This November, let us give thanks for the cornucopia of Denver comedy overflowing with imported and locally-sourced bursts of mirth. Though games of sport typically dominate the autumn entertainment landscape, stuffing comedy into the locker of obscurity like some schoolyard bully, the bounty of joke shows this month is burly…
The summer theater season is ending, but there are still a few shows to see this weekend. Here are capsule reviews of two productions on local stages this weekend. Relatively Speaking. Witty, surprising dialogue as tangled and twisty and as continually knotting and unfurling as a ball of wool between…
When Uncalled Four began, few people would have guessed that a bar show featuring Denver comics riffing on Cards Against Humanity-style prompts would grow into one of the scene’s most popular nights. The show, which pits comedians against one another in a race to the gutters of irreverence, has been featured…
Scary stories about madness, S&M and the ghosty tales of our youth are popping up on stages all around town. ’Tis the season for indoor entertainment with maybe a touch of the spooky. Trick or treat: Here are three new shows this weekend: Equus Avenue Theater October 29, through November…
Thanks to the Denver Center Theatre Company’s New Play Summit, we had the privilege of seeing Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale — which had a reading at the DCTC in 2011 and earned a full production by the company a year later — before it became a major success in…
To paraphrase Tolstoy, all happy families are alike; each dysfunctional family is dysfunctional in its own way. The family at the center of Nina Raine’s Tribes is dysfunctional in a highly verbal, entertaining and also dismaying way. Father Christopher is a writer and critic whose loud carping spills over into…
Indie design blogger Jeanne Connolly loves to see how creative people put their houses together. In this series, she shares some of her favorite homes, taking us inside unique private spaces in Denver and beyond. Dorothy Tanner harnesses light and sound to transport her audience into another realm of reality. Her…
New productions this week include hard drama with the Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, a paranormal trip back in time with the Theater Company of Lafayette, and a cabaret-style musical at the Garner Galleria. Here’s where to grab tickets and go for a theatrical ride. BETC, The Few Dairy Center for…
Some of the greatest discoveries of the nineteenth century were made by gentleman explorer-scientists. But Charles Darwin never devised a test for pet guinea-pig intelligence, nor did botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker name a plant that induced first euphoria and then death for a woman he was attracted to. And…
When the original idea for BoomBaptricks — a variety show debuting tomorrow night at the Oriental Theater — was conceived, it was about creating an evening celebrating multiple art forms. A producer of comedy events around the city through her company 52Eighty Entertainment, LaRae Martinez had been working with Corin…
Stories about family life, the Internet and sex all take the stage this weekend in local productions, from Edge Theater’s Alan Ayckbourn comedy Woman in Mind, to a titillating installment from Denver’s dramatic reading staple, Stories on Stage. Here’s how to get all hot and bothered — or enjoy a fresh new…
As I was trying to understand the cause for my scratchy irritability when I left Spirits to Enforce — particularly surprising since I’d liked playwright Mickle Maher’s There Is a Happiness That Morning Is, which Catamounts staged last year — I thought of Aldous Huxley’s essay “The Rest Is Silence,”…
It seemed like it was all coming together for Corin Chavez, an actor, comedian, writer, producer, teacher and master improviser who passed away on Friday, October 9, at the age of 23. Over the past few months, his closest friends had noticed that Chavez was really settling into himself —…
“I took a break from standup due to lack of skill and ability,” went a typical Michael Carter opener, “but I’ve decided that I’m not going to let that stop me.” While the archetype of the self-deprecating comic is so well-established that it’s become something of a ready-made persona, nothing…
Although dance is considered a feminine pursuit by many people, it’s surprising to see how much of a boy’s club dance can be. Even hip-hop, one of the freest and expressive channels of the art form, seems to have a disproportionate number of men at the helm. But the Janes,…
Peg is a sketch artist for the police, and her apartment is filled with charcoal portraits of criminals, both petty and murderous. As Good on Paper opens, she’s celebrating a birthday with her sister Sandy, a romance writer, and explaining the end of her latest affair: She broke up with…
As You Like It is an extended examination of love set in the Forest of Arden — a place that the Elizabethans, steeped in a pastoral tradition that idealized country life, would have seen as far more pure and innocent than life at court. “Come hither, come hither, come hither,”…
Although the blockbuster comedy lineup of September 2015 may be difficult to beat in terms of star-wattage, October’s offerings deliver just as many laughs per minute. Halloween giggle treats abound this month, and everyone from cinephiles to political wonks to ’90s nostalgists can find a show fancy enough to tickle. Among our to…
Interesting surroundings link new plays and performances in Denver this weekend, from Cherry Creek Theater Company’s stage in a carpet store and Theatre Or’s run in a concert venue to Lemon Sponge Cake’s public-art dance commission in a park. Where there’s a will, there’s a way: Here are the specifics…
After decades of productions of West Side Story, both professional and amateur, it’s hard to grasp how daring and original the notion of a contemporary musical based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was in the 1950s. The idea originated with director-choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein and script writer Arthur…
Puff, Pass, and Paint often welcomes colorful guests at the private, cannabis-meets-cocktails-and-canvas class offered every weekend. This Saturday, comedians Margaret Cho and Kevin Pereira joined in the fun while filming an episode of the new TruTV show I’m So Into that highlights — you guessed it— marijuana. Comic Cho has done…
Dance takes center stage — and even the silver screen — this week in Denver, with a performing-arts calendar that includes a stopover by Twyla Tharp’s golden-anniversary tour, a celebration of dance on film, and a fall premiere from Denver’s own Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. Twyla Tharp Dance: 50th Anniversary…
