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This week on local stages, hear immigration stories from Theatre Esprit Asia, learn the greatest source of angst for professional opera singers at Opera on Tap (clue: it’s not the opera’s bombastic plot), or help a couple of local nonprofit endeavors while having the time of your life at the Hard Rock Cafe.
Theatre Esprit Asia, Coming to America
ACAD Gallery Theatre
November 21 through December 6
7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
3 p.m. Sundays
Tickets: $20 to $26
720-492-9479
Theater Esprit Asia offers three slices of the immigration experience in Coming to America, a trio of short plays: “Foundations,” the story of an Iranian émigré who finds salvation as an architect in America by Jon Vogels; Peter Trinh’s “Boat Person,” the tale of a treacherous escape after the fall of Saigon; and from TEA director Maria Cheng, “Antecedents,” a gentle coming-of-age story about a Chinese girl caught between cultures while growing up in the United States.
Opera on Tap: Mock Auditions
Syntax Physic Opera
6:30 p.m. Saturday, November 21
Tickets: $8 to $10
Opera on Tap, Colorado’s only opera-based entertainment in a bar, will have some fun by staging mock auditions over beers at the velvet-curtained Syntax Physic Opera, giving audience members a peek behind the scenes at how things go down for performers in the real opera world. Of course, the onlookers will also be the judges of who’s best, and have a say in choosing each contestant’s second aria.
DCPA Holiday Cabaret for the Denver Actors Fund
Hard Rock Cafe Denver
5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday, November 23
Tickets: $25
The Denver Actors Fund does good all year ’round by helping members of the theater get back on their feet during an income-reducing health or family crisis. Once a year, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Hard Rock Cafe kick in some backup by hosting the DCPA Holiday Cabaret, a roundup of holiday and show tunes, punched up by a little rock and roll performed by cast members from current DCPA-sponsored shows, including The Lion King, A Christmas Carol, Murder for Two and The Santaland Diaries. Get a Broadway-quality show for only $25, and you’ll be helping not only the Denver Actors Fund, but also the DCPA’s “send a child to a Theatre Company student matinee” program. Gather for dinner, drinks and schmoozing at 5:30 p.m.; the show kicks off at 7.
Find a stage near you: Check out Westword’s online listings for more theater and dance events.
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