Now Playing

Dixie’s Tupperware Party. Dixie is a booze- and sex-addicted, trash-talking, child-neglecting ex-con from Alabama who holds Tupperware parties in her trailer, and she’s invited you to this one. Dixie’s Tupperware Party at the Galleria really is a Tupperware party — you get a name tag and raffle number when you…

Top Chef All-Stars, second course: Is Jen a dinosaur?

Jennifer Carroll’s meltdown when she got eliminated from last night’s episode of Top Chef All-Stars was spectacular. She was graceless, almost out of control, so angry she clearly didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or hit someone. She’d done a lot of bragging, and she’d also been exuding rage through…

Dixie loves booze, sex and Tupperware, and we love Dixie

Dixie is a booze- and sex-addicted, trash-talking, child-neglecting ex-con from Alabama who holds Tupperware parties in her trailer, and she’s invited you to this one. Dixie’s Tupperware Party really is a Tupperware party — you get a name tag and raffle number when you walk into to the Garner Galleria…

Top Chef All-Stars, round one: Back for more

Top Chef All-Stars back contestants from past seasons — most of them finalists — and promises to be quite a bit meatier than the regular Top Chef. For one thing, we don’t have to spend the first few episodes figuring out who’s who. On last night’s debut, Top Chef All-Stars…

Now Playing

Astronomical Sunset. Jim is a man destroyed by guilt because a social-networking site he created led to…actually, it’s not quite clear what, but it had to do with a teenage boy posting compromising photographs of his girlfriend, and the boy is now in prison. The plot doesn’t make a whole…

Themes of family and loss underscore the dark comedy of Reckless

Rachel, a housewife, is having what she characterizes as “one of my euphoria attacks,” babbling ecstatically to her depressed husband, Tom, about snow, their two sons, festive television shows and how much she loves Christmas. He interrupts to tell her he’s taken out a contract on her life. We never…

Now Playing

Astronomical Sunset. Jim is a man destroyed by guilt because a social-networking site he created led to…actually, it’s not quite clear what, but it had to do with a teenage boy posting compromising photographs of his girlfriend, and the boy is now in prison. The plot doesn’t make a whole…

Top Chef: Just Desserts: The icing on the cake

It’s nice when contests end the way they should. Of the three finalists, Morgan is the master technician, cool and generally unflappable, and Danielle is strong on taste, not quite as strong on finesse. But Yigit, who has both heart and an impressive range of skills, wound up winning the…

Paragon’s W(hole) is more than just a sum of its parts

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan tends to steal God’s thunder; as depicted, he’s much more interesting than the Creator. The same is true of the wickeder of the two main characters in local playwright Tracy Shaffer’s W(hole). The play, receiving its world premier at Paragon, concerns the twisted, symbiotic relationship…

Sadly, Band of Toughs’ Finders Keepers is not a keeper

The Band of Toughs — formerly the Aluminous Collective, which distinguished itself with an excellent production of Charles Mee’s Big Love last year — is back with a second offering: Finders Keepers Losers Weepers. The difference in quality is startling. Finders Keepers, which hitches together ensemble-developed material with an eighteenth-century…

Now Playing

Astronomical Sunset. Jim is a man destroyed by guilt because a social-networking site he created led to…actually, it’s not quite clear what, but it had to do with a teenage boy posting compromising photographs of his girlfriend, and the boy is now in prison. The plot doesn’t make a whole…

Top Chef Just Desserts: Have your cake and eat it, too

And then there were three … Yigit tried too hard, Morgan didn’t try hard enough, Zac pretty much gave up and turned his failed 61st anniversary cake into a messy kids’ romp at the beach. And Danielle — the girl with the rubbery face and the “Oh, well” attitude, Danielle…

Boulder Dinner Theatre’s Shout is something to yell about

The 1960s of Shout isn’t the era of revolution for the hell of it, wild and woolly locks, tie-dye, raucous pleasure, ragged form-busting music and lots of dope — though pot does eventually enter this world. Think of the start of that decade — Jackie Kennedy’s demure A-line dresses and…

Now Playing

The 39 Steps. This show is uninhibitedly silly — a take-off on a 1930s Hitchcock film, which itself was based on a novel by John Buchan. The plot didn’t make much sense in the movie — something to do with an attempt by foreign spies to steal British air defense…

Now Playing

The Container. There’s a little uneasiness before production begins, a shuffle for the restrooms, some groping in purses for water bottles. As they’re admitted, audience members must sign a release acknowledging that the experience will be claustrophobic, that they will be closed in, seated along the sides of a large…

The Container reminds us that immigrants are people, too

There’s a little uneasiness before The Container starts: a shuffle for the restrooms, some groping in purses for water bottles. We’ve already signed a release saying we understand the experience will be claustrophobic, and we know we’ll be closed in, seated along the sides of a large shipping container for…

Now Playing

The 39 Steps. This show is uninhibitedly silly — a take-off on a 1930s Hitchcock film, which itself was based on a novel by John Buchan. The plot didn’t make much sense in the movie, and it makes even less sense in this farcical comedy by Patrick Barlow, who takes…

Top Chef Just Desserts, round six: All in black and white

This week’s Quickfire challenge was to make desserts using savory ingredients and — the really hard part — only one pot. “I’m used to having all these fancy little tools,” mourned Zac, while Morgan, unable to use an ice-cream maker, tackled liquid nitrogen, which he’d never worked with before. I…