Bad Books, A New Comedy About Book Banning, Is Coming to Denver and Boulder

In Sharyn Rothstein‘s incisive new play Bad Books, a discussion about books becomes something much bigger. Set in a public library, the two-hander follows a mother and a librarian whose clash over what is appropriate reading for a teenager quickly becomes a referendum on who gets to decide what children read, and then refuses to let the audience settle for easy answers.

“The nuance that Sharyn gives us is incredible,” says Bad Books director Nick Chase. “Both women are deeply embedded in their community and interested in its civic health. Sharyn does an excellent job of presenting a very complex argument that takes us away from the sound bites and brings us closer to understanding human beings on both sides of this issue.”

Bad Books is a co-production between Denver’s Curious Theatre Company and Boulder’s Local Theater Company, presented as part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. After debuting at Curious in January, the show will move to Boulder’s Dairy Arts Center in February, giving two Front Range communities the chance to encounter the story in distinct civic and cultural contexts.

“I am very, very excited to see if there is any distinction between the way that this plays here in Denver and in Boulder,” says Chase, who also serves as a co-artistic director of Local Theater Company. “Are they different? Are they the same? Where are they laughing? This production allows us to put on Bad Books in the heart of downtown Denver, then move it to another part of the state and see what happens.”

At the center of Bad Books are two performances that resist easy labels. Lauren Dennis, making her Curious Theatre debut, portrays a librarian who is deeply committed to equity and the public mission of libraries. Jada Suzanne Dixon, the artistic director of Curious Theatre and an NNPN board member, plays a mother whose sense of responsibility to her children and community drives her to confrontation.

“The librarian is a stick-to-her-guns kind of person,” Dennis says. “She’s very protective of people’s rights to use the library and for all voices to be heard, but when threatened, as she is in the play, she retaliates with humor, sarcasm and solid reasoning for why she’s recommended these books.”

Dixon describes the mother not as an antagonist but as someone acting from conviction. “She’s a woman of deep belief,” Dixon says, “rooted in her driving force, which is to protect her community, and to do so in a way that makes sense to her, which is to prioritize kids first.”

That tension is bluntly expressed in one of the play’s most pointed lines: “It’s not about censorship; it’s about parental rights.” Chase believes that the mutual sincerity of the two women at the center of Bad Books is what makes the play so effective.

“Something that Sharyn has done is really allow us to elaborate on the human beings behind the sound bites,” he says. “Social media flattens people. This play pulls us away from the 180 characters and into understanding motivations, beliefs and humanity.”

Rothstein’s script balances that emotional depth with sharp comedy. The laughs are frequent and sometimes absurd, but they never undermine the stakes.

“Comedy is the sugar that makes the medicine go down,” Chase says. “This is a play that uses comedy to connect and disconnect people. The characters use comedy as a weapon at first and then as a force of connection at the end.”

Dennis credits the writing for that balance. “The pacing and the interior parentheticals are very speech-like and naturalistic, but also heightened,” she says. “Believing that this moment is almost life or death brings out the comedy.”

Dennis paused, then adds, “Also, there’s a fish named Martin … The circumstances of that scene are pretty dire, and yet there’s a fish. So I think this combination of kind of absurdism with the high stakes also leads to that comedy.”

For Dixon, the humor only works because the emotional journeys are grounded in listening.

“It’s not about us coming to a place where we’re 100 percent in agreement,” Dixon says. “It is about how you can expand your deep listening. That’s the journey that I see with the mother; she moves from a strong stance to the point of being able to fully listen, hear and understand without having to be in agreement. I don’t know where we’re seeing that these days, except for onstage.”

The decision to bring Bad Books to Colorado as a co-production grew out of both artistic alignment and practical necessity. Because Curious Theatre is a core member of the National New Play Network, Christy Montour Larson, the organization’s education and literary manager, was able to hear the script at an early NNPN reading. The response was immediate.

“There’s nothing more powerful from a reading experience than to be sitting in the shared space with other humans, other creatives, and all of a sudden you feel that buzz,” Dixon says. “And Christy came back talking about it. I’m not sure when and how I read it, but immediately, we were drawn to the story.”

Curious and Local had been talking about collaborating for a while, but when Dixon’s team discovered Bad Books, the two organizations saw an opportunity. In a funding environment where resources are scarce and risk is high, co-productions provide a means to sustain artistic ambition while sharing costs, infrastructure and labor.

“I have been saying for a while, but I do think the path forward is going to be in partnerships,” Dixon says. “Sometimes there’s a concern of ‘How do you do that? Is whoever’s the partner still going to have their sort of identity?’ Instead of it being like, ‘How do I carve this space out for me?’ It’s more like, ‘How do we carve this space out for us?’ I think that this beautiful artistic community here is ripe for that.”

Chase added that the collaboration works because both companies share a commitment to new work as a living process. “New plays develop all the way until opening night,” he says. “Curious and Local share a value system where we celebrate the artist’s integrity. We celebrate the value of collaboration. We celebrate the value of the ‘what if’ in every process and a willingness to step into the unknown together.”

That sense of a play as a living organism extends to the rolling world premiere model itself. Bad Books has already been produced in Florida and Maryland through the NNPN Rolling World Premiere program, with Michigan still to come.

“The rolling world premiere really allows those distinct communities to really gather in conversation and talk about what these circumstances mean for our community,” Chase says. Design plays a critical role in grounding that conversation. Chase describes the library setting as a sacred and recognizable space.

“Libraries are essential to American civic life,” he says. “I think that it’s very easy to take those elements in our world for granted, and our designers have allowed us to say, ‘Don’t take this for granted. This is a special place.’”

That sense of familiarity and reverence is shaped by the work of scenic designer David J. Castellano, lighting designer Sean Mallary, costume designer Nicole Watts, sound and original music designer Max Silverman and props designer Katie Hopwood McCleaf, whose collective work creates what Chase calls a “snow globe of a world” that audiences instantly recognize.

“Our entire design team and our stage management team, Camden Hornor and Anna Cordova, have been essential to making this process,” Chase says. “This is not a show about two people. This is a show that required every single frickin’ person on our team, and it has been a true joy to have this collaboration.”

When the production moves from Denver to Boulder, the entire show will be struck, transported and reassembled to fit a new space. “It’s an exciting puzzle,” Dixon says. “How do we maintain the integrity of what we’ve created while adapting to a different environment and a different audience?”

Both artists and producers are eager to see how audiences respond across the two cities, where laughs land and where silences linger. Dennis hopes those reactions continue well beyond the theater.

“What role does the library serve in our community?” she says. “Who did you think you agreed with at the beginning, and how did that shift? What book has changed your life? And maybe one other question that I hope people leave with is how can we build a better world together even when we disagree?”

Bad Books runs Saturday, January 10, through Sunday, February 1, at Curious Theatre, 1080 Acoma Street, and Thursday, February 5, through Saturday, February 14, at the Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder. Learn more at curioustheatre.org and localtheaterco.org.