Though I’ve managed to skip all Sugarplums, Scrooges and Child’s Christmases this year, I couldn’t avoid the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s A Christmas Carol. Director Philip C. Sneed’s readers’ theater approach — few actors, a cappella Christmas songs, minimal glitz, functional rather than exquisite sets and costumes — puts the focus…
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…
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 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…
One of the most frustrating things for Top Chef fanatics is that we never get to taste — or appraise — the winning dishes. But now Vail’s Kelly Liken, one of the past season’s finalists, is making her winning braised pork carnitas for a cocktail benefit in support of the…
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…
You’re looking for a warm, lively, sweetly sentimental holiday-season show, but you’ve had it up to here with Santas and Tiny Tims, as well as would-be funny take-offs on Santas and Tiny Tims. Say hello to Hello, Dolly! Boulder’s Dinner Theatre director Michael Duran has a long history with Hello,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
All first-rate actors are first-rate in completely different ways, and Brian Landis Folkins is no exception. He doesn’t have a highly defined stylishness, doesn’t raise the temperature every time he walks across a stage or reduce audiences to tears with the suppleness of his emotions. With him, you don’t get…
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…
I really like this batch of contestants on Top Chef Just Desserts — well, perhaps not “I focus on me” Morgan, who does seem to be a bully in the kitchen — and also the general dynamic among them. Several are clearly fond of each other, and almost everyone is…
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…
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…
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…
