From the peak of Anchorman to the nadir of Burt Wonderstone, the formula for studio comedies of the past twenty years has been simple: Dude acts like a dick for an hour, turns blandly sweet toward the end, and then everyone on the DVD commentary can claim to have made…
It’s hard for any actor to hold the audience’s attention when he’s on stage with a fantastic pro like Larry Hecht. Oh, wait. I’d meant to begin with this: It’s hard for any actor to hold the audience’s attention when he’s on stage with a fantastic pro like Nigel Gore…
In February 1941, some two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, designating certain areas of the country as military zones. As a result, many Japanese people, immigrants and citizens, were interned in dismal, isolated and primitive camps. They lost their homes,…
Though the distinct literary styles of the coastal regions and the American South have been intensively explored, Conundrum Press publisher Caleb Seeling says that the Rocky Mountain region has not yet been given its due. That’s why he decided to buy and revamp Conundrum, a literary press founded in 1999…
Big ideas deserve a big audience, and TEDxMileHigh is doing its best to bring both to the Ellie Caulkins Opera House today. As the local, independent version of the world-famous TED talks, the organization is gathering Colorado’s best and brightest minds for a daylong festival of thought, an exploration of…
Tracy Morgan knows white people. As one of the more memorable comics during his seven-year run on Saturday Night Live, and as the self-aggrandizing Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock, he’s had his fingers in the Caucasian comedy pie for some time. Inevitably, his standup is chock-full of ethnic observations. “White…
“I have crazy ideas all the time for these things,” says Khyentse James, the mastermind behind the popular, nostalgia-laden 1940s WWII Era Ball, the Voodoo Island 1950s Tiki Ball and the 1940s White Christmas Ball. “But only a few of them are actually doable.” What made the cut for tonight’s…
Art is happening everywhere, all the time. That’s the premise of Lakewood’s third annual INSPIRE Arts Week, starting today with a free open house and dress rehearsal for the Lakewood Symphony. Grown out of a grant project that asked the city what a rich arts culture would look like in…
Leave it to Boulder to host the annual Hanuman Festival, an explosion of yoga, talks and music that attracts some of the top names in the field. This year, the festival is also offering a full day of immersive events on Thursday, including a three-hour workshop with Saul David Raye…
Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been performed countless ways in the centuries since it was written, but the Boulder Fringe Festival is offering a completely new interpretation — five interpretations, in fact. Inspired by a similar idea from the Minneapolis Fringe Festival, organizers have given each act of the play to a…
Kalyn Heffernan took the name of her band, Wheelchair Sports Camp, from the summer camp that she first attended in 1997 and where she eventually became a counselor. The free week-long summer camp offers tennis lessons, swimming classes, rugby, basket-ball and more to physically disabled youth ages five to eighteen…
In light of the recent passage of the civil-unions law in Colorado, this year’s two-day PrideFest 2013 will celebrate with “Focus on Our Families,” a weekend highlighting inclusion and equal rights. “LGBT family rights have really come a long way now that we have relationship recognition,” says Dani Perea, marketing…
If the ’60s were “the dawning of the age of Aquarius,” what does that make the 2010s? While we’re still figuring that out, the Town Hall Arts Center is bringing Hair, the classic hippie musical that’s a trans-generational story of love, dope and anti-war protests, to Denver. “If you really…
Curious Theatre artistic director Chip Walton first saw the Tony Award-sweeping hit God of Carnage — starring Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, James Gandolfini and Hope Davis — on Broadway a few years ago, and was immediately inspired by its sharp satire. Think of it as a contemporary Who’s Afraid…
“This is the only time I will ever promote drinking and driving,” says Ben Lochridge, a bartender at Park House, which will kick off its first Mario Kart 64 Tournament tonight on a big-screen TV. Combatants will battle for various prizes, including bar tabs and bragging rights. “Mario Kart is…
Debates of generations past were often stuffy, sober affairs for uptight balding men who smoked pipes, but over the past few years, the word sport has found new life in the form of bizarre comedy — as seen at Buntport Theater’s Great Debate. “I think this medium works super-well for…
Susan Lyles, founder and director of the woman-centric And Toto too Theatre company, confirms it: This Play Crawl thing seems to be working. Entering its third year of entertaining and fundraising along Tennyson Street, the And Toto too Theatre Company Play Crawl will hit the road this evening from 6…
Watching the documentary Hey Bartender is like spending a night at a good bar: It’s fun, easygoing, and it lasts just a little longer than it should. And the conversation, while delightful in the moment, often seems banal the next morning. It’s clear that director Douglas Tirola is passionate about…
Downtown Denver, already an arts-and-culture hot spot this weekend, will welcome another new event tonight: Denver Digerati’s Friday Flash, with public motion-based art and animation screenings on the city’s jumbo LED screen at 14th and Champa streets. An outgrowth of some Create Denver projects that Plus Gallery’s Ivar Zeile (and…
Denver PrideFest 2013 is this weekend, and there will be music, food, drink, live entertainment and a big-ass parade on Sunday morning. the people-watching opportunities alone are worth the trip downtown and the parking hassles. But every PrideFest has its perils and pitfalls, and in order not to be named…
As the sun continues to heat up Denver, womenswear is heating up the streets. One of the bright spots we spotted this week was Lauren Jestes, a local technical writer and fashionista. Read on to discover her favorite accessories, where she shops, and who inspires her personal style. See also:…
ShaNae Ross doesn’t tell dirty jokes. She doesn’t get political, unless you count poking fun at racial differences as she does in a bit where she asks the audience to guess an imaginary person’s race based on their name. She also doesn’t approach religion, despite having a religious background. Ross…
