Nick Offerman Brings Big Woodchuck Tour to Denver’s Paramount Theatre

When Nick Offerman comes back to Denver as part of his 2026 Big Woodchuck tour, he knows exactly where he’s headed. “I’ve played the Paramount three or four times,” Offerman says. “I love Denver. It’s such a cool city.”

Growing up in a small town in Illinois, he remembers long drives west across the plains and the moment the mountains finally rise into view. “It’s just a crazy Mile High City,” Offerman says. “It felt like we’d been approaching for weeks across the plains; you see this mountain range, and on top of it is a cultural center with very good food and drink.”

That sense of arrival makes Denver a fitting stop for Big Woodchuck, the live show the actor, comedian and woodworker is set to bring to the Paramount Theatre on February 12 for two performances.

Billed as an evening of comedy with woodworking and bookish mirth, Big Woodchuck draws heavily from Offerman’s latest book, Little Woodchucks: Offerman Woodshop’s Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery. It’s his sixth New York Times bestseller and a pivot from Good Clean Fun, his earlier, more textbook-like woodworking book. This time, the entry point is intentionally lower.

“Secretly, it’s sort of for families to ostensibly teach your kids to use tools and make things with your hands,” Offerman says, “but most big woodchucks also don’t use a hammer or a saw or know how to make things anymore. We really have become this consumer society, and I have just had so much bounty in my life from being able to be self-sustaining and make my own stuff and just think about affecting the world around me without needing to order everything off of an app.”

But Big Woodchuck arrives at a moment when Offerman is also increasingly aware of how his work, especially his most famous role, has been interpreted, politicized and, at times, misunderstood. No discussion of Offerman’s public life is complete without Ron Swanson, the mustachioed libertarian he played on Parks and Recreation, and Offerman is candid about how often the character is associated with his real self.

“There is a funny conflation between me and Ron Swanson,” he says, noting how modern media blurs the line between actor and character. “Because Ron has certain old-fashioned, machismo signals, like having a mustache, eating a lot of meat, being a hunter or whatever, people wrongfully attach their ideology to him. They’re like, ‘Well, he’s got a shotgun, so he must have voted for this jerk,’ or whatever.”

Offerman is quick to point out that Swanson, as written by the show’s creators, is far more complex than the caricature that circulates online. “I love Ron,” he says. “He has such a great set of values because he’s a true libertarian. He’s actually a great feminist; he’s cool with everybody, and he’s a wonderful humanitarian.” Still, the association can be odd. “I am grateful for all of my audience,” he adds, “but it’s strange.”

That conflation becomes especially fraught when politics enter the conversation. Offerman doesn’t shy away from his own views, particularly when it comes to what he sees as cruelty or a lack of basic decency in public life. Recalling a recent interview with Vice President JD Vance, Offerman describes being shaken by Vance’s response to a question about whether he would apologize to the family of Alex Pretti, an unarmed man who was shot by ICE while protecting someone else.

“They asked him, ‘Would you want to apologize to him?’” Offerman says. “And he sneered, and he said, ‘For what?’” Offerman pauses. “I will disagree all day on politics or whatever, but I hope I’m never that unkind to people that are hurting — to anybody, especially immigrants. There are so many people that have less than us.”

For Offerman, making things with his hands is one way to resist that unkindness and the constant churn of outrage. Time in the woodshop, with family or collaborators, offers a counterweight to what he calls “doom scrolling” and “toxic messaging.”

That philosophy is baked into Little Woodchucks, which grew out of a long-running collaboration with Lee Buchanan, his former shop manager of ten years, who co-wrote the book and joins him onstage. After leaving the Los Angeles woodshop and starting a family in Berkeley, Buchanan became, as Offerman puts it, his “laboratory,” testing projects in her Berkeley garage while raising two young boys.

“I entirely depended on Lee,” Offerman says. “I couldn’t have done this book without her. We came up with all the projects, and that was really fun, going back and forth, figuring out what to put in the book. Then, while I was in Budapest shooting a historical period drama, she was running prototypes and working out the kinks in our designs.”

The result is a book that contains a collection of builds that rely as little as possible on power tools and emphasize safety, patience and hands-on learning. The projects are playful and practical: toast tongs made from simple wooden pieces to retrieve hot bread from a toaster; a box kite assembled from dowels, paper and corks; and a slapstick, a hinged theatrical prop that makes a loud crack without hurting anyone.

That slapstick, Offerman explains, came from a desire to redirect a familiar childhood impulse. “If you’re a kid, what do you want to make out of these sticks?” he says. “You’re just going to have a high percentage of kids that are like, ‘a sword.’” Instead, he and Buchanan leaned into theater history, reviving a commedia dell’arte tool that creates sound without violence. It’s silly, loud and safe, and it becomes a centerpiece of the live show.

Onstage, Big Woodchuck unfolds as a hybrid of comedy concert, book tour and woodworking demonstration. Offerman sings what he describes as earnest, intentionally imperfect songs, reads from the book and banters while Buchanan builds at a workbench in real time.

“Lee is onstage doing the tour with me and will actually be doing some woodworking onstage; she is going to be building the slapstick,” Offerman says, “while I sing a song about how she does all the work and I like, dance around, and then we call it Offerman Woodshop.”

Video elements, including a homemade music video, round out the evening. “It’s like a comedy show and a book tour,” Offerman says. “I really want to get across the values I was brought up with, but I also want to make people laugh and show them a good time. So, I mean, it really comes off like a comedy show, but hopefully you go home thinking you might want to get a new hammer.”

Underlying both the book and the tour is a clear philosophy about learning, failure and attention. In the woodshop, Offerman says, mistakes are expected. Extra wood is part of the plan because something will go wrong.

“The point is not to get it right on the first try,” he says. That lesson extends beyond woodworking. Whether you are acting, cooking, writing or something else, none of it arrives fully formed. “Your first one is probably going to suck,” he says. “But you’re not going to get to a delicious one until you make some.”

Although this tour centers on his woodworking, for many audience members Offerman is first and foremost an actor. He won an Emmy for his performance as Bill in HBO’s The Last of Us and has built a career that spans comedy, drama, voice work and hosting. His résumé includes Parks and Recreation, Fargo, Devs, Pam & Tommy, A League of Their Own and Making It. Asked what acting projects excite him most, Offerman doesn’t hesitate.

“You know, it’s funny, in life, whether it’s acting or woodworking or my marriage, the thing I’m most excited about is always the next one, because that’s the one that I haven’t screwed up yet, so it could still be the big one,” he says. “I’m grateful for the work I’ve been able to do, but I’m especially excited about David E. Kelley’s new show, Margot’s Got Money Troubles, which will premiere on Apple TV+ in April and stars Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman. I have a really challenging part, and so I’m really excited to be part of this ensemble. I think it’s really special, and hopefully we’ll get to do a Season 2.”

When Offerman swings through Denver, his Big Woodchuck tour brings plenty of sawdust and smartassery, and it’s intended to leave audiences laughing, inspired, and possibly ready to clear a corner of the kitchen table for their first project. As Offerman puts it, the goal isn’t perfection.

“It will be clumsy,” he says of the performance. “But I’ll try and leave people smiling.”

Nick Offerman: Big Woodchuck is Thursday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 1621 Glenarm Place. Learn more at nickofferman.co.