In Jon, teens express themselves in an artificial world

On the opening night for Jon, the Catamounts served vodka before the show. The drinks — courtesy of Boulder’s 303 Vodka — came in glasses rimmed with blue Kool-Aid, and with ice cubes made of frozen cherry juice. This offering — along with a food wagon decorated with lights that…

Pot roast: Best zingers at Comedy Works

Comedy Works South threw a pot roast Wednesday evening, luring in over 300 hungry patrons for a feast of second-hand smoke and light-hearted mockery. Hosted by the affable Chuck Roy, the lineup included Comedy Works owner Wende Curtis; such club veterans as Roger Rittenhouse, George McLure and Steve Mudflap McGrew,…

Germinal’s ensemble cast shines in Spoon River Anthology

The stage is set up for a cozy Halloween party: autumn-leaf ornaments, joke skeletons on the walls, a red paper lantern. Six people are sitting around a table for a seance. But the table is situated over a graveyard, and pretty soon the participants’ bodies are taken over by ghosts…

Adam Stone’s Screw Tooth will share space, projects with Buntport

Musician and multi-media artist Adam Stone has worked with Buntport Theater Company on four pieces over the last three years. He composed songs for three musicals, all of them among the company’s most exciting works: Seal. Stamp. Send. Bang, which gave hilarious new meaning to the term going postal; Jugged…

A guide to DIY comedy tours with the Fine Gentleman’s Club

Interstate comedy tours have typically been the métier of famous names capable of drawing big crowds and veterans of the club circuit. Many obstacles stand in the way of aspiring comedians eager to earn their living on the road, from bookers who are unwilling to take a chance on an…

The Seafarer makes waves with its tale of lost lives

Despite the deceptively fine weather, it isn’t spring yet. But somehow, leaving the theater after seeing The Seafarer, I couldn’t help feeling that it was. This had something to do with having seen four soul-stirring — and completely different — plays in a little over a month. There was James…

Now Playing

Motherhood Out Loud. This play is performed by six actors — five women and a man — and consists of little playlets compiled by Susan Rose and Joan Stein on many aspects of motherhood: a new mother dealing with her own hovering mother, a woman raising an autistic son, and…

Ghost-Writer adds a show — and adds to Boulder’s theater scene

The Boulder theater scene has sprung to life lately, after several years when pretty much the only choice locals had were the — admittedly excellent but generally traditional — offerings of Boulder’s Dinner Theatre. Anyone wanting new or boundary-breaking works had to travel to Denver. But now new or newish…

Blithe Spirit‘s set is as strong as its spooky plot

Blithe Spirit doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a critique of upper-class society or an evocative exploration of the border between the living and the dead, despite all the ghostly goings-on. Even though Noel Coward wrote the play in 1941, when the bombs were dropping on London, there are no socio-political…

Marcus Gardley debuts Black Odyssey at New Play Summit

Marcus Gardley, one of the five writers featured in this year’s New Play Summit, has received several honors and awards — including the PEN/Laura Pels award for Mid-Career Playwright — and has been widely produced. His Black Odyssey, an ambitious, large-cast production that most theaters would have trouble accommodating, was…

The absorbing Ghost-Writer will creep into your consciousness

Here’s a play that creeps into your consciousness on little cat feet, so quiet and unassuming, so slow-moving at first, so indifferent to the flashier aspects of conflict and plot, and finally so emotionally absorbing that after you’ve seen it, you find yourself being visited as you drift off to…