As the dust settled after the 2024 election, Bowls with the Bard director Paige Flores-Medrano faced a choice: stage The Tempest as a powerful, dramatic take on colonial power, or throw a glitter bomb of queer joy into the world with a gay staging of Twelfth Night. The nonbinary artist pitched both productions to company founder Micaela Mannix last spring and was enthusiastic about both concepts, but it quickly became clear what show the world needed right now.
“After the election, we felt it was important to put nonbinary, trans and other queer folks onstage in joyous, community-building play," Flores-Medrano says. And with that, Stoned Twelfth Night was born.
Running April 3-6, 10-12 and 14 at the Coffee Joint, Denver’s first licensed cannabis consumption lounge, Stoned Twelfth Night reimagines Illyria as a stoner paradise of radical acceptance. It’s part dance party, part Shakespearean rom-com and part protest through pleasure — where gender is fluid, love is high and no one leaves unchanged.
For those who are unfamiliar with the play, Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's classic tales of entangled romance. After a shipwreck separates twin siblings Viola and Sebastian, Viola disguises herself as a man named Cesario and falls into the service of Duke Orsino. But Orsino adores Lady Olivia, who ultimately falls for Cesario. Hijinks ensue, culminating in a final act filled with revelations and reunions.
But in Stoned Twelfth Night, the comedy gains new weight and resonance. "It’s no longer a story about mistaken identities but rather one of transformation," Flores-Medrano says. "Along the way, Cesario helps others in Illyria challenge some assumptions made about gender roles, so everyone kind of ends the play in a different way than how it started."
This production is the latest offering from Bowls with the Bard, a company built on the idea that Shakespeare is better when everyone’s a little high. Mannix first floated the concept in 2017, after attending a Shakespeare in the Pub performance in D.C., where she lived at the time.
“I just remember the experience being so ridiculously fun,” she told Westword in 2023 ahead of the company's first fully staged live production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Coffee Joint, “but since I don’t drink, it felt like if I tried to step in and participate without drinking, it was kind of a moot point. But I do smoke, so I decided to see if we could make something out of that.”
What started as stoned interviews about Shakespeare topics like The Tempest in space evolved into a podcast and eventually, a full production company after Mannix and her partner (now fiancé) relocated to Colorado. Their mission? Smash the stereotype of Shakespeare as stuffy and elitist.
Since that original performance in the fall of 2023, the troupe has also staged Stoned-versions of Cymbeline and As You Like in the Coffee Joint. And with Stoned Twelfth Night, the company's fourth production, Mannix aimed to do more than just make Shakespeare funny and accessible — she wanted to challenge an exhausting theatrical trend.
"As I thought about Bowls with the Bard’s place in [the second Trump] administration, I reflected on a complaint I heard from multiple marginalized communities toward the end of the first Trump administration: that the theater community has focused too much on presenting the trauma of marginalized communities and not enough on representing their joy," Mannix says. That feedback was taken into account, and the production focused on finding the fun, fluidity and freedom in Willy Shakes' original story.
Tess Greenhaw, a nonbinary performer who plays Cesario/Viola, immediately resonated with the role. “I first encountered it in an acting class in high school,” they say. "I remember being excited about the story but not liking how people talked about cross-dressing; it was very binary and gendered, especially the way people talked about Viola/Cesario."
That’s not the case here. “The team did a really good job of sifting through the script,” Greenhaw adds. “There are a few lines we've changed from 'I am a woman' to 'I was a woman' for Cesario. That's really influenced how I've come at this character. At the beginning of the play, they're using the name Viola and referring to the lady as a she/her but pretty quickly they begin to present more masculine and he's using the name Cesario. It's a gender journey. Cesario's a super fluid person trying to figure out how they want to identify and present, which has been reflective and relevant for me."
That fluidity extends to the ensemble. Phi Johnson-Grimes, who plays both Olivia and Orsino, calls the double casting “a fun and very gender-affirming process” as a nonbinary performer. "My process has been focused on figuring out why one character likes the other and the other character despises them in order to portray the intricacies of these relationships."
The dynamics between Cesario and Olivia become especially poignant. “Olivia is very frustrated,” Johnson-Grimes explains. “She’s just over this man [Orsino] who’s been incessantly courting her. At the same time, she’s having this pivotal moment with Cesario where she’s like, ‘Oh, wait! This is nice.’ She may not realize it's a queer awakening in the moment, but she comes to realize it towards the end.”
The show doesn’t rewire Shakespeare’s romantic resolutions, but it definitely reframes them. "Yeah, it doesn't change the couplings," Johnson-Grimes says, "but with how we cast it and play with the gender dynamics, Paige describes it as moving forward rather than back toward traditional gender norms. Both Orsino and Olivia have had their perspectives changed on their sexualities and how they perceive their own gender roles so it's not necessarily returning back to heteronormativity, as perhaps the script suggests; it's more so opening up a new realm of possibilities for everybody."
And yes — people really do get high during the show. The Coffee Joint allows cannabis vaping, dabbing and edibles onsite but strictly prohibits methods of smoking weed that require an open flame. Audience members are encouraged to consume responsibly in whatever way suits them best, and they can smoke during the performance alongside the actors if they pay the venue's $5 "consumption fee."
“I am planning on getting high beforehand and smoking a CBD cart during the show,” Johnson-Grimes says. “We are coming up with some smoking games if people would like to participate in that.” Greenhaw is saving their smoke for half of the play. "There are a few scripted times that me and other characters are smoking on stage and there's a time three-quarters through the play that I'll get a nice, good rip on a pen, so by the time that the play concludes with that monster scene in act five, I’ll be fully high."
Flores-Medrano says that the looseness adds levity: "The marijuana allows us to make moments a little goofier." But it doesn’t undercut the heart of the story. “Even though there is this tragedy happening around [Cesario] with the shipwreck, they are still able to go on this exciting journey of self-discovery," Flores-Medrano notes. "So, while this play centers on queer joy, it also depicts some more complex ideas about transformation.”
For Johnson-Grimes, the tone is the point. “With everything that's going on right now, people just feel very hopeless and tired. I find myself feeling that way, especially when it comes to queer and trans rights in this country. We hold space for celebration but also hold space for some not-so-happy, joyous feelings. People say, ‘Leave your baggage at the door,’ and I'm like, ‘no, we are human; our emotions affect us and our emotions affect our art.' There's a power in bringing that emotion in with you and using it as a tool."
Ultimately, Stoned Twelfth Night holds all of it — joy, baggage and some goofy dance breaks — and transforms it into something powerful: a high-spirited, gender-expansive love letter to what theater can be when everyone gets to be fully themselves. In choosing celebration over despair, Bowls with the Bard is tapping into a powerful historical truth that Mannix believes can help people through difficult times.
"The queer community has always existed," Mannix asserts. "Even in their darkest times in history, they have always found ways to gather and revel in their identities and in their own ability to persevere. They have always found ways to provide community care. In a world that is rapidly taking their rights away, celebrating the existence of the LGBTQ+ community and representing them in a fashion that is fun and freeing felt like the proper form of protest for a company like ours."
Stoned Twelfth Night, Thursday, April 3 through Monday, April 14 at the Coffee Joint, 1130 Yuma Court. Tickets are $10 to $20; learn more at bowlswiththebard.com.
“After the election, we felt it was important to put nonbinary, trans and other queer folks onstage in joyous, community-building play," Flores-Medrano says. And with that, Stoned Twelfth Night was born.
Running April 3-6, 10-12 and 14 at the Coffee Joint, Denver’s first licensed cannabis consumption lounge, Stoned Twelfth Night reimagines Illyria as a stoner paradise of radical acceptance. It’s part dance party, part Shakespearean rom-com and part protest through pleasure — where gender is fluid, love is high and no one leaves unchanged.
For those who are unfamiliar with the play, Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's classic tales of entangled romance. After a shipwreck separates twin siblings Viola and Sebastian, Viola disguises herself as a man named Cesario and falls into the service of Duke Orsino. But Orsino adores Lady Olivia, who ultimately falls for Cesario. Hijinks ensue, culminating in a final act filled with revelations and reunions.
But in Stoned Twelfth Night, the comedy gains new weight and resonance. "It’s no longer a story about mistaken identities but rather one of transformation," Flores-Medrano says. "Along the way, Cesario helps others in Illyria challenge some assumptions made about gender roles, so everyone kind of ends the play in a different way than how it started."
This production is the latest offering from Bowls with the Bard, a company built on the idea that Shakespeare is better when everyone’s a little high. Mannix first floated the concept in 2017, after attending a Shakespeare in the Pub performance in D.C., where she lived at the time.
“I just remember the experience being so ridiculously fun,” she told Westword in 2023 ahead of the company's first fully staged live production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Coffee Joint, “but since I don’t drink, it felt like if I tried to step in and participate without drinking, it was kind of a moot point. But I do smoke, so I decided to see if we could make something out of that.”
What started as stoned interviews about Shakespeare topics like The Tempest in space evolved into a podcast and eventually, a full production company after Mannix and her partner (now fiancé) relocated to Colorado. Their mission? Smash the stereotype of Shakespeare as stuffy and elitist.
Since that original performance in the fall of 2023, the troupe has also staged Stoned-versions of Cymbeline and As You Like in the Coffee Joint. And with Stoned Twelfth Night, the company's fourth production, Mannix aimed to do more than just make Shakespeare funny and accessible — she wanted to challenge an exhausting theatrical trend.
"As I thought about Bowls with the Bard’s place in [the second Trump] administration, I reflected on a complaint I heard from multiple marginalized communities toward the end of the first Trump administration: that the theater community has focused too much on presenting the trauma of marginalized communities and not enough on representing their joy," Mannix says. That feedback was taken into account, and the production focused on finding the fun, fluidity and freedom in Willy Shakes' original story.
Tess Greenhaw, a nonbinary performer who plays Cesario/Viola, immediately resonated with the role. “I first encountered it in an acting class in high school,” they say. "I remember being excited about the story but not liking how people talked about cross-dressing; it was very binary and gendered, especially the way people talked about Viola/Cesario."
That’s not the case here. “The team did a really good job of sifting through the script,” Greenhaw adds. “There are a few lines we've changed from 'I am a woman' to 'I was a woman' for Cesario. That's really influenced how I've come at this character. At the beginning of the play, they're using the name Viola and referring to the lady as a she/her but pretty quickly they begin to present more masculine and he's using the name Cesario. It's a gender journey. Cesario's a super fluid person trying to figure out how they want to identify and present, which has been reflective and relevant for me."
That fluidity extends to the ensemble. Phi Johnson-Grimes, who plays both Olivia and Orsino, calls the double casting “a fun and very gender-affirming process” as a nonbinary performer. "My process has been focused on figuring out why one character likes the other and the other character despises them in order to portray the intricacies of these relationships."
The dynamics between Cesario and Olivia become especially poignant. “Olivia is very frustrated,” Johnson-Grimes explains. “She’s just over this man [Orsino] who’s been incessantly courting her. At the same time, she’s having this pivotal moment with Cesario where she’s like, ‘Oh, wait! This is nice.’ She may not realize it's a queer awakening in the moment, but she comes to realize it towards the end.”
The show doesn’t rewire Shakespeare’s romantic resolutions, but it definitely reframes them. "Yeah, it doesn't change the couplings," Johnson-Grimes says, "but with how we cast it and play with the gender dynamics, Paige describes it as moving forward rather than back toward traditional gender norms. Both Orsino and Olivia have had their perspectives changed on their sexualities and how they perceive their own gender roles so it's not necessarily returning back to heteronormativity, as perhaps the script suggests; it's more so opening up a new realm of possibilities for everybody."
And yes — people really do get high during the show. The Coffee Joint allows cannabis vaping, dabbing and edibles onsite but strictly prohibits methods of smoking weed that require an open flame. Audience members are encouraged to consume responsibly in whatever way suits them best, and they can smoke during the performance alongside the actors if they pay the venue's $5 "consumption fee."
“I am planning on getting high beforehand and smoking a CBD cart during the show,” Johnson-Grimes says. “We are coming up with some smoking games if people would like to participate in that.” Greenhaw is saving their smoke for half of the play. "There are a few scripted times that me and other characters are smoking on stage and there's a time three-quarters through the play that I'll get a nice, good rip on a pen, so by the time that the play concludes with that monster scene in act five, I’ll be fully high."
Flores-Medrano says that the looseness adds levity: "The marijuana allows us to make moments a little goofier." But it doesn’t undercut the heart of the story. “Even though there is this tragedy happening around [Cesario] with the shipwreck, they are still able to go on this exciting journey of self-discovery," Flores-Medrano notes. "So, while this play centers on queer joy, it also depicts some more complex ideas about transformation.”
For Johnson-Grimes, the tone is the point. “With everything that's going on right now, people just feel very hopeless and tired. I find myself feeling that way, especially when it comes to queer and trans rights in this country. We hold space for celebration but also hold space for some not-so-happy, joyous feelings. People say, ‘Leave your baggage at the door,’ and I'm like, ‘no, we are human; our emotions affect us and our emotions affect our art.' There's a power in bringing that emotion in with you and using it as a tool."
Ultimately, Stoned Twelfth Night holds all of it — joy, baggage and some goofy dance breaks — and transforms it into something powerful: a high-spirited, gender-expansive love letter to what theater can be when everyone gets to be fully themselves. In choosing celebration over despair, Bowls with the Bard is tapping into a powerful historical truth that Mannix believes can help people through difficult times.
"The queer community has always existed," Mannix asserts. "Even in their darkest times in history, they have always found ways to gather and revel in their identities and in their own ability to persevere. They have always found ways to provide community care. In a world that is rapidly taking their rights away, celebrating the existence of the LGBTQ+ community and representing them in a fashion that is fun and freeing felt like the proper form of protest for a company like ours."
Stoned Twelfth Night, Thursday, April 3 through Monday, April 14 at the Coffee Joint, 1130 Yuma Court. Tickets are $10 to $20; learn more at bowlswiththebard.com.
