Citizen Staff Writer
Music

OTTO ROSS

ottoross@tucsoncitizen.com

Local instrumental band Calle Debauche – listing such influences as Frank Zappa, ’70s avant-garde rock and eastern European folk – plays music that is impossible to squeeze into any one genre. It’s also impossible to dance to.

“You want to dance, but you can’t,” says guitarist Mohadev. “Sometimes, people dance because it has danceable elements, but then it’s constantly changing. As soon as you start dancing we’ll go into a noise thing where it’s unclear how to dance.”

“But if somebody is up for the challenge . . . ,” marimba player Chris Halvorsen dares.

Calle Debauche was formed in 2006 as a guitar, bass and drum trio but has since replaced bass with tuba, saxophone and marimba. Mixing horns with rock influences, Mohadev found tuba player Dave LeGendre and sax player Guillem Sarle through their listings on craigslist. LeGendre was looking to play in a small classical band while Sarle was trying to start a funk band of his own. Instead, they both wound up contributing to the eclectic stylings of Calle Debauche.

Mixing horns with rock influences, Calle Debauche – translated as “street debauchery” or “debauchery street” – sounds a bit like an orchestra gone wild.

“We combine a lot of elements that the connection between them is not very obvious,” Mohadev says. “A lot of the stuff we play is really heavy, and I’ve never heard a band playing heavy music with a tuba instead of a bass player or with a marimba player.”

Based on the types of music each musician in the band prefers, this eclectic result is no surprise. According to Mohadev, drummer Fred Malter listens to Latin jazz, tuba player LeGendre prefers metal, Sarle favors funk while Halvorsen jams to folk music and ’70s rock. As for Mohadev, his eclectic tastes include Bulgarian wedding music, death metal and post punk among countless others.

Calle Debauche fuses this elaborate combination into one big genre-bending medley.

“A lot of our music is instrumentation and the blending of different styles in a very seamless way instead of just genre-hopping,” he says. “We combine different styles into the same songs or the same compositions.”

Calle creates these intricate songs using a composing program called Mozart. The program allows the musicians to write arrangements and then play the result back on their computer.

“It sounds like video game music,” Mohadev says.

From there, the musicians print sheet music and pass it to the rest of the band to learn how to play the songs.

“We don’t really know exactly what it’s going to sound like until we start playing it and interpreting what’s been written,” Mohadev says. “We make a lot of stylistic decisions on how to play the parts.”

May 21, Calle Debauche will have a party at Plush to celebrate the release of its first CD. The self-titled disc is a vast departure from the band’s 2007 EP “Potemkin Carnival,” Mohadev says.

“The EP was all over the place. Each song was in a different style,” Mohadev says. “The new one is a lot more focused.”

While audiences at the CD release party may have difficult time dancing to the music, they probably will never be bored, Halvorsen says.

“We try to keep the intensity up so the show is pretty fast paced. Just song after song, we jump from one to another.”

IF YOU GO

What: Calle Debauche CD release party with Flagrante Delicto and Chris Black

When: 9 p.m. May 21

Where: Plush, 240 E. Sixth St.

Price: $5

Info: 798-1298, www.plushtucson.com

Citizen Staff Writer
Music

DANIEL BUCKLEY

dbuckley@tucsoncitizen.com

For fans of indie rock band Calexico, the trumpet artistry of Jacob Valenzuela is something indispensible to the group’s intoxicating sound.

The Tucson native, 31 and the proud papa of 7-week-old Jacob Martinez Valenzuela, came to Calexico nine years ago, introduced to group leaders Joey Burns and John Convertino by local mariachi legend Ruben Moreno.

It’s a dream gig for the young trumpeter who grew up on jazzmen Clifford Brown and Miles Davis, and had been part of the Desert View High School mariachi.

“At that point Joey was looking for a trumpet player who could travel and who could do jazz and a little bit of mariachi as well,” Valenzuela says of joining the group, sitting on the porch of his father’s house near the airport. “There’s a lot of liberty in (Calexico’s) music and the music is wonderful, too. I still enjoy listening to it after nine years. They’re really classic songs and I think the writing is beautiful. I’m really fortunate to be a part of it.”

On Calexico’s 2008 “Carried To Dust” CD, Valenzuela had a chance to spread his wings as a songwriter as well. His “Inspiración” is one of the best on the outstanding disc – a tune with a classic Latin sound that conjures images of the 1940s and ’50s.

“That song just kind of came out with me and my brother,” he says. “One day we were just sitting in Joey’s house and he was going over some chords and I just had this melody pop in my head. It started out very simple like things do. And eventually bringing it to the guys, you could see it starting to grow. It’s kind of a special song to me because of the relationship that I have in my family. It’s really strong.”

Valenzuela says that one of the things he likes best about Calexico is that it, too, feels like family.

“When you’re on the road it’s hard to be away but at the same time you have your family that you’re with. Just like brothers. We get into it and you make up. But they’re really lovely people. They’re really real.”

Valenzuela comes from a family of musical brothers. He started playing trumpet at age 10 as part of a church group.

“That’s where I started playing music and learning by ear,” he says.

Valenzuela wasn’t much into mariachi music when he was in high school, but with Moreno’s encouragement he stayed with the group. It was as a music education student at the University of Arizona that he came to see the beauty of the mariachi.

“I really didn’t feel I had the grasp of it until I started gigging,” he says. “It’s a lot of music to learn and if you didn’t really grow up listening to it and really studied it intensely, it’s just a crash course trying to learn it all. And it’s the same trying to learn jazz. You’ve got to grow up and listen to it and really invest a lot of time.

“Clifford Brown was one of the musicians that I appreciated most. I would study all his solos. I can’t play like him. He has a totally different style but just the way he plays the solos is really nice and his articulation and everything. I was really impressed with him. I really love Miles too. He’s always been very inspiring because he’s done so many different types of music and done it really well. It’s amazing how you can apply the trumpet to different genres of music.”

As a musician, Calexico is a dream gig because nothing is static. The group’s sound is based on an adventurous, collaborative spirit that incorporates everything from jazz, pop and rock to elements of the mariachi and other world music currents. And where things really get fun is in the live concerts, where the music morphs into something completely different from the recorded version.

“When you think about all the songs we’ve played over all the years, the repertoire is so extensive,” he says. “It’s huge, and it’s surprising how we remember all the songs.

“In just starting off a tour, the first gigs you start realizing, this doesn’t quite work out like it did on the album. ‘Let’s add this or let’s change this part.’ So it kind of becomes its own thing at that time. And then you have these two different versions we can always play off of. And everyone is so talented and so quick to adjust and compromise that it’s always easy. It just seems effortless.”

Things seem to be taking a good course. At the same point that he had a baby on the way, the group slowed the pace of touring, preferring to set up gigs that would take the members away from home for a few days at a time.

But Valenzuela is looking forward to getting back into the studio with Calexico again, either in the fall or winter. And he’s honing a few song ideas as well.

“With Calexico I think I grew with the band, and express myself more in different ways, he says. “This is one of the ways – vocally through writing my own music. Joey Burns has been a big inspiration, as well as the rest of the guys. But he’s really pushed me to write my own music and write my own songs.”

Citizen Staff Writer
Music

OTTO ROSS

ottoross@tucsoncitizen.com

Also playing KFMA Day are long-time rockers Ph8.

The band, a frequent act on local and regional stages for the last 10 years and an opener for national acts such as Linkin Park and Disturbed, has decided to call it quits but not before giving fans one last performance.

“We thought maybe we could make it in the music business and make a living but after 10 years we couldn’t do that, so everybody is pursuing careers and doing other stuff,” says vocalist, Marcus Davis, who is now a turbine-engine mechanic. “This might be the last time people see us for a while.”

The decision to pull the plug came as the members found it increasingly difficult to dedicate time to the band and manage their day-to-day lives, Davis says.

“You get wrapped up in growing up and buying a house. You don’t have as much time and that’s kinda where we’re at right now,” he says.

Ph8 officially separated about a year ago, but it could not pass up the opportunity to play with one of the bands that has always influenced its music.

“We’ve never had a chance to play with Korn. We’re big fans of theirs, so it was a killer opportunity for us to open for somebody like that, that we’ve held in such high esteem over the years. We were like, ‘hell, yeah!’ ”

Ph8 does not expect to play any other shows, but Davis still enjoys getting together with his bandmates for jam sessions.

“We had such good times together; it’s been like a party,” Davis says. “We’ve had such a fun time; it has been a great experience. I love the guys I’m in the band with. We’re all still the best of friends.”

Citizen Staff Writer
Music

OTTO ROSS

ottoross@tucsoncitizen.com

Local rock band The Kindled is beginning to progress from a slow burn to a full-fledged fire.

The 8-year-old band was recently picked to be one of the performers at Saturday’s KFMA Day,its biggest show to date.

“It’s an adrenaline rush, a good rush,” vocalist-guitarist Ian Browning says. “It’s not like I’m nervous. It’s like I’m crazy excited.”

The Kindled, originally, A Kindled Apparition, was started by Browning, Corey MacGormen and Chad Arnold in middle school. The trio, Browning says, simply had nothing better to do but play ding-dong ditch or start a band.

“We were just bored kids over the summer trying to play some instruments,” he says. “We just taught ourselves.”

Little did they know that eight years later they would be recording in the same studio as many of their favorite artists. In 2003, the band added guitarist David Gullman and the lineup hasn’t changed since. The band members, all graduates of Ironwood Ridge High School, recently recorded their album, “Restore” at Blasting Room Studios in Fort Collins, Colo., a studio created by members of the band Descendents and used by a variety of artists whose sounds and styles have touched The Kindled.

“You walk in and there’s a hallway and on the right side and it’s all the CDs they’ve done,” drummer and songwriter MacGormen says. “We saw Rise Against, The Casualties, we saw all of these bands that we were totally influenced by.”

“Recording at the Blasting Room was the coolest thing we’ve ever done,” Browning says. “It was so cool to be at a place where all our favorite CDs have been recorded.”

After the recording, The Kindled, which plays punk-progressive rock , opened a show for Authority Zero and Strung Out. During the concert the band passed out demo CDs. By coincidence, one of them landed in the hands of KFMA’s “Creepy Pete.”

“It was completely random how he got it,” Browning says. “One of us handed him the demo somehow because we were the only ones handing them out.”

“Yeah, or somebody dropped it on the ground,” MacGormen interjects, laughing.

Next thing the band members new, they were on the phone with KFMA’s Matt Spry discussing playing KFMA Day. Again, it seems The Kindled is getting close to another band that has greatly affected it music because Korn is the headlining act.

“Korn was kind of my starting point as a musician,” MacGormen says. “I probably wouldn’t be playing if it wasn’t for them. All in all, the bands are pretty sweet this year.”

KFMA Day is just a warm-up for The Kindled. The band has 12 instrumental tracks prepared for a CD that are awaiting lyrics and members hope to hit the road soon and begin touring.

IF YOU GO

What: The Kindled at KFMA Day, also featuring Korn, Hollywood Undead, Escape the Fate, Anberlin, Red, ph8

When: 1 p.m. Saturday

Where: Tucson Electric Park, 2500 E. Ajo Way

Price: Tickers are $35 and are available at Catalina Mart locations or online

Info: 407-4500, www.kfma.com

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

Members of the MTV generation will be calling Arizona Theatre Company’s new production “Beethoven Unplugged,” even though the official title is “Beethoven, As I Knew Him.”

Written and performed as a one-man show by actor/concert pianist Hershey Felder, the musical selections emphasize the composer’s genius for power ballads. Not to mix too many music metaphors here, but Beethoven is best known for composing magnificent symphonies.

Felder has pared away all the tuxedoed pomp of a proper European concert hall, the imposing sight of 80 musicians playing all sizes of bowed instruments, and replaced them with . . . himself and a grand piano in a simple setting with a few pieces of studio furniture. Behind him is a backdrop resembling a story book. From time to time, illustrations that look like etchings are projected on the larger-than-lifesize pages.

Everything is black, with minimal stage lighting, which adds a certain formality to the atmosphere. The playwright does enhance the scene with some recorded orchestral excerpts in a sound design by Erik Carstensen. Unfortunately the theater’s sound system wasn’t equal to the challenge. There was no rich resonance to this recording. It came out thin, with distortion around the edges.

The ideal setting would be Felder with a full symphony orchestra. As an instrument for humanizing the great artist, “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” works its magic. Just like you can hear the tunes better in those “Unplugged” TV programs, Felder brings out the angelic moments in Beethoven’s music.

Instead of soaring through the heavens on the wings of 30 violins, Felder draws us past the Pearly Gates and into God’s own darkened living room where Beethoven has been playing every evening for a couple of hundred years.

Do they serve after-dinner drinks in Heaven? If they do, this would be the perfect place.

For narration, Felder has drawn on the writing of Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, whose father was one of Beethoven’s most loyal friends. Gerhard was 12 years old when he first met the composer. For the next couple of years he would spend time with Beethoven nearly every day.

His stories become Felder’s stories, told with a pronounced German accent. Always understanding what he’s saying isn’t easy. This does detract from the performance, though it doesn’t get in the way of the music. Still, a simpler accent would be appreciated.

We do get that Beethoven lived a difficult, unhappy life and was a terrible housekeeper. As a boy he was abused by his father. The composer’s cruel deafness in later life could have been caused by those childhood times when the father beat his son about the head.

“Beethoven, As I Knew Him” is presented without an intermission, running nearly two hours. Felder adds a coda, as he calls it, stepping away from the piano to answer questions from the audience.

So, dream up a good question during the performance and be one of the first to get called on afterward, just to get the audience participation started. On opening night it took Felder awhile before the questions were flowing.

My favorite question from the audience: “If Mozart had lived longer, how would his presence have affected Beethoven’s composing?”

IF YOU GO

What: Arizona Theatre Company presents “Beethoven, As I Knew Him,” written and performed by Hershey Felder

When: various times Tuesdays through Sundays through April 27

Where: Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.

Price: $31-$54

Info: 622-2823, aztheatreco.org

Hershey Felder will appear as himself in a special six-performance concert series April 30-May 3 in the Temple of Music and Art, presenting “The American Songbook Sing-Along.” For details, aztheatreco.org.

Grade: B

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

They are the people we never see. The single travelers with their elaborate black leather brief cases. The people who sit by themselves on airplanes, keeping an eye on their wristwatches and always looking bored.

Or else we see them riding in buses with musical instruments tucked under their seats, munching on old food, being terminally hip.

Or maybe just schlepping from town to town with big make-up cases and a couple of changes in theater clothes. They are the actors, riding on their imagination, truly believing they are just one dramatic role away from becoming shiny celebrities.

They are the travelers, the disconnected who judge each town by the quality of its restaurant waiters and hotel staffs. They are the unencumbered souls who fill Anne Thibault’s “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me.”

That is, all the characters but one. She is the marginally successful actress Lysette, played with an incredible innocence by soft-voiced Amanda Gremel in the late night production by Etcetera at Live Theatre Workshop. Lysette can be describing the most incredibly horrific sexual misadventure while maintaining an open-minded sweetness that feels absolutely genuine. Which makes the horrible parts even more so.

She not only depends on the kindness of strangers, she depends on the kindness of sick perverts with voracious appetites. Sharks of immorality who must keep committing more immoral acts just to stay alive.

In the course of this 90-minute one-act Lysette meets them all. She doesn’t want to meet them. She doesn’t seek them out. She would prefer to stay in her hotel room, learning her lines to be in Ibsen’s equally bleak “A Doll’s House.” But she meets them anyway.

The construction of Thibault’s play doesn’t invite the audience in, however. This is basically Gremel providing a recitation of Lysette’s unfortunate social life as she keeps traveling in pursuit of work, hanging out with equally transient punk rockers along the way and hating those sandal-wearing hippie vegetarians in Vermont who keep protesting the construction of more cell phone microwave towers.

Which is why she can never get a decent cell phone connection.

There is a stream of consciousness feeling to this dutiful remembrance of her lost loves, disgusting loves and the numbing sorrow of always having to settle, not for Mr. Right, but for Mr. Right Now.

Occasionally her resigned ruminations are augmented by off-stage comments from Christopher Johnson. His disembodied voice floats unseen, sort of like the voice of conscience that couldn’t care less about anyone’s true feelings.

Occasionally, Johnson jumps onstage to play a variety of unsavory characters who pop in and out of Lysette’s directionless life. There is never any arc to her journey, no moment when she must risk everything to save her own soul from this limbo of pop culture vultures feeding on the spiritually dead.

Johnson is also the director, carefully guiding Gremel’s revelations of personality. Without calling on any vein-bulging theatrics, eschewing the usual mannerisms of damsels in mental distress, Gremel does create a convincing portrait of a young person who wants to believe wearing the right clothes and loving the right music will make her more valuable in the eyes of others.

Such poignancy is irresistible. While the structure of the play keeps Gremel from any blossoming insight, anyone who has traveled these same midnight roads through such tortured landscapes will love her stories.

Play peeks at numbing social life of actress

IF YOU GO

What: Etcetera presents “I Wrote This Play To Make You Love Me” by Anne Thibault

When: 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through April 18

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $10

Info: 481-1449, www.livetheatreworkshop.org

Grade: B+

Citizen Staff Writer
Music

BRIAN MORI

bmori@tucsoncitizen.com

Nearly everyone at some point is compelled to speak out on an issue. For instance, most Americans have something to say about the cause of or maybe even how to fix the economy.

But with so many of us losing jobs, homes, faith in government and loved ones to war, it’s hard to know what to say, much less how to be heard.

So when Mike Adams, the 39-year-old founder and chief exective of Wyoming-based Ariel Software, decided he wanted to shout out what he felt, he figured hip-hop would grab people’s attention.

“I really came to appreciate the medium of rap as an expression of free speech. . . . I decided to embrace the power,” he says during a phone interview last month.

He spent a year studying LL Cool J, Eminem, AKON and, particularly, Kanye West – “a master of delivery,” Adams says.

In late 2008, Adams wrote and recorded his first of two songs, “SSRIs – S.S.R. Lies” and “Where’s My Bailout Money?”

The latter is a semi-satirical call both to government and American society to be accountable for the current state of the economy.

“I don’t agree with fictitious money and inflating the supply. If you’re going to do it, you should give (the money) straight to the people,” says the novice rapper, who’s lived in Tucson for six years.

Adams says his lyrics encompass two voices beyond his own: that of greedy wall street bankers and bewildered Americans.

As the banker, he raps, “I’m a new kind of thug with a Washington buzz, ’cause dealing debt pays better then dealing drugs.”

Asserting his own viewpoint, he continues, “The politicians are useless, don’t you know that they used us? And the bankers refused us, while the media schooled us.”

Adams explains, “The media taught the people to accept this. USA TODAY and The New York Times bought into the fearmongering of the Bush administration.”

In his second song, “SSRIs – S.S.R. Lies,” Adams draws a connection between violence in schools and the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors to treat attention deficit disorder in children.

Adams claims that most kids who have committed mass school shooting tragedies have taken SSRIs.

“It’s just about public service,” he says of his music.

He’s packaged both songs under the title “Beyond all Reason,” which you can hear on www.naturalnews.com, a health-related site he edits.

Both “Bailout” and “SSRIs” can be found on YouTube as well.

Adams is now working on another song, this one about the health care industry. Along the lines of “S.S.R. Lies,” Adams’ next rap will question the ethics of major health care companies, specifically those producing cancer treatment technology.

He says the amount of money that the “cancer industry” makes distracts it from an obligation to educate the public about natural ways of preventing the disease.

Adams, a self-proclaimed “health ranger,” has devoted his life “to educate people . . . to achieve and maintain peak human health.”

He says people aren’t skeptical enough of the information provided to them.

“I don’t demand that people agree with me. The real problem is that people don’t ask, they just agree” with the status quo.

His music and lyrics are targeted to pop fans in their mid-20s, those he says would be most interested in discussing the economy and other pressing social issues. Adams says he’ll continue to use rap as a means to speak on issues.

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

Comedy can be a fickle mistress. Sometimes the laughter pours out, other times the silence after a punch line or pratfall is deadly.

For the performers it’s even worse. Timing is everything, of course. But when several actors are onstage together, one person can send the whole scene careening into chaos. That person’s erratic line bumps into the next person, whose moment gets rushed, lurching into the next person after that – and pretty soon the whole stage is a train wreck of good intentions.

Arms and legs stick out in awkward positions, strange noises escape at odd times. Bodies pile up. And in the back of the audience a bunch of people are laughing like crazy.

But is it funny? Is it comedy? Or is it just people laughing?

Live Theatre Workshop has cooked up its production of a backstage comedy, “Inspecting Carol,” directed by Leslie J. Miller, that feels like a four-lane pile-up. Actors are flying in all directions, punch lines get flattened out and zippy language turns into noise.

Yet, at the performance I attended people were laughing as they left the theater convinced it was a really funny show.

Humor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

“Inspecting Carol” is credited to Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Theatre. That awkward title refers to Charles Dickens’ holiday evergreen “A Christmas Carol.”

Combining elements of the insider stage comedy “Noises Off” and the movie satirizing community theater, “Waiting For Guffman,” this comedy is less than either one.

Instead of cleverness we get slapstick. Instead of insight we get more slapstick. Miller is fully committed to the silliness. If the play calls for someone to fall, she’ll have the person fall, roll around and knock over some furniture. All the acting is performed in caricature, giving everything a cartoonish over-the-top quality that gets its laughs at the expense of showing any humanity. These are not warmhearted eccentrics trying their best to overcome a difficult situation. They are talented actors trying to imitate life inside a blender full of fruitcake.

A cast of 12 complicates the confusion with its size. There isn’t a main personality or two traveling an emotional arc to some satisfactory resolution. The show itself doesn’t have much of an arc.

There is the usual motley collection of misfits hoping to find some relief from their own disappointing lives by taking part in an annual production of “A Christmas Carol.” Missie Scheffman plays the statuesque beauty Zorah Bloch, determined to run her own little theater company since she didn’t get to become a Hollywood movie star. You just know she’ll be having a personality meltdown before everyone turns out the stage lights and goes home for the night.

Jodie Rankin gets her laughs as the bored and cynical stage manager M.J. McMann. She performs the role of ringmaster in this circus of fools, ready to duck for cover whenever those highly combustible egos start bouncing off each other.

There’s not much of Scrooge’s familiar journey in “Inspecting Carol,” either. Along with a part of the old gentleman’s happy conversion, we get glimpses of Jacob Morley, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts in frightful costumes and Bob Cratchit hoping he won’t get fired. But mostly we get to watch people spin out of control, crash and burn.

IF YOU GO

What: Live Theatre Workshop presents “Inspecting Carol” by Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Theatre

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through April 19

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $14-$17

Info: 327-4242, www.livetheatreworkshop.org

Grade: C

Citizen Staff Writer
Music

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

For a while there, it looked as if rock ‘n’ roll singers were going to shout everyone into submission. When the boomers were young, noise was king.

But the appeal of grace and elegance never quite went away. On special occasions, even the boomers liked to dress up a little and listen to more civilized sounds.

When they did, Joe Bourne was ready. He knew all the songs. He had a very smooth voice. He could croon. He could swing. There were classy clothes in his closet.

A favorite Joe Bourne story is that he was playing the lounge of the Playboy Club in Boston in the late 1960s and doing great. So great, in fact, management asked him to leave because all those groovy Playboy customers were hanging out in the lounge listening to Bourne instead of going upstairs to hear the expensive acts.

Bourne’s own act will be showcased in concert Thursday at the clubhouse ballroom in Heritage Highlands. Then, this weekend, he will be at the Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Festival produced by the Greater Oro Valley Arts Council on the northwest campus of Pima Community College. He’s on the bill with Mr. Boogie Woogie (Eric-Jan Overbeek), jazz guitarist Dan Griffin and a long string of musicians doing bluegrass, Irish, Latin, folk and flamenco styles.

“My style is sort of an easy-listening style,” Bourne says with a smile, a bit shyly. “But I can adapt it, to swing or soul or jazz. I had a disco band for several years, too.

“Really, what I enjoy singing most is ballads. That’s all I wanted to do, but people said I couldn’t just do ballads.”

Never one to pass up good advice, Bourne also dipped into the rock ‘n’ roll songbook. He mentions “Rockin’ Robin” and “Proud Mary.” He even admits to singing a few country songs.

“On the cruise ships, I had to include something for everyone,” he adds. But no explanation is necessary.

He and his wife, Flory, moved to Oro Valley in 2000, after enjoying Bourne’s 25-year career performing gala concerts in Europe’s capitols and occasionally getting away on one of those five-star luxury cruises to exotic ports.

Meanwhile, here in the USA, the popularity of rock ‘n’ roll and the undertow of racism were limiting the show business career of this young man from Cambridge, Mass. It was Flory, a native of Holland, who convinced Bourne that European audiences would be more receptive to his talents. That was 1985, when punk rock had eaten up all the juke boxes and rap was devouring the boom boxes. Flory and Joe never looked back.

Whenever famous American singers toured Europe, Bourne often appeared on the bill. His résumé includes shows with Dionne Warwick, the Supremes, Natalie Cole, Ray Charles and the Pointer Sisters.

A new chapter in Joe’s career opened during the late 1990s when Flory’s arthritis demanded they live in a hotter, drier climate. They first thought of Spain, where the rain falls mainly on the plain.

But Flory’s daughter lived in Tucson, so here they are. There may not be many local restaurants serving wine in cut-crystal goblets, but Joe has been particularly resilient. He has created a Tucson image just as today’s young audiences are coming back to crooners.

With more aging boomers moving into the city’s retirement communities, there is new appreciation for those ballads Joe Bourne loves, as well. Out here on America’s sunny frontier, life is good.

Bourne supremacy lies in crooner’s talent, versatility

IF YOU GO

What: Joe Bourne and the SPS Trio, with special guest Stevie Woods, presenting “Jazz, Blues and Modern Grooves”

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Where: Heritage Highlands Clubhouse Ballroom at Dove Mountain, 4949 W. Heritage Club Blvd.

Price: $17, open to the public

Info: 877-8446, joebourne.com

What: Joe Bourne, solo entertainer

When: 12:15 p.m. Saturday

Where: Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Festival, Pima Community College North Campus, 7600 N. Shannon Road

Price: free admission

Info: 877-8446, joebourne.com

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

CHUCK GRAHAM

Tucson Citizen

Just like an evolving work of art, Invisible Theatre’s original production “A Conversation with Edith Head” has evolved.

Back in 2002 when IT’s artistic director Susan Claassen wrote and
made her debut in this one-woman show – giving a much-praised portrayal
of the iconic Hollywood costume designer – the story was set on the
Universal City Studio Tour where she had a bungalow. Now Claassen makes
adjustments to her intimate portrait so it is set in whatever city – or
country – she happens to be in for the show.

So when “A Conversation with Edith Head” returns to the Tucson stage
March 5, the dialogue will be adjusted so there are direct references
to the Old Pueblo.

“Her husband loved Southwestern art, and they would come here
looking for pieces to collect,” Claassen says. “They also went to
Nogales. And remember that ‘The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean’ was
shot here, ” Claassen adds. She doesn’t expect any shortage of Tucson
references.

“Edith Head knew the value of reaching out to the public, and we do
that, too. It is especially rewarding for me to meet people who
actually knew her.”

There were some particularly touching incidents in London, where the
show played for three weeks in 2007. The London run followed the play’s
successful three weeks at Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe (“There
is no such thing as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, they always say
‘Festival Fringe’ Claassen assures us), where the show was officially
declared a sell-out.

“Out of 2,000 acts, there were only 200 that officially sold out,” Claassen says proudly.

“When we went to London, people were always telling us stories about
their personal connections to her, especially older people. One said
how they would see Edith Head’s name during World War II and just
seeing that name would give them hope.”

Edith Head lived up to that promise, going on to design the costumes
for the stars of many pictures for decades after the war ended. The
last film she worked on was Steve Martin’s comedy “Dead Men Don’t Wear
Plaid,” released in 1982.

The iconic costume designer had a particularly close working
relationship with another Brit, Alfred Hitchcock. Claassen is
especially taken by the gowns Head designed for Grace Kelly in “Rear
Window” and “To Catch A Thief.”

“In ‘Rear Window’ the clothes she wears actually progress the story,” Claassen points out.

In a complementary event, the Loft Cinema is screening “Rear Window”
at 1 p.m. Sunday. Claassen will be there to talk about Head’s costumes
for the picture and dish a little dirt on Hitchcock’s battles with
uptight censors to keep some sexual tension in this 1954 classic
thriller.

“In film, you design for the close-ups,” Claassen explains. “That’s what made the neckline so important.”

“Edith would be on the set so if the censors complained about too
much cleavage, she would slip in a large flower, or something else
fashionable.”

Hitchcock and the costume designer worked especially well together, says Claassen, who has become an expert on the subject.

“Edith would say, ‘With every director you have a special language. But with Hitch I didn’t even need words.’”

Claassen also feels a strong connection to this lady who was equally famous for her bangs.

“On a lot of levels I do relate to her,” Claassen says. “I love
doing the role. Whenever I’m in costume, I always stay in character. I
feel personally responsible for representing her accurately.

“On a lot of levels I can relate to her directly. To her
determination, and her love for style. Both of us have such passion for
what we do.

“But she is different from me, too. She is more reserved, less
animated than I am. Her sense of humor is different. She didn’t smile
as much as I do.”

However there is no denying the physical look they share. When Claassen is stage-ready, the resemblance to Head is uncanny.

“If you Google her I come up a lot. The Web site for the Biography
Channel had a picture of her, but it was actually a photo of me.

“We did notify them of the error,” Claassen adds with a little smile.

IF YOU GO

What: Invisible Theatre presents “A Conversation with Edith Head” by Paddy Calistro and Susan Claassen

When: 7:30 p.m. March 5, 8 p.m. March 6-7, 3 p.m. March 8

Where: Invisible Theatre, 1400 N. First Ave.

Price: $25, discounts for groups of 10 or more

Info: 882-9721, invisibletheatre.com

What: Loft Cinema presents “Rear Window,” with opening remarks by Susan Claassen

When: 1 p.m. Sunday

Where: Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $6 general admission, $4.75 Loft members

Info: 795-0844, loftcinema.com

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

Somehow or other, the endlessly running musical “Grease” has become the most popular nostalgia boat to the 1950s. For most everyone who didn’t grow up during that time, the TV reruns of “Happy Days” and the love story of Sandy and Danny in “Grease” define the period.

While mom was in the kitchen and dad was making money in a booming postwar economy, all the teens were midwiving rock ‘n’ roll. Virginity still had market value, so there was a lot of sexual frustration as well – supplying the energy to do so much dancing.

That spark ignited pop culture’s most magical moment, which the writing team of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey captured in the book, music and lyrics of “Grease.” So what if the show was a 1970s response to society’s psychedelic 1960s meltdown, meant to remind us of the good old days? These days nobody cares about any of yesterday’s realities.

Instead, this photo album of memories that is “Grease” has become everybody’s favorite version. A time when girls could sing “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and no snippy feminist in fatigue pants and clunky boots would kick her in the shins.

Falling in love felt like forever and gas was 30 cents a gallon. Who wouldn’t want to romanticize a time like that? So when NBC dreamed up a huge campaign back in 2007 to have a national talent search for the leading roles in “Grease,” kids of all ages showed up to audition as Sandy and Danny.

When the fluffed-up show opened on Broadway in August of that year, the ticket line was long and everybody was smiling.

Meanwhile, rock ‘n’ soul singer Taylor Hicks had made a name for himself on “American Idol.” In 2006 he was named the season’s top winner with 63.4 million votes. A successful CD followed with a number one hit single, “Do I Make You Proud.” Later the whole album went platinum as a bona fide million-seller.

Just to emphasize his happiness, Hicks signed a book deal with Random House and in July, 2007, released “Heart Full of Soul: An Inspirational Memoir About Finding Your Way.”

When you’re hot you’re hot, so toward the end of 2008 Hicks was invited to step into the cast of “Grease” during its last three months on Broadway. He appeared in the showcase role of Teen Angel, originated by Frankie Avalon, singing “Beauty School Dropout.”

Then Hicks, the energetic singer from Alabama, stayed around to sign on for the national tour, which started last December and opens for a week of Tucson shows on Tuesday.

“Every night I perform I learn more about the business of musical theater,” says Taylor, on the phone from the road. “This role is a good one for me.”

Hicks is taking a methodical approach to his career, which began at age 16. He wants to become “as versatile as possible.

“Reinvention is key in this business, I’m convinced,” Hicks insists.

“I’ve been offered other roles on Broadway but I didn’t want to really dive into it. When they sent me the information about ‘Grease’ I thought it would be a good idea.”

Hicks also received a few more sweeteners. His new album “The Distance” is being released March 10, in the midst of this tour. Although Hicks sings only “Beauty School Dropout” during the show, at the curtain call he gets to sing the album’s breakout single “What’s Right Is Right.”

“It’s already getting radio play,” Hicks says proudly. “Touring in this show is a great way to get the music out, as well as meet old friends and new fans.”

‘Grease’ chugs along like a well-oiled ’56 Chevy

IF YOU GO

What: Broadway in Tucson presents “Grease,” with Taylor Hicks as Teen Angel

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday (Taylor Hicks does not perform Sunday at 6:30 p.m.)

Where: Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.

Price: $25-$68,

Info: 903-2929, www.broadwayin tucson.com

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

Can a play about social tensions of 50 years ago still engage us today? Edward Albee wrote “The Zoo Story” in 1958, creating an off-Broadway sensation with his insistence that trouble was lurking beneath the glowing optimism of those Fabulous Fifties.

Economic inequalities were percolating as television screens popped up everywhere and sophisticated advertising techniques hooked their messages into an innocent public psyche. People who had no material wealth were suddenly reminded of their empty lives by the visions of plenty on every one of those flickering TV screens. It was not a good feeling.

Seeing themselves as losers in a land of plenty, these economically underprivileged had no place to go. Shut out by a lack of education, without the means to participate in this new materialism, they felt shut out.

Or shut in. They were caged up like those animals in the zoo, kept away from the mainstream, looked at from a distance by those who were more prosperous.

If Albee would write this one-act, 50-minute play of confrontation between today’s haves and have-nots, racial tension would be an essential part. These days, life seemed so simple 50 years ago. There were no race riots, no rampant drug use. Marriage still had sanctity. Everyone genuinely believed America was the greatest country in the world. The thrill of victory in World War II was still fresh in the air.

Those Freedom Riders in Mississippi? They were college kids making the country better by encouraging everyone to get out the vote. Or so it seemed.

We can see all this in the clean-cut production of “The Zoo Story” in Rogue Theatre’s new late-night series of shows presented in association with The Now Theatre. Chelsea Bowdren has directed a straightforward performance that makes no judgment calls.

Nic Adams in shiny shoes and a sleeveless sweater, plays Peter, the staunchly middle-class man proud of his accomplishments in earning a respectable living and providing for his respectable family. John Shartzer is Jerry, the intuitive street hustler who survives in a world of transients by using his passive-aggressive personality to intimidate those who are less secure.

In a more equal world, Jerry could have been a slick salesman applying devious skills to sell any of the amazing new products that poured out of the country’s inventive imagination.

Only, that didn’t happen. Jerry knows he’s a bright guy, but keeps bumping his head against the underside of life. By the time we see him onstage, the frustration has been growing for years.

Like a suicide bomber, he wants revenge. He wants to hurt this cruel society that keeps him caged up like the once-proud lions of Africa’s plains trapped in a zoo. Jerry wants to do some damage and is willing to give up his own life to do that.

But first Jerry must find his victim. He will pick one carefully who represents all the middle-class values Jerry longs to have.

Back in the 1950s, men had comfortable homes and loving families. They earned the money and the wives spent it wisely. Each man belonged someplace, had a warm place to go at the end of each day.

Jerry doesn’t have any of that. Carefully he approaches Peter sitting alone on a green bench on a warm Sunday afternoon in Central Park. Carefully, Jerry makes sure Peter does indeed have such a family – and the household pets who are an extension of the animals in the zoo.

In the beginning Peter is proud of his accomplishments. He puffs up politely in describing his executive job and his lovely family. Too late, Peter realizes these very accomplishments have marked him for trouble with Jerry.

IF YOU GO

What: Now Theatre presents “The Zoo Story” by Edward Albee

When: 10 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Feb. 7

Where: Cabaret Theatre in the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.

Price: $10, $5 discount when also purchasing a ticket to Rogue Theatre’s “Orlando”

Info: 551-2053, theroguetheatre.org

Grade: B-

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

ROGELIO YUBETA OLIVAS

calendar@tucsoncitizen.com

Entertainer Wolfe Bowart, who grew up near Sabino Canyon, returns to the Old Pueblo to perform his latest theatrical production. During the three months when he’s not touring, the 46-year-old splits his time between Tucson and Perth, Australia. In an e-mail interview, Bowart – the son of counterculturalist writer and editor Walter Bowart and grandson of Abstract Expressionist painter Edward Dugmore – previews his show, honors his influences and defends mimes.

Q: When’s the last time you performed in Tucson?

A: We premièred our previous show “LaLaLuna” – a quirky tale about the night the light bulb in the moon burns out – in Tucson in 2003. We’ve since toured that show in Brazil, Hong Kong, Greece, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. It’s great to be able to return to Tucson to première the new show. “Letter’s End” may have a similar path – after the three performances in Tucson this weekend, we head to the U.K. and then directly to Australia for a 150-show tour.

Where did you go to school in Tucson?

St Michael’s, Schweitzer, Treehaven, Green Fields and Project M.O.R.E. I got around. Last week, I went back to Green Fields and performed an excerpt from “Letter’s End” for the students. Great fun to be back after so many years.

What is your most enduring memory of the Old Pueblo?

Growing up playing in the desert. With today’s urban sprawl, I think, many kids these days might be missing a wonderful part of being a Tucsonan.

How did you fall into physical theatre?

I was about 12 when I started learning circus skills and magic. I’d direct the neighborhood kids in loony movies. I’d have my pet turtle magically perform push-ups on demand (my dad was convinced the turtle and I were psychically connected – he never did find out how I did that).

I later went to college and studied theatre and applied what I learned to physical theatre. I’ve always enjoyed exploring ways to tell stories through physicality first and language second.

Who were/are some of your influences, and why?

Buster Keaton, for his surreal imagery. Charlie Chaplin, for his ability to do it all – write, direct, act, arrange the music, conduct the orchestra, edit the film. He was a true Renaissance man. Jacques Tati for the same reasons. Tati had a simple grace in his comedy – nothing was ever forced.

How long did it take you to master all the skills you incorporate into your act: mime, clowning, acrobatics, juggling and magic?

It’s a lifelong study. I began unicycling at 12, which is hard in the desert, and juggling at 11. The degree was an intensive four-year course in which I learned stage combat, playwriting, directing, movement, acrobatics – all tools applied to tell the story in “Letter’s End.” And after years of performing professionally, I’m still learning.

How did you come up with the concept for your new show, “Letter’s End?”

I have always been interested in memory and how we remember events and people. I was fascinated with the idea of a room full of boxes and letters that represented the inside of a mind. The metaphor of a lost letter office as a room full of forgotten memories. I thought, what a wonderful platform to create a story using circus and film and visual theater.

Why did you decide to première it in Tucson?

I don’t often have the opportunity to perform in my hometown. Also there’s such a big artistic community here. It’s a great place to develop new works.

Critics have described your act as “sublime craziness” and “controlled lunacy.” How accurate are those characterizations? Which others would you add?

I like to create a sense of freewheeling craziness onstage, but underneath all the comedy and magic and circus going on, there are very detailed backstage, light and sound cues occurring that are timed down to the second. So it definitely is controlled lunacy in that sense.

I’d probably also add “family-friendly” and “funny.” The term “family-friendly” has got a bad rap in the past. People have come to associate family-friendly shows with shows that are good only for toddlers and leave everyone else out in the cold. “Letter’s End” truly has something for everyone, no matter what your age.

Clowns and mimes (especially) seem to get a bum rap in pop culture. Why do you think that is?

There are actually many modern clowns in our pop culture. Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, even Jackie Chan are physical comedians or types of clowns. And shows like Cirque du Soleil, The Blue Man Group and Slava’s Snow Show are all physical theatre shows. I think people are coming to understand that clowning and physical theatre is not just squirting flowers and pratfalls.

In “Letter’s End,” you embark on a wondrous story that might make you feel like a kid again and that just so happens to be told without much language.

‘Letter’s End’ delivers physical theater to Tucson

IF YOU GO

What: “Letter’s End,” a family- friendly physical-theatre production by Wolfe Bowart

When: 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $15 adults, $8 children 11 and younger. Tickets available at Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave.; Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s Toys, 4811 E. Grant Road; Williams Magic & Novelties, 6528 E. 22nd St.; online at http://spoontree.tix.com; and by phone at 800-595-4849

Info: www.spoontree.com

Citizen Staff Writer
Music

ROGELIO YUBETA OLIVAS

rolivas@tucsoncitizen.com

With illegal immigration and homeland security issues still simmering in this country, border performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña has plenty of fresh material for his act. The member of San Francisco-based radical arts collective La Pocha Nostra returns to the Old Pueblo for his one-man show, “El Mexorcist 4: America’s Most Wanted Inner Demon,” in which his stage personae take on immigration policy, the Minutemen, rising nativism and cultural and sexual identity – among other topics. In a recent phone interview, the 53-year-old author and NPR commentator – whose work has been described as “Chicano cyber-punk” – discusses the evolution of his show, the current political climate in the U.S. and what he expects from President-elect Barack Obama.

Q: Your show is called “El Mexorcist 4: America’s Most Wanted Inner Demon.” So this is the fourth installment of the show?

A. It’s a work in progress. In a sense it’s like the end of a series of spoken-word monologues that deal essentially with the Bush era: What it meant to be a Mexican, to be a Latino in the Bush era in the U.S.; How the war on terror affected us, affected our notions of community, identity. . . . It’s the end of the series because the age of Obama is about to begin and we’re walking into a new zone with a new kind of optimism, cautious optimism. But this is going to affect the kind of content of art and literature being produced in this country. This is going to be a transitional piece, like I’m saying goodbye to the war on terror and the Bush era and hopefully welcoming, in the name of the arts community, the Age of Obama.

Q. So your work continues to evolve.

A. Constantly. That’s the job of the artist. The artist in many ways is like a journalist. Our job is to chronicle the times like you guys do. But we just utilize a different kind of discourse, a different kind of methodology. We’re constantly tapping into the current issues, trying to articulate the spirit of the times. And in many ways that is the job of the artist: to ask impertinent questions, to ask the questions that are not being asked and to do it originally.”

Q. You call yourself “The Mexorcist.” What is it you’re “mexorcising?”

A. It’s like a word game on the whole kind of “mexiphobia” that emerged in the last three or four years. When the border become the, quote unquote, most sensitive zone of our national security, and the potential entry point for international terrorists, the U.S.-Mexico border became the second front on the war on terror. And migrants from the south became an extension of Arab terrorists, so there was (building) racism and one of the focal points was Arizona. So I created these performance personae to kind of exorcise those fears and hopefully call for a better understanding of our relationship with our southern neighbor, with Mexico.

Q. What role does humor play in your performances?

A. It’s crucial, and this is something I learned from Chicanismo and from Mexican culture. I think that both Mexican and Chicano culture are extremely irreverent. We don’t hold anything sacred. We laugh at everything, we laugh at ourselves. It’s a way of coping with problems. It’s a very useful performance strategy. If the audience can relax and lower their defenses, you can deal with very sensitive issues in ways that you couldn’t deal with if you were much more heavy-handed. For me it’s an important element. Satire, political satire, humor, irreverence are also kind of like not taking myself very seriously, because the last thing I want to do is preach. For me, I feel that the social problems we are facing are all our fault. We are all implicated and the last thing I want to do is create a binary world where there is us and them, the good and the bad, because precisely I’m trying to dismantle this binary world.

IF YOU GO

What: Performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña in “El Mexorcist 4: American’s Most Wanted Inner Demon”

When: 8-10 p.m. Saturday

Where: Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block, 140 N. Main Ave.

Price: $12 general, $25 VIP seating

Info: 624-2333, TucsonMuseumofArt.org

Citizen Staff Writer
Stage

CHUCK GRAHAM

cgraham@tucsoncitizen.com

Apparently there is more than one side to the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Who knew? The composer most famous for “Cats,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” became controversial just for being so popular.

“How could you like that sappy stuff?” is the usual response of non-fans. But the founding artistic director of Arizona Onstage Productions, Kevin Johnson – who once considered himself a nonfan as well – changed his mind when he heard Webber’s chamber musical “Tell Me On A Sunday.”

“I saw it performed in a pub in a little town outside London, back around 1980 or ’81,” Johnson recalls. “I arrived late and didn’t know anything about the show, not even who wrote it.”

Johnson was surprised, if not astounded, when he discovered Webber was the composer.

Through the years Johnson kept track of this little sleeper. New songs were added, others deleted, but through it all the show continued as a one-act accounting of one young Englishwoman’s journey to America in search of love and a meaning for her life.

Webber wrote the music, working with lyricists Tim Rice and Don Black. “Tell Me On A Sunday” evolved as a one-woman show performed with piano, a couple of string instruments and no percussion. Johnson will use piano, violin, viola and cello.

“We all have these preconceived notions of Andrew Lloyd Webber,” says Kristé Belt, who sings the showcase role of Emma. She, too, only associated the British composer with those big Broadway productions.

Belt is a visiting artist who has been startling Tucson audiences this season with her exceptional AOP performances in “Sunday In The Park With George” and “Lost.” Her larger-than-life stage presence and operatic voice lifted these productions to a higher plane.

Compared with Webber’s more familiar shows, Belt says “Tell Me On A Sunday” has “more emotional depth. The melodies are still hummable, but it is more through-composed (connected), so you have to listen to every word.

“I wouldn’t call it operatic, but others might. There is a lot of raw emotion in it.”

The opportunity to perform more challenging work is what brought Belt to Tucson from Los Angeles.

“The huge theater companies are doing such safe work,” Belt explains. “Kevin (Johnson) takes that extra step outside the box. Coming out here to Tucson has turned out to be such a blessing for me.”

AOP has built its reputation performing quirky musicals ranging from the big hit “Bark” (where all the actors played dogs) to the darkly complex Stephen Sondheim commentary with “Assassins.” If there is a musical no one has heard of, and social misfits are involved, Kevin Johnson will be interested in the possibilities of mounting a production.

“Tell Me On A Sunday” begins with Emma in London, coming to New York to be with her musician boyfriend. Of course, that doesn’t work out (or else there wouldn’t be any show). Then the desperate damsel hooks up with a splashy Hollywood movie producer. His superficial personality is summed up in the song “Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad.”

Trudging back to Greenwich Village and feeling so wary, Emma still lets herself fall for a smooth-talking salesman. Well, at least he wasn’t a self-centered celebrity.

But it is when Emma is tempted by a married man that she must admit enough is enough. She must recapture her true self. Only, where is it? What has she become?

IF YOU GO

What: Arizona Onstage Productions presents “Tell Me On A Sunday” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black

When: 8 p.m. preview Friday, opening 8 p.m. Saturday, then 2 p.m. Sunday, 8 p.m. Jan. 8-10, 2 p.m. Jan. 11

Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd.

Price: $20 preview, all tickets; $25 general admission, $22.50 students and senior citizens

Info: 882-6574, www.arizonaonstage.org