Best News for Playwrights -- Small Venue 2007 | Curious Theatre Company | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best News for Playwrights -- Small Venue

Curious Theatre Company

It's very hard for playwrights to get their work produced, yet without production, it's impossible for a playwright to hone his craft. And new playwrights are, of course, the heart and soul of a living theater culture. Curious has joined a group of theaters nationwide that believe in showcasing new work -- even guaranteeing three or more productions for each work they select. The resultant "rolling" world premiere allows the play to evolve through testing by several audiences, casts and directors.

Best News for Playwrights -- Large Venue

Denver Center Theatre Company

Artistic director Kent Thompson has taken strides toward his goal of bringing the work of more women and writers of color to the Denver Center. He has also instituted an annual two-day New Play Summit. Jason Grote's 1001 was seen at last year's summit before being mounted this February. This year saw readings of new plays by Theresa Rebeck, Evangeline Ordaz and Neal Bell, as well as an adaptation of Kent Haruf's novel Plainsong by Eric Schmiedl. We look forward to seeing where Thompson takes us next.

Best Theater Production

The Caretaker

You knew from the moment you entered the theater and saw David Lafont's beautifully detailed set -- stacks of papers, a hanging toilet seat, a shopping cart, a bucket set under a leak in the ceiling -- that someone had put a lot of thought into this production, someone with an understanding of subtlety, a passion for detail and an acute sense of place. That someone was director Terry Dodd, who also assembled a first-rate cast. The owner of the disheveled flat -- sad, slow, befuddled Aston -- was played to perfection by Warren Sherrill, who gave the character a subdued and penetrating sweetness. There were also Jarrad Holbrook as Aston's vicious brother, Mick, periodically interrupting his own romantic monologues with jarring spurts of violence, and Jim Hunt as the whiny, manipulative tramp Davies, invited by Aston into the flat. In a play that's all about mystery, futility and power, these three actors gave performances riveting in their focus and intensity. Of course, it always helps to have a brilliant script like Harold Pinter's to work with.

Best Theater Season

Buntport Theater Company

You know a theater's something special if you always find people of all ages and types in the audience, and if you keep hearing yourself recommending the place to friends (and, later, the friends call up to thank you). From script to set, this troupe of seven creates every piece they mount from scratch. They're youthful, literate, experimental and unpretentious; on stage, the actors often manage to be both profound and silly beyond belief at the very same moment. Of Buntport's three plays this season, Winter in Graupel Bay was the least successful, but it was still a soulful, interesting mixture of joy and melancholy. The other two were absolute winners: Something Is Rotten, the Buntporters' insane take on Hamlet in which Ophelia was played by a live goldfish and her father, Polonius, by a Teddy Ruxpin bear; and A Synopsis of Butchery, which explored the Victorian obsession with death, the occult and premature burial.

Best Performance by an Audience Member

Unnamed audience member

This charming small musical calls on audience members to join the spelling team on stage every night. On the night I attended, a tall, dark man was one of the people who responded. Word was he was an actor, but we never learned his name. The man's poise was extraordinary, and his delight in being onstage infectious. Furthermore, he managed to extend his time there well into the action by calmly spelling out one difficult word after another, to the bafflement of the cast and the delight of the audience.

Best Audience

Shadow Theatre Company

It's just too easy to enter a theater, sit back and wait to be terrified, amazed, moved or entertained. Theater is a live medium that works best when audience members are involved and there's a genuine current between them and the actors. When you attend Shadow Theatre Company productions, you usually feel a distinct sense of ownership among the viewers. People sigh at sad moments and laugh generously at happy ones. When the youthful Quatis Tarkington, playing an elderly man and kneeling at his lover's feet, asked for help getting up, there was a sympathetic groan from parts of the audience. Best of all was the jovial response to Four Queens, No Trump. The play is centered on bid whist, and it was clear the audience knew the game. They cheered some moves, tut-tutted over others, even offered instruction. And though the actors didn't respond directly, you could tell all this empathy revved up their performances.

Best Comedy

Plenty of Time

He's a would-be Black Panther; she's the spoiled, underage daughter of a Martha's Vineyard couple. After a night of sex, they agree to meet again, and the once-yearly affair continues for decades. He fights overseas. She becomes first a fire-breathing feminist and then a successful businesswoman. Years pass, and finally the couple faces the question of what exactly this relationship means to them and whether they should continue or let it die away. Has it been real life or a detour? Does it represent love? This is John She'vin Foster's take on Bernard Slade's Same Time Next Year, and it's sweet and funny and sometimes profound. Under the direction of Jeffrey Nickelson, Shadow gave the play a charming production, and Nickelson's young actors, Quatis Tarkington and Simone St. John, gave impeccable performances and demonstrated a real chemistry together.

Best Comedic Performance of the Year

Michael Shalhoub Tartuffe Germinal Stage Denver

Germinal picked a perfect time to stage this update on Moliere, a spoof of hypocritical religiosity. Among a strong cast, Michael Shalhoub stood out in the lead. His Tartuffe was juicy and outrageous, utterly repulsive and periodically rather appealing. Shalhoub's mobile, clearly defined features glistened with lustful sweat as he pursued the beautiful Elmire; the scene in which he rehearsed his dishonest sermon was a study in the art of inspired hamming -- gutsy, grimacing and side-achingly funny.

Best Actress in a Comedy

Angela Reed

We first met Ashley while she was watching one of those smarmy television shrinks with her teenage son, Justin. The shrink's advice to a sexually incompatible couple inspired her to reveal far more than Justin wanted to know about her relationship with his father. By conventional standards, Ashley was clearly a rotten mother. She teased and flirted with her son, forgot to track the medications for his mono, offered him pot and advised him to sleep with a lot of girls before settling down. And if one of them were to get pregnant, he was to make sure she had an abortion. "You'll be traumatized for, like, two days," she explained. Ashley's saving grace was the fact that she clearly adored Justin. Yes, the script was clever and original, but it was Angela Reed's light, humorous voice, lithe physicality and emotional openness that made it memorable.

Best Actor in a Comedy

John Hutton

Michael is a hyper-literate writer capable of dismissing the work of Rainer Maria Rilke as "infantile nonsense." But he has nonetheless sold out to become a best-selling novelist. His wife has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She wants him to read her diaries after her death -- and she wants to read his before she dies. The result is a knot of twisting truth and fiction that neither of them can quite unravel. These are not particularly sympathetic characters -- they're self-involved and sometimes precious -- but they're also urbane and witty. Hutton, an always-convincing actor, gave Michael a rueful, cynical intelligence as well as a seductive vitality.

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