Five More Things to Do in Denver This Weekend

This first weekend of June has been packed with events. is packed with events. Even though First Friday has passed, you can jump from gallery to museum to gallery (Art Attack wraps up the offerings), and there are worthwhile free events stretching from Denver to the Plains.

But there are plenty of events worth the price of admission, too. Keep reading for ten of them:

Colorado Medieval Festival
Sunday, June 5, 10 a.m., to 5 p.m.
The Savage Woods, 1750 Savage Road, Loveland
Enjoy some larping good fun — without the high prices and commercialism found at certain other anachronistic festivals in Colorado — at the Colorado Medieval Festival, a DIY weekend of jousting matches, cosplay, music and comedy where you can take the whole family without breaking the bank. There will be cider, mead and beer for the adults; artisans selling wares; live role-playing quests; and, for the kids, a LEGO hunt. Learn more and find tickets, $8 to $14 (free for children 5 and under), at Eventbrite.

21st Annual Indian Market and Ceremonial Dance
Sunday, June 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily
The Fort, 19192 Highway 8, Morrison
Colorado’s nonprofit Tesoro Cultural Center, dedicated to showcasing historical communities of the Southwest, will host the 21st Annual Indian Market and Ceremonial Dance, a weekend of juried Indigenous art, dance and music on the grounds of the Fort restaurant. Representatives from more than forty nations will gather for this public learning experience. Admission is $10 daily (children twelve and under free); learn more and get tickets here.

Athena Project, Plays in Progress (PIP) Series
Sunday, June 5, 2 and 7 p.m.
Aurora Fox Theatre, 9900 East Colfax Avenue
The Athena Project’s Plays in Progress series, a play festival for women playwrights, returns from cyberspace after two years of virtual programming for a weekend of live table readings and panels. For the People, a drama mixing politics and LGBTQ concerns by Carol Mullen, and Meghan Maugeri’s Polar Bear Society, about the long-distance friendship between three bipolar teens, debut on June 4. On June 5, sit in on Lia Romeo’s The Agency, about a business that rents out actors to serve as love surrogates, and Eleanor and Dolly, Jenny Stafford’s tale of a high-school senior searching for a sweetheart. Tickets are $15 for each reading; find the ticket links here.

Colorado Shakespeare Festival 2022
Sunday, June 5, 7 p.m.; season through August 16
Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre and University Theatre, CU Boulder campus
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, a sixty-year-old Boulder tradition, opens this weekend at the University of Colorado Boulder campus with a preview performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona on June 5, under the stars in the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre. Following, in repertory at either the Rippon or the indoor University Theatre, will be quality performances of All’s Well That Ends Well, beginning June 18; The Book of Will, by Lauren Gunderson, opening on July 2; and Coriolanus, with a July 16 premiere. Prices range from $19 to $81; learn more at CU Presents.

Public Domain Theatre Festival
Sunday, June 5, 7 p.m.
Boulder Public Library, Main Branch, 1001 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, $15 to $20 here
Friday, June 10 through Sunday, June 19, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. nightly
Westminster Station Park, 6995 Grove Street, Westminster, $25 here
The Public Domain Theatre Festival might offer the most egalitarian performances you’ll ever see: original theater generated by materials, ideas and books free of binding copyrights, performed outdoors by roving actors. This month, three Front Range companies known for inventing theater out of thin air and/or community traditions — Buntport Theater, the Catamounts and Su Teatro — will prance into open areas in Boulder and Westminster, presenting off-the-cuff theater. Buntport's is inspired by François Desprez’s grotesque woodcuts for the The Droll Dreams of Pantagruel (1565); the Catamounts focus on a mashup of poems by Dorothy Parker, Barrymore’s Don Juan and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, all bound together by the year 1926; and Su Teatro looks at the street theater of Chicano activists. Find details, a schedule and tickets here.

Plan ahead:

And Toto too Theatre Company, 10th Tennyson Street Play Crawl
Tuesday, June 8, 5:30 to 10 p.m.
Local 46, 4586 Tennyson Street
And Toto too, Denver’s go-to for new original theater from female playwrights telling women’s stories, added another something to celebrate a decade ago, when it launched the annual Tennyson Street Play Crawl. The traveling series of ten micro-plays by local playwrights, accomplished in a single evening, celebrates its tenth anniversary with another two-hour walk around the block, beginning and ending with a silent auction at the Local 46 tavern. Led by a crawl leader, groups of ten to fifteen will make the rounds to participating Tennyson Street businesses, stopping to see the plays. Find a schedule and tickets, $40, here. Proceeds benefit And Toto too.

DCPA Cabaret: Rockin’ and Rollin’ With Miss Rhythm: The Story of R&B Legend Ruth Brown
Friday, June 10, and Saturday, June 11, 7:30 p.m.
Garner Galleria Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Ruth Brown, once known as the Queen of R&B, had a big voice and knew how to use it, recording rollicking hits like “Teardrops From My Eyes,” “5-10-15 Hours” and “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean,” throughout the ’50s. A comeback in 1975 garnered her some Grammys and led her to fight for musicians' rights in the ’80s. Get down with Ruth at Rockin’ and Rollin’ With Miss Rhythm: The Story of R&B Legend Ruth Brown, playing for two weekends at the Garner Galleria Theatre. Tickets are $45 here.

Do you know of a great event in Denver? We'll be updating this list through the weekend; send information to [email protected].