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As You Like It. It doesn’t get more minimal than this: As You Like It performed by six people on a stage where the set consists of little besides a large rock, swaths of fabric and a wooden swing; echoing footsteps announce an actor’s entry minutes before he actually appears;…

Paragon’s Love Song makes for a lovely evening

Paragon Theatre’s production of Love Song represents the best kind of marriage between a script and a theater company: The play provides fascinating, quirky roles that make actors look good, and where it has flaws, the production counters them. This is the story of Beane, a sad, lonely, crazy man…

Donkey Punch at Starz FilmCenter

Numerous reviews of Donkey Punch, an alternately glossy and loony thriller that debuts at Starz FilmCenter this week, have argued that the opening portions of the film, in which a trio of British party girls vacationing in Spain hook up with a group of randy young sailors on a lavish…

Two Lovers

If Joaquin Phoenix, who plays a lovelorn bachelor in James Gray’s Two Lovers, was twelve years old, the movie might make a touching, if not noticeably fresh, romantic drama for tweens. Not that adults don’t nurse unhealthy crushes and regress madly under the pressure of hopeless infatuation, which may be…

Flick Pick

Numerous reviews of Donkey Punch, an alternately glossy and loony thriller that debuts at Starz FilmCenter this week, have argued that the opening portions of the film, in which a trio of British party girls vacationing in Spain hook up with a group of randy young sailors on a lavish…

Through the Ages

Spark Gallery is the granddaddy of artist cooperatives in Denver, and that means it’s also the godmother of the city’s contemporary art scene. This position has been bolstered over the years by the high quality of its members, who reflect the full range of artistic experience, from younger artists to…

Weather Report

Choreographer/dancer David Dorfman of David Dorfman Dance says his figurative, representational style moves in and out of favor, and right now, riding a wave of Obama-inspired national hope, it seems to be making a comeback, along with the ’60s-based ideas of community participation and taking action toward change. The time,…

Silence is Golden

It’s hard to believe that The General, now considered to be silent-film comic Buster Keaton’s finest effort, was a flop in its day. Defined throughout by the clever train chase that propels the choreographed flick’s plot, it’s also the unconditionally perfect showcase for Keaton’s imperturbable, stoic style of comedy, which…

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

“It’s just another one of those silly things we decided to do on a whim. We don’t know anything about musicals, just like none of us knew how to ice skate before we made Kafka on Ice. But we’re all really the jump-in-with-two-feet kind of people.” Buntport Theater troupe member…

Wake Call

Times are tough all around, but no one wants to hear about another independent theater company biting the dust. And though we all know that folks in the arts are among the first to suffer when wallets are thin, it’s no less shocking to hear that Boulder’s brave little Theatre13…

Sweet Dreams

In 1997, the Colorado Ballet took a chance on an up-and-coming young choreographer. Christopher Wheeldon was still a dancer with the New York City Ballet when he was invited to Colorado to choreograph a dance rendition of the Shakespearean classic A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Today Wheeldon is world-renowned, and the…

Collision Course

The Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art will stick its toes in new waters tonight when poets from Denver’s Lighthouse Writers Workshop drop in to read original poetry written in response to selected works in the venue’s current exhibit, Colorado Abstraction: Paintings and Sculpture. The poets, including Dee Casalaina,…

Soaring Voice

The American Place Theatre’s one-man touring presentation of The Kite Runner lands at the Lakewood Cultural Center, 470 South Allison Parkway, tonight. Although it has been pared down significantly from the original text, the entire performance is drawn directly from the book. “The uniqueness of having this story told through…

Anger Management

When Bobcat Goldthwait started doing standup in the 1980s, he was on the alternative side of comedy before it was alternative. The way he sees it, he’s like Iggy Pop, who was punk before there was such a thing. Goldthwait has also acted in quite a few films in addition…

This Means War

When Colorado playwright Gene Kato first assembled a group of local actors to read his script for 10 Pin Alley, the reaction from the readers was, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read in my life.” “But everyone had such a great time reading it,” Kato says, “that we…

A Good Belt

George Thorogood drinks alone, and now we know why. With a beverage in tow, it’s hard to shake hands, throw your arm around a girl or slap someone on the back without spilling. If only Thorogood had a Beer Buckle, he’d be able to share that bourbon, Scotch and beer…

Hero Action

Forget the blockbuster live-action G.I. Joe movie coming out this summer. It’s sure to ruin your childhood memories and leave you wishing you’d stuck with something more true to the source material — something like Gio Toninelo’s G.I. Joe Fest, a celebration of stop-motion animated films created with real G.I…

Get Yer Peanuts

Generation after generation has grown up with Charles M. Schulz’s iconic comic strip, Peanuts. We grew to love anxious Charlie Brown, security-blanket-grasping Linus, bossy Lucy, piano-playing Schroeder, little yellow Woodstock and, of course, Snoopy, the beagle with big dreams who usually acted more human than doglike. While society was turned…

Mania Attraction

I was just wondering the other day: What’s the haps at the Denver Community Museum, the pop-up Platte Valley venue offering rotating exhibits of themed artworks and other contributions made by regular old citizens like you and me? A lot, it turns out: Currently on view through this Friday, March…

New Yorker State of Mind

Psst! Here’s a little secret: I’m not really a fan of New York City. I get that it’s a cultural mecca, chock-full of the latest in art, food, theater, yadda yadda — I fully understand the pull of the city. It’s an exciting, cutting-edge place to live. But I’m a…

Pat Green

On “Country Star,” the centerpiece of the recently released What I’m For, Texas singer-songwriter Pat Green croons about “ridin’ shotgun with Kenny, Faith and Tim” and “breakin’ all the young girls’ hearts like Keith Urban” in an ironic tone, as if he thinks such a possibility is about as likely…

Andrew Bird

Appropriately enough, Noble Beast, the latest recording by Chicago’s Andrew Bird (on tour with Loney, Dear), boasts some notably avian moments: “Fitz and the Dizzyspells” is among the tracks that feature whistling, and “Masterswarm” includes simulated birdsong that may or may not have been created by a theremin. But Bird…