I knew that René Marie was a tremendous jazz artist — but I had no idea that she was also an amazing writer and an astonishingly powerful actress. Not until I saw Slut Energy Theory. Marie’s one-woman play has been promoted as a work about incest and abuse; performances are…
When he wrote The Voysey Inheritance over a hundred years ago, Harley Granville-Barker intended to show the rot beneath the politely conventional exterior of Edwardian society. The plot concerns a solicitor who uses his clients’ funds to enrich himself and his family while managing to keep up with interest payments…
For the children who compete in them, spelling bees are a very big deal. They represent an arena where poor kids, rural kids and the kids of immigrants can find identity and pride. Indian-Americans, like the winner of this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, Kavya Shivashankar, seem to do particularly…
Die! Mommie Die! It’s been forever since we’ve had really good, outrageous, dirty-minded, over-the-top camp in Denver, so Die! Mommie Die! is a particular delight. Charles Busch’s play is a spoof of such 1960s Gothic horror movies as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. There’s no important…
Yankee Tavern introduces us to Adam, a young man working in what used to be his father’s bar. He’s arguing with his fiancée, Janet, because the names he provided for her save-the-date notices were fictitious, and she’s furious. Adam’s father committed suicide here — or rather, we think it was…
Dial ‘M’ for Murder. Frederick Knott’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder is one of those stylish, intricately plotted murder plays, though not a whodunit. We know early on that the villain is onetime tennis pro Tony, who wants his wife, Margot, murdered; we watch as he hires the man to do…
Every now and then, the Buntport troupe decides to remind audiences that they’re not just clever, funny, creative and entertaining; they’re also artists. And that’s just what they do with Indiana, Indiana, a production based on a novel by Laird Hunt of the University of Denver. The story isn’t complicated…
Jeffrey Nickelson, who passed away last week, made a huge contribution to the theater scene in Denver, both as an actor and a director. He created Shadow Theatre on a $500 donation, and — against all organizational and financial odds — kept the company alive and artistically kicking for a…
Dial ‘M’ for Murder. Frederick Knott’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder is one of those stylish, intricately plotted murder plays, though not a whodunit. We know early on that the villain is onetime tennis pro Tony, who wants his wife, Margot, murdered; we watch as he hires the man to do…
Shadow Theatre’s last celebratory opening took place over a year ago, when then-artistic director Jeffrey Nickelson unveiled the company’s comfortable, brand-new theater to a throng of elegantly dressed well-wishers. The show was Dinah Was, and though it featured the magnificent René Marie in the title role, both script and production…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
Frederick Knott’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder started in the early 1950s as a ninety-minute BBC production, enjoyed successful West End and Broadway runs, and eventually became a celebrated Alfred Hitchcock movie. It’s one of those stylish, intricately plotted murder plays, though not a whodunit. We know early on that the…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
I don’t understand quantum mechanics. I tried after seeing Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, a play about a meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg during World War II, and long before that, when I was seventeen, I read Erwin Schrodinger’s What Is Life for a physics class and found myself as…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
It’s been forever since we’ve had really good, outrageous, dirty-minded, over-the-top camp in Denver — pretty much since Theatre Group gave up the ghost — so it’s a joy to find it back at the Avenue Theater in the form of Die! Mommy Die! Charles Busch’s play is a spoof…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
I’m a sucker for reality shows such as Wife Swap and Trading Spouses; I love the scenes when you see unlikely people — a farmer and a socialite, a disciplined black family and a droopy, guitar-strumming hippie — suddenly understand each other, even if only for a moment. Every now…
Annie. Boulder’s Dinner Theatre is at the top of its form; it has to be. How else could the company make Annie — its mandatory summer family show — anything but a smirking sentimental bore? As everyone knows by now, the story of Annie concerns a little red-haired girl’s rough…
PHAMALY’s production of Man of La Mancha is a triumph. Not because the vitality and momentum of this very fine musical make you forget that all the performers in the PHAMALY company are disabled — some in wheelchairs, some stumbling, some unable to see. And not because these actors are…
Harold Pinter’s Old Times is a three-person fugue with strong currents of sexual rivalry. At the start, Deeley and Kate, a married couple, are awaiting the arrival of Kate’s old friend Anna – who is actually on stage with them, her back to the audience. No sooner does Anna move…
