The first act of Next to Normal is brilliant. As almost everyone surely knows by now, the subject is an unusual one for a musical: a woman’s long struggle with bipolar disorder. Mental illness is hard to dramatize. Most attempts degenerate into sob-sodden sagas about someone’s obsessive pill- and therapist-aided…
Bedroom Farce is the story of four couples and three bedrooms. The oldest pair, Delia and Ernest, are looking forward to a pleasant dinner and a quiet night. They chat peacefully about repairs to the roof, share a late-evening plate of pilchards on toast and cradle cups of bedtime cocoa…
There’s no time like the present. It’s time to get gallery-hopping, and the first First Friday of the year has plenty to offer. Such as:…
Jumpin Jammerz, a brand of footy-pajamas for adults, is currently the number one Google search in the United States. At its peak, earlier this morning, people were searching for Jumpin Jammerz at a faster rate than people were searching for Barack Obama on the day of his inauguration…
This round’s Immundo burlesque show has a special treat in store for attendees: None other than Lil’ Miss Firefly, the sideshow midget (and yes, that is how she prefers to be referred to) doing a glass-walking burlesque routine fresh off her tour with the Pretty Things Peepshow — the nation’s…
If you find yourself aboard the Light Rail this weekend minus your pants, you are involved in one of three possible contingencies: Either a). you have escaped from the ward again, b). your friends are jerks, or c). you are participating in the latest project from flashmob impresario Rick Gold,…
If you think about it, the tropes of action movies are inherently pretty absurd. The quick cuts, the fetish for stony masculinity, the one-liners; watching even a good action movie is more or less akin to watching ninety minutes of a guy filling balloons with sweat, and then when he…
It’s hard not to love Ted Williams, the Ohio man who was homeless, found redemption from drugs and alcohol and now has a job offer with the Cleveland Cavaliers. His voice really is amazing, which got us thinking of celebrities who have voices that are grating, annoying, and perhaps most…
Now that the holidays are finally behind us, we can all return to a sense of normalcy with our weekend planning. Well, except for the fact the holidays left everyone broke. Thankfully, we’ve got plenty of stuff to do this weekend on the hyper-cheap, including art show openings, films and…
Faces in the crowd at the National Western Stock Show Parade on January 6, 2010 on 17th Street in Denver. More information about the show is available at nationalwestern.com. Katie Irwin “Horses are my favorite animal, pink is my favorite color, and the parade is definitely a good opening to…
Need a good excuse to get out of town this weekend? Here are our six sweet reasons to head up to yonder hills…
The gang’s all here — well, minus Angelina and plus the new and terrifying, droopy-eyed Snooki part two, Deena — and after a stint in Miami, they’re back at the actual Jersey Shore. Thank God…
People have argued for decades as to whether God has favorites in any sport. For mixed martial arts, He would be hard-pressed to find a team to root for more than Team Wildman. In MMA, fight teams originate from certain gyms, normally with a leader or coach and a team…
Apple debuted its app store for computers today. And it’s way cooler than you thought it would be. Yes, right now it’s mostly carryover from the iPad and iPhone app store, which is somewhat uninteresting because those apps were designed for a mobile touch screen. But there are some regular…
The Denver Botanic Gardens is not exactly known for being generous with its free days. If it’s not doing them in the dark, it does them on weekdays when most people are at work — probably the closest you’re going to get to a free day on the weekend is…
Regardless of what it did for Mexico, the Mexican revolution of the early 20th century spawned some of the most badass figures in history: You might remember Pancho Villa, maybe the most famous bandit/revolutionary ever, or Emiliano Zapata, the guy who said “it is better to die on your feet…
KIROTV in Lynwood, Washington recently reported a story about a real-life superhero named Phoenix Jones who stopped a car theft by chasing the man down the street. Weird, but not unheard of in this post-Kick-Ass world. In fact, there is an entire website devoted to these real world superheroes –…
Mare Trevathan exists in the local theater scene on many levels: She’s an actress, publicist and booster all rolled up into one dynamic ball of energy, who’s played roles for numerous companies, including Curious Theatre, where she also manages community affairs. Mare has been all over the world and has…
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers has been trying to get on Facebook for over a year. Due to issues with the social networking site’s indemnity clause — which says Facebook is not responsible for one user suing another — Suthers last April ordered all state agencies and institutions to take…
Rather than saving it all up for one big year-end video, the ski crew at Denver-based Icelantic Boards has been dribbling out the goods all season with its Bangers and Mash One Degree TV series directed by Nick Hickling. Episode 3, nearly a half hour long, features a peek inside…
Bono recently took time out of his busy touring schedule to save his investment opportunity, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark — a Broadway musical boasting tunes written by the investor himself, daredevil scenes of amazing acrobatics and, according to a November New York Times interview, “wows from the soul and…
Broadway yields many surprises, and one of the biggest in recent years was Next to Normal, a musical about a bipolar woman and the havoc she wreaks on her family. The difficult subject matter might not sound like fodder for a musical, but the tough yet accessible treatment of the…
