I’m always skeptical when told that a play is going to shock and startle me, particularly when the play’s about race. Almost daily I watch spokespeople for Black Lives Matter on talk shows and hear commentators speculate about who will get the black vote that Barack Obama commanded. I read…
This week on Denver stages, you can experience the lives of a couple in love and trapped in an asylum, a chatty family at a birthday dinner, or four men in the muddled-up, comic world of a group home. Here’s where to snatch up tickets. Germinal Stage, Echoes 73rd Avenue…
David Mamet, the caustic playwright who’s an unapologetic right-winger these days, has always liked to offend, and he does so with brilliant scripts filled with intelligent, jazzy and sometimes incisive dialogue. His November, now showing at the Avenue Theater, premiered in 2008, as George W. Bush’s second term was coming…
“Death takes a holiday” is one of those wise, cynical, darkly funny old-European concepts that should yield rich fictional results, both comic and philosophical. The idea, which got its start in a 1924 play by Italian Alberto Casella, is that Death decides to take a break from collecting souls to…
Doug Benson, comedy’s stoner laureate, defies the facile stereotype that weed makes you slothful and unmotivated. Despite being a habitual wake and baker, Benson currently runs two live podcasts, spends a healthy percentage of every year working the road, has starred in three documentaries and released an album and live…
This week on Denver stages, you can find everything from tongue-in-cheek local color to a play about origami in which love and life fold up into the plot. Or don your best chapeau to help ensure that women playwrights continue to be heard in the Mile High City. Here’s the…
As spring begins in earnest and Denverites bask in the long-awaited sunshine, our city’s parks and a variety of outdoor activities tend to outshine cultural pursuits. While little can compare to the allure of the natural beauty blooming us, the comedy calendar this May is pollinated with a series of…
Theater in the area has really come to life lately, introducing new plays and writers, posing interesting ideas and offering glimpses into worlds I’ve never really known. Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina, receiving its regional premiere at Edge Theater, brings us into an enclosed and semi-secret world: a 1962 Catskills retreat…
Ladies first: Three local productions opening this week in Denver feature great women’s words and roles, showcasing a prize-winning contemporary playwright, the noir drama of Norma Desmond’s fall from the spotlight and the influence of literary light Jane Austen. Here’s where to here them roar: And Toto too Theatre Company,…
Eddie Pepitone is a hero to a certain stripe of comedy nerd, so his debut in the Mile High City would be newsworthy on its own. But rather than appearing at a club or theater, he’s headlining a local showcase produced by homegrown Denver comics Matt Monroe and Stephen Agyei…
Podcasts are in tune with the democratized spirit of Internet media; anyone with a microphone and a computer can offer their listeners unlimited hours of recordings, usually for free. Limited only by their imaginations, podcasters have a freedom of expression unrestricted by commerce, censorship or geography. Several great podcasts have…
Edmond Rostand’s 1897 Cyrano de Bergerac is a big, romantic beast of a play, written in poetic couplets, featuring a love as doomed and all-encompassing as any in literature — that of Romeo and Juliet, or Tristan and Isolde — though it doesn’t end in a lovers’ suicide. The story includes duels…
Denverites have no shortage of places where they can drink drink beer and watch local comics, but for the uninitiated there’s little sense of quality control. Denver also has plenty of spaces where the efforts of skilled comedians and passionate venue owners dovetail in giggly harmony, but most shows are…
Since inauspiciously starting out by habitually bombing at Chicago open mics (a developmental stage every comedian must endure in their own city) all the way through to the heights of his current fame, Hannibal Buress’ jokes have had a rhythm and sensibility unlike anyone else in comedy. After gaining a…
Hot on the heels of the Red Rocks summer concert schedule comes the announcement that signals the official end of winter with promises of warm summer nights under the stars. The Denver Film Society and Denver Arts & Venues have unveiled the 2016 Film on the Rocks schedule at the…
Tease Studio’s pole-dancing faculty and students — including one dude — busted their sexiest moves last Friday for Make It Rain at the Oriental Theater, proving that their workout of choice is more than good exercise. All photos by Brandon Marshall. That was a taste. Now see the rest of…
“What keeps a man alive?/ He lives on others./He likes to taste them first then eat them whole if he can/Forgets that they’re supposed to be his brothers/That he himself was ever called a man.” — The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill “The history of the world, my sweet/Is…
Sexpot Comedy is celebrating 4/20 with a standup showcase at the Oriental Theater packed fuller than a gravity bong. Aaron Urist, David Gborie, Billy Wayne Davis, Noah Gardenswartz and Ester Steinberg will join newly-minted Sexpot host David Rodriguez in an embarrassment of comedic riches. And then there are headliners Keith…
The 2016 theater season is in full swing, with some remarkable productions on local stages. Although Fade closes this weekend, you still have time to see the excellent Ideation and 10 Myths About the Application of Beauty Products. Keep reading for capsule reviews. Fade. This ninety-minute-long, two-person play is based on…
Every now and then, an artist — or, in the case of Buntport Theater Company, an artists’ mind meld — seems to pass through a metaphorical doorway. For more than a decade now, Buntport has been one of the bright lights on the local theater scene. With their company-created original…
Last year’s inaugural SeriesFest brought a week of TV-centric events to the Sie FilmCenter that celebrated the past, present and future of storytelling on the boob tube. Now get ready for season two. SeriesFest announced today that talented Grammy and Golden Globe award-winning singer/songwriter/producer Sia will kick off the second SeriesFest…
If you’re a fan of the sitcom The Middle, you’ll remember the wonderful episode in which the family’s eccentric youngest son, Brick, starts a font blog. “If you can talk about fonts, you can talk to anyone,” he comments to his father. Brick acquires one reader, blogs for a few…
