Family First

From the start of his tenure as artistic director of the Denver Center Theatre Company, Kent Thompson has sought to give the company a strong regional voice, one in tune with a cultural constituency of many colors. To that end, he immediately gave a nod to Colorado’s Latino community, including a work by a Latino playwright in every season’s lineup. Although other theater companies had already given voice to this group, the DCTC has the power to push the material on a national level, which pays off in Denver, too. Last year’s Lydia, by Octavio Solis, is a case in point, since it garnered Pulitzer-worthy buzz on the East Coast.

This year, Thompson is presenting the family-friendly comedy Sunsets and Margaritas, a company-commissioned world premiere from José Cruz González, who also wrote September Shoes, a previous DCTC production. Sunsets, a funny and irreverent story about what happens when an aging Mexican-American patriarch plows his Cadillac into the family restaurant, opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. and continues daily except Sundays through May 16 in the Ricketson Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

Tickets range from $25 to $50; to reserve yours, visit www.denvercenter.org or call 303-893-4100.

Mondays-Saturdays. Starts: April 3. Continues through May 17, 2009