Buntport — Denver’s funniest, cleverest, most low-key and least pretentious theater company — sets aside a benefit night for every production, usually to help a deserving local organization. Fittingly, with Moby Dick Unread, the company is wading into deeper waters. At Thursday’s 8 p.m. show, some ticket proceeds will go…
The setting for this penultimate episode of Top Chef was Singapore, which ginned up the interest level quite a bit. It was fun watching the four remaining contenders picking and tasting their way through the Singapore street-food scene under the guidance of chef-author Seetoh, a calm, knowledgeable, deep-thinking mentor. (Colorado’s…
Garage Sale Loud: This Is It. Almost every summer, the folks at Heritage Square stage what is essentially a musical review with a thin sustaining plot line and the word “loud” in the title. The conceit is that T.J. Mullin and Annie Dwyer are siblings, and they’re reliving their youth…
Tiffany got sent home from Top Chef this week. I was a little distressed when Arnold was told to pack his knives a few episodes back, because his problems were the fault of mean-spirited Lynne, and also I expected him to come up with some interestingly piquant dishes over the…
Resident theater companies have been on their way out for decades. One of the last was at the Denver Center under Donovan Marley, whose loyalty to his company meant that first-rate actors could actually make a home in Denver — while audiences reaped the benefits. That’s an economically unsustainable model…
Reefer Madness is a take-off on a legendary 1930s movie about the dangers of marijuana — a black-and-white film, shadowy and portentous, full of lurid warnings about how dope leads to crime and madness. Now that marijuana clinics are opening all over the state, city councils are discussing zoning far…
A lot of my irritation with Top Chef DC is the rage of a spurned lover. I’ve been watching, mesmerized, since the beginning of the show, but this season the gimmicks seem cheesier, the judges smugger, the contestants less interesting — and the food just a secondary player. In context,…
It’s time to put Top Chef out of its misery. At this point the show has deteriorated so wretchedly that half the time I forget to watch and have to play catch-up later. I didn’t find myself rooting for any of the remaining six chefs this week, or hoping anyone…
Garage Sale Loud: This Is It. Almost every summer, the folks at Heritage Square stage what is essentially a musical review with a thin sustaining plot line and the word “loud” in the title. The conceit is that T.J. Mullin and Annie Dwyer are siblings, and they’re reliving their youth:…
Since most of us cherish the romantic idea that true artists exist outside the mainstream, we’re intrigued by projects like the Boulder Fringe Festival, a no-vetting proposition with performances selected on a first-come, first-served basis or by lottery. I was so intrigued that at first I contemplated devoting a couple…
Alex finally got sent home on this week’s Top Chef D.C., which should appease his legion of detractors. In addition to his usual disjointed kitchen antics and incoherent decisions, he tried using sous vide — which he’d never done before — for the Elimination Challenge, and his veal came out…
Garage Sale Loud: This Is It. Almost every summer, the folks at Heritage Square stage what is essentially a musical review with a thin sustaining plot line and the word “loud” in the title. The conceit is that T.J. Mullin and Annie Dwyer are siblings, and they’re reliving their youth:…
Watching the king on parade, Louise Maske reached up to get a better view and accidentally dropped her drawers. As The Underpants opens, her husband, Theo, a stuffy conventional German bureaucrat, is deeply worried. He fears the incident will lose him both his job and his reputation. But what he…
Sometimes the simplest things give us the most pleasure. Tomfoolery isn’t a big, complicated show: just four charming performers with a few props and costume changes, accompanied by a pianist and singing the brilliantly savage songs of Tom Lehrer. Written in the 1950s and ’60s by the Harvard-educated mathematician, many…
Are the folks at Bravo as bored with Top Chef as some viewers have started to be? No photos of the food on the website this week. No insider blogs. No Michael Voltaggio telling us how to make the winning dishes, which is the only way I can figure out…
Beauty and the Beast. Though it’s backed by expert musicians and technicians, the real miracle is the Phamaly company itself. The leads are as good as — and often better than — anyone you’ll see anywhere. Jenna Bainbridge is the sweetest Belle imaginable, with a clear, strong soprano and, paradoxically,…
Everyone hates Alex. The viewing audience hates Alex. His fellow contestants hate Alex. Ask any food obsessive you encounter whether Alex stole Ed’s pea puree, and the answer will be an unhesitating “of course” — though no one really knows for sure. So, perversely, I’ve been feeling kind of sorry…
The first scene in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing is between a husband and the wife he suspects of adultery. She has just returned from a purported business trip to Switzerland, which he believes she never took. The dialogue is swift and urbane, with wry ruminations on digital watches, the…
Beauty and the Beast. Though it’s backed by expert musicians and technicians, the real miracle is the Phamaly company itself. The leads are as good as — and often better than — anyone you’ll see anywhere. Jenna Bainbridge is the sweetest Belle imaginable, with a clear, strong soprano and, paradoxically,…
Denver theater audiences are famous for the ease with which they award standing ovations — a few friends of the cast rising, then a handful more, finally a largish section center front — while folks further back pick up their belongings and head furtively for the door. That’s not how…
The challenges on Top Chef this week had a little more to do with food, and less with gimmickry. For the Quickfire, the chefs were to create a scrumptious morsel on a toothpick because, as guest judge Aaron Schock, a very young Republican Congressman from Illinois, explained, legislators aren’t allowed…
The songs from South Pacific are part of our daily diet. We hum them; we pray they don’t turn up in TV commercials; we endure bad renditions in a thousand amateur productions; and we occasionally stop to marvel that these melodies — “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Younger Than Springtime,” “This Nearly…
