Stories by Heart, which received strong reviews in New York, Los Angeles and London, is anchored by two very different short stories: P.G. Wodehouse's comic and light-as-air "Uncle Fred Flits By" in which, among other characters, Lithgow plays a parrot and the much darker "Haircut," by Ring Lardner. These are pieces that Lithgow's theater-producer father read to him when he was a child; he, in turn, read them to the old man after he'd undergone a serious operation as a means of reviving his joy in living.
The show is "a kind of rumination on storytelling," Lithgow says, "and on why we all want, need and love stories." It's fitting, then, that the venue is Boulder's historic Chautauqua Auditorium, at 900 Baseline Road, one of the last structures remaining from a nineteenth-century movement intended to bring art and entertainment to the entire country. The show is at 7 p.m., and tickets run $38.50 to $81.50. For more information, go to www.chautauqua.com or www.localtheatercompany.org.
Sun., Aug. 28, 7 p.m., 2011
