“It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. It’s joyous, a little outrageous.” Edith Weiss is talking about 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, the play she’s directing that will open Friday January 23 at the Avenue Theater — and she knows all about funny: She made her living as…
To the untrained eye, Ari Shaffir would look like an overnight success. Hot off the heels of his latest 1 hour special Paid Regular, which aired January 16th on Comedy Central, Shaffir also has a new series, This Is Not Happening premiering on the 22nd. The taste-making network will also be distributing and showing reruns of Shaffir’s first hour Passive Aggressive. Despite the confluence of successes, Shaffir has been quietly plugging away at his act for years, generating web content like his video series “The Amazing Racist” and steadfastly recording the popular podcast The Skeptic Tank week after week in spite of his busy schedule. Shaffir is town this month to headline Comedy Works from the 28th-31st and starting off 2015 on a high note. Westword caught up with Shaffir to discuss his new special, offending audiences and his love of psilocybin mushrooms.
The runaway success of Logo TV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race has brought the subculture of drag performance into the spotlight, creating a global platform for the fabulous personalities who can blur gender lines into a fine and ferocious powder, polish their faces with it and then command a stage. The year…
Sexpot Comedy honored the Mile High City’s funniest people at the 2014 Denver Comedy Awards at 3 Kings Tavern on January 17. The big winner? Former Westword staffer Adam Cayton-Holland, who was honored not just as the Comic of the Year, but for his podcast, his website, the comedy festival…
I have lived and worked in over thirty spaces in Denver. Most of them have been in Five Points, City Park and Northside if you’re old school, Highland if you’re new. But notably, I was also involved in founding the third gallery on Santa Fe Drive back when it was…
Ten years ago, bilingual educator Kathy Escamilla noticed that schools weren’t tailoring education to the population of bilingual children who were entering the system. So she founded Literacy Squared, a research-based biliteracy program. “We created Literacy Squared specifically for kids who were coming to school with the potential of having…
Talent alone isn’t enough; Joe Miller believes practice and dedication are crucial to becoming a good artist. An Iowa native, Miller moved to Denver in 2003 after giving up a career in architecture; he’s been tattooing seriously for ten years. Today the owner of Old Larimer Street Tattoo, he also…
You hadn’t been able to smoke inside Paris on the Platte for several years now. But the cigarette-supporting coffeehouse was one of the last holdouts after the smoking ban went into effect in 2006 — its legal status as a “cigar bar” let the smoking indoors continue, until the spot…
The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore’s great misfortune isn’t that it replaces The Colbert Report, but that it premieres after Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. The Colbert Report was sui generis, and will likely remain so, because such a series makes leviathan demands on its host: crackerjack comedic skills,…
Hitoshi Matsumoto’s R100 takes its name from the Japanese rating system, which proceeds thusly: R15, safe for fifteen-year-olds; R18, safe for adults; and now Matsumoto’s invented category, which, depending on a centenarian’s ticker, could refer to either a calming montage of pigeons or a gonzo sex comedy. If you guessed…
Most of us can’t imagine having a disease that tugs and tears at the very threads of who we are. When we wake up in the middle of the night with outlandish fears, we strike reassuring bargains with ourselves: If I lose my sight, I’ll still have music. If I…
Brilliant. If you have any interest in modernism or fine craft — even if you aren’t particularly interested in jewelry — you’ll find something to marvel over at the Denver Art Museum’s winter blockbuster Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century. The show is a visual marathon, with so many things…
The Colorado history contained in the 26 miles of Colfax Avenue, the longest main street in America, is thick with truth and tall tales. You can read some of this history in the commercial signs that still exist on Colfax; we’ve already profiled the best commercial signs on West Colfax…
Fine-art photographer Michael Soluri was invited to step inside the world of NASA and apply his eye to a mission to repair the Hubble space telescope, and he published a book of those photographs — Infinite Worlds: The People and Places of Space Exploration. Sounds pretty amazing, right? You can…
Roll Denver celebrated sci fi both classic and modern at Exdo on Friday, and everyone from Star Lord to The Penguin to Daft Punk strapped on their skates for The Grid and got rolling. Cassandra Kotnik was there to capture all the out-of-this-world action; keep reading for a look. See…
This may be a short work week, but it’s long on free fun. After you march in this morning’s MLK Marade to celebrate the reason we have the day off, continue the discussion at Black Lives Matter at the McNichols Building. Then it’s on to Night Brunch, movies and other…
The bi-coastal film pod continues in 2015! In New York, Village Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl, along with Voice film critic Stephanie Zacharek, connect via the magic of the Internet with LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson to discuss the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards, announced on January 15…
There aren’t many filmmakers who are in the right place at the right time to capture the start of a subculture; most documentary projects come together around an idea or movement when popularity is at a fever pitch — but by the time the dust settles and the film comes…
From pop art to cutting-edge art to public art and beyond, there’s a little bit of everything to see this weekend, as gallery spaces kick off the new year with looks back…and looks forward. Keep reading for a look at some of the new shows opening this weekend, and one…
Lindsey Trees was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota, where she grew up an only child with strong Midwestern values. “I moved to Denver in 2003, and it instantly became home. The 60 degree, sunny days we have in the dead of winter hooked me,” she remembers. But she…
Sexpot Comedy founders Andy Juett and Kayvan Khalatbari know first-hand how hard the members of Denver’s close-knit comedy community work throughout the year, building their own careers and helping one another along the way. And the duo thinks that throwing the first annual Denver Comedy Awards is a great way…
When metal sculptor Jamie Vaida packed up and moved his Grand Junction studio to Oakland, California, a few years ago, he quickly found an audience for the architectural details he specializes in — like some of the coolest spiral staircase handrails and hottest fireplace screens you’ve ever seen — and…
