When musicals come to Denver, they often come without the A-list Actors’ Equity performers who made them successful in the first place. So we get the show that was lauded in London and New York, but with an inferior cast, and we’re left wondering why the critics were so impressed…

When I was a child growing up in London, someone gave me a large red book called Sunday, published in the 1880s. On the flyleaf was written “To little Nellie, from Papa.” The book had been created for Victorian children trapped in their dark, stifling houses for a full day…

The more I think about The Wall of Water, currently being produced by the Hunger Artists Theatre, the more I like it. Playwright Sherry Kramer is obviously a comic talent to watch. The script is farcical, swift and funny, but it touches on all kinds of major themes: madness and…

Dalton Trumbo was a member of the Hollywood Ten, a group of writers whose careers were ruined during the McCarthy era because they stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee. After his bluntly hilarious non-cooperative session with the committee — re-enacted in Trumbo: Red, White & Blacklisted — Trumbo…

At the beginning of Three Ways Home, currently being produced by the Shadow Theatre Company, Sharon, a white career woman, has volunteered at a social-services agency. She’s assigned to visit Dawn, an African-American welfare recipient suspected of abusing her four children. Sharon’s opening monologues are wittily incisive as she introduces…

OpenStage Theatre & Company in Fort Collins always walks a thin line between professional and community theater, and this production of The Play’s the Thing falls definitively on the community side. The script is by Ferenc Molnar, a Hungarian author best known for the bittersweet Liliom, which, in the hands…

For its 2nd Annual Summer One-Act Festival, Miners Alley has put together two one-acts about the dramatic process itself. They’re witty, playful and fun to watch, and they work well with each other. The first, Hidden in This Picture, is by Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter for such movies as The American…

I was sorry when I heard that Denver actor Brett Aune was leaving his home town to try his fortune in Los Angeles. Aune, who departed last week, has featured prominently in some of the most memorable theater experiences I’ve had in this town. I remember him as a swan…

A year or two ago, the Industrial Arts Theatre Company took over an old movie house on Federal Boulevard. It’s always a good thing when artists move into a funky neighborhood, and the Industrial group is no exception. But the company needs to put more thought and care into the…

Bovine Metropolis is a fine, cozy venue, the people who run it are lively and friendly, and I’ve seen good comedy there. But The Mammas & the Papparazzis is simply not ready for prime time, either in terms of material or performance quality. Each and every one of the six…

Menopause The Musical is as much a phenomenon as a piece of theater. As my friend and I entered the New Denver Civic Theatre, we walked into a wall of laughter and chatter. There were women everywhere — in twos and threes, in throngs, elderly women, middle-aged women, young women…

Of this summer’s three productions, The Comedy of Errors is the one most in tune with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s slogan, “Shakespeare Under the Stars.” It’s funny, bright, relaxed and magical, the perfect amusement for a soft summer night. Comedy of Errors is an early work based on the comedy…

Jules Massenet’s The Juggler of Notre Dame (Le Jongleur de Notre Dame) was first performed in 1902, and until Central City Opera took it on, it hadn’t been staged in the United States for half a century. It’s a medieval tale, with an essentially timeless theme — the same story…

When I was in my early teens and an aspiring actress, I read a book by Richard Boleslavsky titled Acting: The First Six Lessons. As I remember, one of these lessons is about a young actress who’s been cast as Ophelia. Although she has found the necessary emotion in herself,…

I suppose if I’d done my homework, I’d have been less disappointed by Central City Opera’s production of The Student Prince. Other than a vague memory of some infectiously rousing drinking songs, I knew nothing about the operetta. I thought it would have the dizzy, stylish melodiousness of Johann Strauss…

All right, I’ll confess: I really didn’t want to see the PHAMALy (Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League, Incorporated) production of Guys and Dolls. In principle, I’m all for the idea of a troupe of handicapped actors putting on a show, and I had no doubt such a project would…

I’d like to write one of those judicious “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” reviews of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Antony and Cleopatra. I’d like to draw attention to sparks of life and ingenuity, fine moments in the major performances and interpretations of the smaller roles…

There’s the occasional salacious gesture in Cabaret, a vanishing flash of naked butt, a blurring of sexual “isms” — homo, tran, pan, hetero, who cares? — a lost and libidinous leading lady who has an abortion. But I don’t think that’s what is keeping much of the regular Boulder Dinner…

Joel Fink’s Romeo and Juliet at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival could have been called The Nurse and Mercutio Show, because those two characters almost romped off with the play. Okay, that’s a bit reductive. The production had other strengths and floated a few good ideas, but the climax wasn’t heart-wrenching,…

There are a lot of people who wouldn’t dream of attending an opera. They think of operas as outdated, frequented by the old, rich and pretentious, and featuring incomprehensible plots, elaborate costumes and scenery, great washes of sentiment, fat people pouring out endless arias, and dead people who inexplicably get…

South Pacific is so filled with terrific music — beautiful love songs like “Some Enchanted Evening,” “This Nearly Was Mine” and the haunting “Bali Ha’i,” lively comic songs like “A Cockeyed Optimist,” “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” — that…

George Burns, having just died, finds himself in limbo. To enter heaven and reunite with his professional partner and beloved wife, Gracie Allen, he has to audition for God. The audition is a recounting of his life. Burns was born Nathan Birnbaum on the New York’s Lower East Side. The…