainer!

n evening with Sarlot and Eyed from Carnival of Illusion feels like a magical trip around the world. It’s not the whizz, bang, boom that Vegas offers—it’s far more authentic than that. Growing up in Los Angeles, Roland Sarlot often saw legendary magicians at the world-famous Magic Castle and was amazed. After graduating school and moving to Tucson, Sarlot decided to leave the field of astronomical instrument design behind to pursue magic. Susan Eyed grew up in the Midwest and longed to be elsewhere. She received a degree in International Studies and traveled the world. She was profoundly influenced by the culture of the counties visited, which led to the opening of her own dance studio in Arizona. The pair teamed up in 2002 to create Dance of Illusion—a large stage show of magic and dance built on both of their talents and experience being overseas.

JOIN US! OCTOBER

4th!

In Carnival of Illusion, the duo remains true to their international backgrounds while combining their personal passions to create a one-of-a-kind experience. “Our boutique theater has grown so much in the last five seasons. We are excited to enter our sixth year,” Sarlot says. If you are expecting large-scale Vegas-style theatrics and special effects, look elsewhere. If you are looking for an entertaining evening of Vaudevilleinspired illusion presented by two awardwinning entertainers that pour their heart and soul into every performance, then step right up! Get ready to laugh and celebrate an intimate, magical night out.

Carnival of Illusion, Phoenix Season In 2009, the decision was made to take the show to an intimate setting. Inspiration was based on the early 1900’s—the golden era of magic, where the upper crust would be entertained in the parlors of the highest echelons of society.

Carnival of Illusion, a Vaudevilleinspired illusion show, played to 62 soldout audiences in its first season. “What began as a concept of an intimate illusion show, has turned into a weekly sold-out attraction,” says Eyed, one of the few female magicians in the world.

Begins October 11 Arizona Biltmore Resort, 2400 E. Missouri Avenue, Phoenix Mesa Season Begins October 18 Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main Street, Mesa, 480.359.7469, carnivalofillusion.com, $45-$60

Gilbert Art Walk 45 W. Page Ave. 9:00am to 1:00pm Under the Water Tower 1st & 3rd Saturdays

Oct. 18th, Nov. 1st, 15th, 29th, Dec. 6th, 13th, 20th, Jan. 3rd, 17th, 31st, Feb. 7th, 21st, Mar. 7th, 21st