The ValleyThe folk of the Phoenix Valley
An index of the people who make live culture here, and the people who keep them able to.
We went looking for everyone in the Valley who performs, teaches, holds a room, throws a festival, or patches a body back together, and we found more than two hundred and sixty. Nobody had ever written them down in one place.
This is the beginning of that list. It starts small and on purpose — these are the entries we have written first, to show what a listing looks like. If you belong here, you belong here. Write to us and we will draft yours, or fix the one we drafted for you.
3 listedOurs
- Founding troupe
Our founding troupe :: Ryan’s band and mythological universe, and one on-ramp into the Perform ring rather than the whole of it.
Phoenix
- Care program
Our care program :: health, safety and longevity for performers, crew, faire workers, and the scenes they belong to.
Phoenix Valley
- Recovery day
Every Sunday, a twelve-thousand-square-foot recovery room, open to the folk on a sliding scale. The first one is August 30.
North Scottsdale
6 listedRing one · Perform
- Puppetry company
Phoenix’s puppet theater, with a full season on Latham Street and a new stage in Flagstaff.
Phoenix
- Classical theater
Mesa’s classical company. Shakespeare and the rest of the canon, staged for people who did not think they liked Shakespeare.
Mesa
- Indie & devised theater
Home for the strange, the new and the not-yet-finished. Original work, late shows, and a stage that says yes.
Phoenix
- All-ages DIY venue
All-ages, nonprofit and currently nomadic. Two decades of giving the weirdest bill in town somewhere to happen.
Phoenix
- Arts space
Roosevelt Row’s oldest alternative art space. Exhibitions, gardens, and the Exotic Art Show.
Phoenix
- Spoken word
Phoenix spoken word, on a stage where the poem is the act.
Phoenix
6 listedRing two · Practice
- Youth & social circus
Kids on silks, trapeze and unicycle, and a youth troupe that actually performs.
Phoenix
- Youth & social circus
West Valley. Circus and flow arts programs taken into schools across Arizona.
Buckeye
Phoenix Old Time Music Society
Free acoustic jamsFree jams twice a month, all comers. Fiddles, dulcimers, accordions, mandolins, bones and spoons.
Glendale & Phoenix
- Folk instrument lessons
Ten-week terms in bodhrán, Celtic harp, flute and tin whistle, on Central Avenue.
Phoenix
- Makerspace
Volunteer-run makerspace on Main Street. Laser cutters, sewing, welding and wood — everything a prop or a puppet needs.
Mesa
- Stagehands’ union
The stagehands’ union, and a training trust that teaches rigging, safety and stagecraft.
Phoenix
3 listedRing three · Care
Maricopa County Heat Relief Network
Heat safetyCooling centres, hydration stations and respite sites, May through September. Know where they are before you need one.
Maricopa County
Mayo Clinic Arizona — Voice Clinic
LaryngologyLaryngology and voice care for professional voice users. Where you go when it is serious.
Phoenix & Scottsdale
Tinnitus & Hearing Center of Arizona
AudiologyCustom musician earplugs and in-ear monitor fittings. Your ears are equipment.
Tempe
6 listedThe scenes that hold the room
- Renaissance faire
Eight weekends of it, and the largest single employer of performers in the state.
Gold Canyon
- SCA · living history
The SCA in central Phoenix. Armoured combat, rapier, and every pre-17th-century craft you can name.
Central Phoenix
- Boffer LARP
Foam swords at Encanto Park. Free, weekly, and nobody minds that you have never done it.
Encanto Park, Phoenix
Phoenix Society of Historical Swordsmanship
Historical martial artsLongsword and the rest, taught from the actual manuals.
Phoenix
- Fire arts & burn community
Arizona’s regional burn community, and the fire guild that holds the safety standards.
Statewide
- All-ages venue
All-ages on Main Street. Metal, punk, hardcore, and the occasional burlesque night.
Mesa
Listed here and want it changed? Every entry was written by us from what an organisation says publicly about itself. If a line is wrong, out of date, or simply not how you would put it, tell us and we will use your words instead. If you would rather not be listed at all, say so and you will be off it the same day. No hard feelings and no follow-up.
Not listed and want to be? Write to play@circusfolk.com. It costs nothing, it will always cost nothing, and there is no membership to buy. This is a map, not a club.
Why we bother
The circus keeps making circus folk.
Somebody has to be able to find everybody else.