Cracking wise about this or that presidential candidate doesn’t seem so insulting in a country united in the belief that all politicians are laughingstocks. Unkind remarks about an artist of the moment, however, can have dire consequences in a society divided over aesthetic matters. Serge, Marc and Yvan have what…

When David Loper has trouble retrieving a crucial computer file for a valued client, he does what any office drone would — he decides to pull a hard copy of the file from the company’s central file room and fax it off as soon as possible. Shortly after he learns…

What role does the artist play in a world that equates fame with ability? Are creative types required to defer to the paying public’s likes and dislikes? Or are they duty-bound to subvert and question convention, no matter what the cost? Despite some rough going early on, those questions ultimately…

He’s produced some 65 Broadway shows, served as a boardmember and the American producer for Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and single-handedly changed Colorado’s cultural landscape by building the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Beginning this weekend, however, Donald R. Seawell, in conjunction with the RSC, will unveil what…

When last we left The Kentucky Cycle, the ill-fated Rowen and Talbert clans were embroiled in the same sort of inbred conflict that nearly tore apart the nation during the Civil War. As Robert Schenkkan’s nine-play epic continues in Part Two, the descendents of both families wage a different kind…

Fresh from a mid-morning rehearsal break, several members of Xpressions, a local troupe made up of youths between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, regroup at the Ralph Waldo Emerson Center’s tiny upstairs theater for a scheduled run-through of the play they’ve written together. After listening to a few encouraging…

The raw emoting and whiny arguing that plague many experimental productions are, thankfully, in short supply in Lucifer Tonite, Denver playwright Don Becker’s scathing ode to the vexations of science, religion and various other weighty subjects. Propelled by Nils Kiehn’s tour-de-force turn as a raconteur-ish Satan, the two-hour work stimulates…

The time commitment required to see all of The Kentucky Cycle shouldn’t deter area theatergoers from sampling Robert Schenkkan’s nine-play, six-hour epic (the first half, which includes five of the short plays, opened a few days ahead of Part Two, which will be reviewed in this space next week). The…

Plagued by divisions between working folks and the well-to-do, Germany, like much of the industrialized world in 1928, teeters on the brink of socioeconomic collapse. Seemingly oblivious to this pervasive gloom — or perhaps too aware of it — a steady parade of movers, shakers and edgy dream-chasers keeps the…

Actors who portray Shakespearean villains, heroes or clowns are sometimes tempted to overinflate the dialogue for epic effect or add tiny mannerisms to humanize larger-than-life characters. But neither approach, by itself, does dramatic justice to men and women who are part invention, part human, and whose needs, wants and desires…

On the eve of an infamous assassination, several concerned Romans gather in their leader’s home to plan the next day’s doings. Like any cadre of revolutionaries, Brutus and his gang of nobles spend a great deal of time reassuring each other that the only way to preserve the body politic…

That unfunny dramatic theorist Aristotle probably would have loathed the idea that the high point of the Central City Opera’s production of Dialogues of the Carmelites occurs in Act One, long before a proper “rising action” develops. Even so, audiences will undoubtedly appreciate the fact that mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle marvelously…

Had Leonard Bernstein been regarded as a musical-theater genius a year or two before he wrote On the Town, the 1944 work might not have been cut to ribbons when it was made into a movie starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. Apparently unimpressed with all of the material in…

Smartly directed, honestly acted and imaginatively written, HorseChart Theatre Company’s production of O.T. takes on prickly issues with the kind of spunky tenacity that one expects from a group of theatrical renegades. Clay Nichols’s drama, which is being presented at the Denver Civic Theatre as part of HorseChart’s participation in…

A corporate sponsor’s flattering comments and a University of Colorado official’s town-and-gown speechifying delayed the start of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s opening show by nearly 25 minutes. Shortly after the Boulder bureaucrats finished droning, however, audience members who had paid upwards of $40 apiece to see a professional-caliber production of…

Aesthetics collide, myths explode and philosophies swirl about with dizzying delight in Candide. Just when the title character seems on the verge of articulating truths about the human condition, an unlikely catastrophe or comic accident spirits him to one of many far-off locales, where he contemplates life’s mysteries all over…

Like any nation governed by an imperious busybody, the grassroots environs of Insectavia regularly buzz about with gossip and intrigue. The tiny duchy’s ant queen — who justifies her absolute authority by claiming to be the kingdom’s wisest inhabitant — has offered one-half of the treasury to any segmented, six-legged…

More worldly wise than yesteryear’s bar-hoppers, yet every bit as desperate for companionship, the characters in I Love You, You¹re Perfect, Now Change long to secure intimacy without subjecting themselves to courtship’s absurdities. As these legions of swingers, loners and dreamers discover, though, there are reasons (including one or two…

Two years ago, Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam so enthralled local audiences that most people waited until they were well outside the blue-and-yellow big top before asking of the bizarre storyline, “What did it all mean?” This time around, the Montreal troupe’s high-flying virtuosity proves just as impressive in Dralion, a…

The dynamic that develops between student and teacher can either strengthen the intellect or destroy it, depending on either party’s ability to distinguish pedagogy from thought control. Sound confusing? Wait until you enter the landscape of the mind peopled by three “educators” in Fakulty Frolix. The loosely related trio of…

The plot might be hokey and the performances uneven, but on the strength of an eclectic score, fine orchestral playing and some poignant episodes, the Denver Opera Company’s production of Patience and Sarah is more than a high-minded conversation piece about sex and sexuality. The 1998 work, which is receiving…