A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The cast for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the first offering in this year’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival, has many strengths. When did you last even notice who played First Fairy? Or Peter Quince? When the former is Nicole Bruce and the latter Greg West, you notice and…
Donald Margulies’s Collected Stories is a small, tight play about a relationship between two women. But beneath the cozy, familiar milieu and the smart dialogue, there are evocative questions, and there’s also a sea of feeling. Ruth is a respected and important writer, though her reputation rests primarily on a…
Over the last year Denver comedians have shown they’re not the selfish bastards they sometimes claim to be, organizing several charity benefits for people like Mara Wiles and Mike Marchant. And tonight Timmi Lasley will keep that communal comedy spirit alive, hosting a benefit for the Denver Voice at El…
Comedy festivals are the perfect antidote to a nasty breakup. Not only because laughing activates several different sections of the brain, strengthening neurons that lead to insight and emotional balance, but because so many comedians love to bitch about heartbreak. Like Morrissey records or the films of Charlie Kaufman, a…
Men in fedoras and women in pencil skirts took over the Boulder County Airport Saturday night for the fifth annual 1940s Era World War II Ball. Guests danced the night away to ’40s swing music as vintage airplanes from the period helped set the mood. To top the night off,…
The work of composer Libby Larsen is some of the most performed in American history. She created more than 500 pieces of music — and more than fifty CDs — spanning every major genre, from opera and chorus, to orchestral and classical. USA Today referred to her as “the only…
Pretty much everyone who loves food has read Michael Pollan, knows about the argument by Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham in his book Catching Fire that cooking is what made us human in the first place, and understands that food is more than a bunch of inert substances whose only function…
Early this year, it looked as if the Colorado Shakespeare Festival might be on its last legs. But after some re-organization, a strong marketing push and a tightening of the festival’s focus, the New York Times named the CSF one of the summer’s hot tickets — and A Midsummer Night’s…
God of Carnage. Let’s start with the setting, so pristine, white, minimal and tasteful — chairs with gracefully curving legs, a glass table on which art books are meticulously arranged, a vase of white tulips, nicely grouped. Even if you didn’t know the play’s title, you’d know what’s about to…
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,…
“Let’s all just acknowledge for a moment that: This. Is. Weird,” John Oliver said last night, opening his first round of hosting The Daily Show for the summer. While Jon Stewart will be away for the next twelve weeks directing his debut film, Rosewater, the most celebrated comic to come…
While he may be world-famous and seven years sober, the streets of Bed-Stuy Brooklyn still ring in the voice of Tracy Morgan. Coming from a childhood of poverty and crack-dealing, Morgan built a respectable career in standup, performing on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam before reaching TV mega-stardom on Saturday Night…
The people who lined up outside the Seawell Grand Ballroom to purchase tickets for The Book Of Mormon’s second Denver run may have been the lucky ones. At least they could hold onto their purchases. But dozens, if not hundreds of people, who tried to buy online at the Denver…
While he’s definitely a throwback to another era of standup comedy, Dave Attell’s debased style of humor still resonated with the crowd at Comedy Works South Saturday night. Deadpanning about vegan strip clubs, Chinese youth assembling sex toys, and what illegal Mexicans can bring to the game of baseball, Attell…
In each piece of theater she creates, Betsy Tobin tries to find an unusual way to present her work. For her newest show, METAPHOR, she delves into the complicated realm of relationships using circus arts, puppetry, video projects and more to portray the tangled webs woven by human interaction. In…
God of Carnage. Let’s start with the setting, so pristine, white, minimal and tasteful — chairs with gracefully curving legs, a glass table on which art books are meticulously arranged, a vase of white tulips, nicely grouped, with just one flower swaying slightly out to the side. Even if you…
There was a time when many young people believed they could levitate the Pentagon by surrounding it, holding hands and chanting; dissuade a soldier from killing by placing a flower in the barrel of his gun; and put an end to war, corruption, racism, repression and pollution through nakedness, love-making…
For any local comic who has yet to appear on Conan or negotiate a sitcom, the New Faces Competition at Comedy Works is the ideal way to gain recognition and earn some cash with your humor. Winning first place in the four-month tournament not only puts a thousand bucks in…
On last Thursday’s Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, comedian Jim Norton got in a verbal sparring match with Jezebel writer Lindy West. For the most part, their positions were fixed and predictable — but rarely have two people in the reactionary careers of standup comic and feminist author achieved…
The disappointing news that the Grawlix pilot got the thumbs down from Amazon didn’t keep Adam Cayton-Holland down for long. Just days later, he announced the August 23-24 High Plains Comedy Festival, which will raise the bar on previous summer comedy jams like Laugh Track and Too Much Funstival by…
Reading is about more than following a narrative or learning facts; it can also be a profound shared experience that culminates in a better understanding of ourselves and each other. In that spirit, welcome to the Westword Book Club, a weekly feature that celebrates the books that inspire Denver artists…
