Performing Arts

Adam Cayton-Holland is a comedian, podcaster, and former Westword scribe who forged his craft in ego-battering Colfax open mics before co-founding The Grawlix with Ben Roy and Andrew Orvedahl, a union that has produced a self-titled parodic web series and Denver’s best monthly standup showcase –which just so happens to be happening tonight at the Bug Theater at 10:30pm. Cayton-Holland has amassed an enviable list of TV credits, delivering strong sets on shows Conan and The Pete Holmes Show while steadfastly residing in his native Denver, where the outspoken baseball fan recently realized his lifelong dream of throwing out the opening pitch at a Rockies’ game after a long social media campaign. Cayton-Holland’s brainchild, The High Plains Comedy Festival, continues to thrive under his quiet but determined stewardship as its second birthday approaches. The unbelievably stacked lineup includes returning champions from last year’s fest like Beth Stelling, Sean Patton, Kate Berlant, Ian Douglas Terry, and Cameron Esposito in addition to Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani and T.J. Miller as well as ringers like Chris Fairbanks, Baron Vaughn, and the top-billed Pete Holmes. Check High Plains’ website for the complete lineup. Westword met up with Cayton-Holland at the favored Baker haunt and High Plains venue Mutiny Information Cafe to discuss his post-surgery Frankenfoot and doubling down for the festival’s second year.

I Hate Hamlet is a bit like the curate’s egg: hilariously funny in parts and in others so idiotic that you’re embarrassed for the actors. Why is the radiant Jamie Ann Romero wasting her talents wafting about as Deirdre, a stagestruck 29-year-old virgin who’ll have sex with boyfriend Andrew only…

I Hate Hamlet. I Hate Hamlet is a bit like the curate’s egg: hilariously funny in parts, and in others so idiotic that you’re embarrassed for the actors. Why is the radiant Jamie Ann Romero wasting her talents wafting about as Deirdre, a stagestruck 29-year-old virgin who’ll have sex with…

People would laugh until they cried when Lori Callahan took the stage at Comedy Works South. And on April 13, both laughter and tears poured out as friends, family members and Callahan’s fellow comics gathered in the room where the redheaded comic had slung jokes for years, taking their turn…

Perhaps it’s the pull of longer days and glorious nights that shuts down local stages in the summertime. But there are still places where you can catch a great musical or a dance performance when the heat of the day begins to subside. Here are our picks for this week…

Allen Strickland Williams is a Los Angeles-based writer, comedian, and former NBC page who nevertheless retained the office’s button-down aesthetic. Williams, along with fellow standups Jake Weisman, Dave Ross, and Pat Bishop comprise the sketch comedy group Women whose widely circulated videos are nibbles of absurdity dolloped by grim punchlines. Women are descending on the Oriental Theater tomorrow night for the monthly Sexpot Comedy showcase. The show, hosted as always by Jordan Doll, features standup from each member, as well as videos and live sketches. It’s also a Sexpot show, with all the dab dabbling that implies. Westword caught up with Williams to discuss what makes Women’s sketches different, his fondness for one liners, and his essay about the #YesAllWomen hashtag.

Prospero in The Tempest, now receiving a checkered production at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, rules over a magical island — magical in a way that only the Elizabethan imagination, which saw dragons and sea serpents inhabiting all unknown territories, could summon up. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, but…

The Graduate. The more you think about it, the more you realize what a weak play The Graduate really is. Adapted for the stage by Terry Johnson from a 1960s novel by Charles Webb — which in turn became an iconic film starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft — it…

To anyone who grew up watching too much basic cable in the ’80s and ’90s, the sight of Paul Reiser cracking wise is comfortingly familiar. Whether on contemporary classics like Aliens and Diner or the long-running and widely syndicated sitcom Mad About You, chances are good that Reiser’s face is on a television somewhere at this exact moment. Not one to rest on his considerable laurels, however, Reiser is currently in the midst of a mid-career renaissance, appearing in several upcoming movies and honing his standup act in clubs across the country. In town this weekend to headline Comedy Works’ South club, Westword caught up with Reiser to discuss his role in the Sundance film festival smash Whiplash, the lasting influence of Aliens, as well as his experience returning to the stage after a 20 year hiatus from comedy.

Forty years ago, bombs exploded in Boulder, killing six Chicano activists. Their deaths are still shrouded in mystery: Who killed them and why? Were they plotting a bombing? Did the police and FBI entrap them? Were they murdered? Su Teatro’s Tony Garcia has written Cuarenta y Ocho, a play that…

The more you think about it, the more you realize what a weak play The Graduate really is. Adapted for the stage by Terry Johnson from a 1960s novel by Charles Webb — which in turn became an iconic film starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft — it tells the…

Shrek: the Musical.T here are a lot of things to like about Shrek: The Musical at Boulder’s Dinner Theatre. They include the Dragon, created by Cory Gilstrap and manipulated by a handful of actors. Blessed with the rich, seductive voice of the inimitable Amanda Earls, she’s a riveting, literally huge…

The curtains never really go down on Denver’s stages, even in the summer, when some companies take a break — but others launch special festivals. Here are a few ways to be transported by music, dance, comedy and drama this week. See also: Ch-Ch-Changes: (the world we’ve created) at the…

Splinters, the first musical conceived and written by Sara Century, is a surrealistic combination of music and performance art in twelve acts with set and costume changes throughout. Working with Denver friends Katie Taylor and Heidi Kleder, Century has created a three-woman vehicle about the sometimes convoluted nature of friendships…

Bobby Lee is a comedian and actor who gained notoriety in San Diego comedy clubs before moving on to a featured role on Mad TV for eight seasons. Recently, he’s known for his numerous Chelsea Lately appearances and landing parts in films like The Dictator and Harold and Kumar go to White Castle series. In town to headline Denver’s esteemed Comedy Works Larimer Square all weekend, Westword caught up with Lee to discuss Hollywood’s lack of roles for Asian actors, getting sober with comedians’ support, and an ambush from a naked fan in his dressing room.

For the updated version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which will kick off the new Denver Center Theatre Company season this fall, the DCTC has cast Beth Malone, an unsinkable Colorado native, in the starring role. Malone began her career as a teenager playing roles at the Country Dinner Playhouse…

Shrek: The Musical.There are a lot of things to like about Shrek: The Musical at Boulder’s Dinner Theatre. They include the Dragon, created by Cory Gilstrap and manipulated by a handful of actors. Blessed with the rich, seductive voice of the inimitable Amanda Earls, she’s a riveting, literally huge presence…

Peggy Jo Tallas was an outwardly conventional, quiet-spoken Texas woman who, after a mildly adventurous youth, lived with her mother for many years. Starting at the age of forty, she also robbed banks — perhaps because she was bored, perhaps because she was seeking a fuller and more interesting life,…

Why is the dance company whose “Welcome to the Madhouse” plays in Longmont this weekend called Point Your Damn Toes? Founder-director Julia Kay laughs. “We first started dancing together two or three years ago, and when we decided to become a company, I was bouncing back and forth among names,”…

“You don’t have to tell me about masochism, I’m in the theater,” says Vanda von Dunayev, one of the characters in Curious Theater’s current production, Venus in Fur, by David Ives, which tells the story of a playwright-director attempting to adapt Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Fur into a…

As midsummer approaches at its leisurely flip-flopped gait, comedy fans have a full calendar of laugh appointments ahead. While almost nothing can compete with the natural splendor of a languid June evening spent outdoors in Denver, only a jejune goon would miss out on these fine shows. Besides, at a comedy club, you’re significantly less likely to accidentally drink the moth that flew into your beer. From stars of stage and screen gracing local venues to a showcase that actually encourages comments from the audience, comedy nerds will be drawn to these events like an eclipse of moths to an outdoor light bulb.

It’s important to note that a lot can happen in a month, and national headliners often have to reschedule long after press time, so dates are subject to change (which happened last month with Bobcat Goldthwait). Regardless, go see live comedy shows this June and be free from melancholy, as well as the unmistakable taste of foamy moth.

It’s important to know that a lot can happen in a month, and national headliners often have to reschedule long after press time, so dates are subject to change. Regardless, go see live comedy shows this June and be free from melancholy, as well as the unmistakable taste of foamy moth.

As Hustle Man on fellow standup comedian Martin Lawrence’s show Martin in 1994, Tracy Morgan gave TV audiences their first taste of his bullish humor. But it wasn’t until the eccentric comedian landed a spot on Saturday Night Live that his bizarre view of the world was given a proper…