Buntport Theater’s Kafka on Ice — created by the company in 2004 — combines events from the author’s life with incidents in his famous novella Metamorphosis (you know, the one that begins, “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a…
A Shirley Delta Blow show ain’t your momma’s drag tradition: though Saturday night’s performance at Hamburger Mary’s Club M is all queens, it’s not just glitter, choreography and lip-syncing. Blow and Co. bring a little comedy, some song and dance, and a whole lot of audience participation to the intimate…
In his comedy act, Anthony Jeselnik plays the asshole, cracking dark, arrogant, and hilarious one-liners. The persona has gotten him far; Jeselnik is now a prominent figure on Comedy Central’s roasts, has a successful stand-up career, and is in development for a television show on the same network. Jeselnik will…
A few years ago, when actor Gary Culig abandoned his beloved longtime role as Crumpet the Elf in the Bug Theatre’s perennial holiday production of The SantaLand Diaries, he left the local field wide open for a new kind of Crumpet, the sourly wry Macy’s elf based on the true…
Denver’s Vintage Theatre took on a major project when its members decided to take on Avenue Q: The Tony Triple Crown-winning adult musical featuring Muppet-like puppets, made from scratch with big, flappin’ dirty mouths, isn’t cheap to to stage, nor is it your everyday song-and-dance…
Cannibal! The Musical. Cannibal! The Musical began life as a movie written by pre-South Park and Book of Mormon Trey Parker, back when he was a film student at the University of Colorado. It starred Parker himself and Matt Stone, and later evolved — or perhaps degenerated — into a…
I’d missed the first two installments of Jeff Daniels’s Escanaba trilogy — Escanaba in da Moonlight and Escanaba in Love — so I had no idea what to expect from Escanaba: 1922, which was written last but is a prequel to the other two. I had a vague idea that…
If you also hate the holidays, you may enjoy professional smart-ass Adam Carolla’s one-man show on Sunday, December 4 at the Paramount Theatre. We have a pair of tickets to give away. Details below…
I’ve seen the Denver Center Theatre Company’s production of A Christmas Carol more than once, and as someone who was brought up on a diet of Mr. Magoo, Reginald Owen, that nice thick novel by Charles Dickens and, later, Bill Murray in Scrooged, I never tire of it: Well-played by…
Collapse. Comedy doesn’t usually get the respect accorded tragedy, but if you analyze the way that playwright Allison Moore has put together Collapse — the varying rhythms of the dialogue (everything from a touching monologue to a hyper-rapid patch of stichomythia); the surprises that seem inevitable once they’ve occurred; the…
Playwright Arthur Kopit and composer Maury Yeston were still putting together their Phantom when Phantom of the Opera, the Andrew Lloyd Webber juggernaut, trundled onto the scene with its thunderous music, grandiose special effects and falling chandelier. Phantom’s backers quickly vanished, as did any chance of a Broadway opening. But…
Everyone has a story to tell, including Matthew Taylor. Once one-third of the local comedy trio A.C.E. (shorthand for American, Canadian and Englishman — you do the math), he lost his job when ensemble partners Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein hit it big with their performance piece, Girls Only. Which…
American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose. Written by Richard Montoya, of the San Francisco performance group Culture Clash, American Night: The Ballad of Juan Josetells the story of immigrants in America through a crazed mix of skits, historical references, inspired parody and moments of pathos and insight. But the…
When Blanche, desperate and destitute, comes to live with her sister in A Streetcar Named Desire, she finds Stella sexily and happily married to Stanley, a working-class yob — a Pole, not a Polack, as he angrily informs Blanche. The couple’s home in the steamy New Orleans French Quarter is…
Cannibal! The Musical began life as a movie written by pre-South Park and Book of Mormon Trey Parker, when he was a film student at the University of Colorado. It starred Parker himself and Matt Stone, and later evolved — or perhaps degenerated — into a stage production that bears…
Ever since he attained cinematic immortality with a moving performance as Ranger Jones in last year’s live-action adaptation of Yogi Bear, T.J. Miller has been pretty much the greatest thing to come out of Denver ever. But the best part is, he loves us back: Six months ago, the East…
A Streetcar Named Desire opened this past weekend at Germinal Stage Denver. Juliet Wittman’s complete review will run in our November 17 issue; in the meantime, here’s a capsule critique:…
As founder of the Shakespeare & Company theater (a tradition in Lenox, Massachusetts for more than thirty years), Tina Packer knows her Shakespeare — frontwards, backwards and any which way you want. She’s also determined over time that the Bard created, by her estimate, only 177 major women characters, as…
This is one in a series of posts in honor of Denver Arts Week that salute some of our favorite people and places on the arts scene. The Nix Bros. have been busy the last few years doling out comedy films of all shapes and sizes, from the patently absurd…
Comedy doesn’t usually get the respect accorded tragedy, but if you analyze the way that playwright Allison Moore has put together Collapse — the varying rhythms of the dialogue (everything from a touching monologue to a hyper-rapid patch of stichomythia); the surprises that seem inevitable once they’ve occurred; the easiness…
American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose. Written by Richard Montoya, of the San Francisco performance group Culture Clash, American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose tells the story of immigrants in America through a crazed mix of skits, historical references, inspired parody and moments of pathos and insight. But…
It was always kinda, sorta meant to be, but late last week, the official announcement was made: The LIDA Project theater troupe led by Brian Freeland (a member of Westword’s Mastermind class of 2009) and the Control Group Productions avant-garde dance ensemble led by Patrick Mueller are forming a partnership…
