Flagstaff Live

Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival is shaking things up this year as it explores new paths and expands production. “We've got a lot going on,” Executive Director Becki Zaritsky said. “It's a busy year for us, and we're really excited.” kAmu@C E96 a_ae D62D@?[ u=28DE277 $92<6DA62C6 u6DE:G2=[ 2<2 u=28$92<6D[ :D 762EFC:?8 AC@5F4E:@?D 2?5 AC@8C2>D 46=63C2E:?8 E96 A@H6C @7 =:G6 A6C7@C>2?46 H9:=6 6?828:?8 H:E9 E96 4@>A2?J’D >:DD:@? E@ 4C62E6 24E@C\5C:G6?

It is March 2026 and I am seven weeks into a teaching a media writing. The 18 students in the course have listened to lectures about interviewing, crafting questions and writing articles. It is time to segue from theory to practice. I tell them that their next assignment is to find a graduating senior student who is a stranger, interview the student in person for at least 30 minutes and write an article about their postgraduation aspirations.

Dear Friends, It doesn’t really matter if I’m watching soccer or not — the stories from the World Cup seem to find me anyway. I watched parts of matches that were on the big television screens throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth and Nashville airports last week as I traveled to see my mother. I also watched people from all over the world stop to catch a glimpse of a match, or a score, while shuffling luggage, coffee and cellphones.

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Welcome back to the crypt, boils and ghouls, for another spectacularly spooky edition of Masters of Brewtality. Coming straight from a sewer that runs under one of the dilapidated cemeteries rotting on the outskirts of Flagstaff just off of old Route 66, we are tickled black to present a very special feature celebrating not only the 100-year anniversary of America’s Highway, but also the 250th birthday celebration of the country that we indeed reside in.

A few months ago, I attended a production at Theatrikos Theatre Company called "The Marvelous Wonderettes" and was impressed by what I saw. The script is not my favorite, but the show was marketable. It looked, sounded and felt more advanced. Only one actor was local. During intermission, I mentioned as much to someone in the lobby. "This feels different. It’s really good," I said. "They've always been good," she replied.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on ancestry.com after doing the DNA test they tell you not to do. On both sides of my family, long-lost siblings were found in their 40s, so I was game to find out anything. Turns out, there were no big surprises beyond being vaguely related to Mozart’s librettist, and well, maybe a few others I'm trying to figure out.

During the same week in June, two freakish things happened. A rare but welcome incursion of monsoon moisture entered Arizona from the south, scattering welcome showers across parched forest and grassland, but also throwing down lightning bolts that set off dozens of wildfires. Elon Musk, meanwhile, became the world’s first trillionaire, reaching an unprecedented milestone in the lengthy annals of human accumulation.

Some of my neighbors seem willingly clueless about the fact that Flagstaff is the first International Dark Sky City. Or, they just don’t care. Across the street and down a house, a second-homer leaves an unshielded porch light luminescing all night, every night, at lumens seemingly brighter than a full moon. These lumens obey no laws. They shine right through the blinds of my bedroom.

My mother wrote a poem, “The Man Who Loved Trees,” in memory of her grandfather, Louis August Maier. Another poem she called, “Milwaukee Trees.” In the latter, she writes “ … huge beech trees wear initials in their smooth pale bark and, on some summer days, children in their branches.” Last month, the best of the branches finally gave way to the decades-old weight of the tree’s many years. While technically a branch, the huge climbing arm was the size of a small tree.