Review: Curious Theatre Company’s Detroit Is Missing a Message

During the talkback following a performance of Curious Theatre Company’s Detroit, an audience member asked: “What was the play’s message?” This isn’t a question I normally ask — I’ve never thought that works of art need messages — but in this case, the query was right on the money. There’s…

Playbill: Three New Plays in Metro Denver May 15-17

Sartre reimagines the Greek gods in an existential world, acting students rip through the Tennessee Williams canon and a shocking Jazz-Age murder case is revisited: Here’s what’s new on metro stages this weekend. The Upstart Crow, The Flies The Dairy Center for the Arts May 15 through 30 7:30 p.m…

Theater Review: A Man of No Importance Is Wilde at Heart

The year is 1964 and the setting Dublin for A Man of No Importance, a gentle, high-spirited musical currently showing at the Arvada Center. Inspired by Oscar Wilde, bus conductor Alfie Byrne longs to devote his life to art. His plans for a production of The Importance of Being Earnest…

Henry Rollins on Reading, Noise, and the Benefits of Legal Cannabis

Most people know Henry Rollins as the former frontman of Black Flag and Rollins Band. His 1994 memoir, Get In the Van, should be required reading for anyone coming up as a musician. A writer, spoken-word performer, actor, world traveler, radio-show host, cultural commentator and activist today, Rollins has kept himself impossibly…

Playbill: Three New Plays in Denver for the Weekend of May 8-10

This week on Denver-area stages, secrets come out of the woodwork as a dynasty of Chinese classical musicians gathers in a villa, California’s Proposition 8 trial is re-examined and local improv actors get down to come serious clowning in pirate suits. Ahoy, matey! Here are the details. Theatre Esprit Asia,…

Theater Review: Edge Has a Hit With Mythic Jerusalem

No matter how many dreary events it’s played at, “Jerusalem” — a hymn with lyrics from a poem by William Blake set to music by Sir Hubert Parry — never loses the power to move and astonish, unlike so many jingoistic anthemic songs. “Jerusalem” speaks of a mythic time when…

The Ten Best Comedy Events in Denver in May

Between promising upstarts from the local scene and internationally famous headliners dropping in at our clubs and theaters, Denver’s comedy scene will blossom in May — before closing out the month with a new comedy festival. More so than in other months, the list was difficult to narrow down to…

Review: Hysteria Is a Tragi-Farce Full of Both Fun and Deep Meaning

You’re familiar with the term tragi-comedy? Terry Johnson’s Hysteria could be considered a tragi-farce. It’s full of farcical elements: multiple doors, unexpected exits and entrances, mistaken identities, misunderstandings, a naked woman in a closet, silly accents, women’s panties, a man without his trousers who — at least in this Boulder…

Review: She Kills Monsters a Fantastic Night of Fantasy at Aurora Fox

Geoffrey Kent is a jokester, a nationally known fight choreographer, a restless, funny and kinetic actor whose most memorable on-stage moment occurred a few years back in the farce Noises Off, when he hopped up a flight of stairs with his shoelaces tied together, tumbled headlong down, somersaulted across furniture…

“Denver Comedy Exodus” Leaves Plenty of Funny Business Behind

As Denver’s scruff-speckled comedy scene prepares itself for something like a changing of the guard, some of the more hysterical corners of the blogosphere have bewailed and bloviated about a “Denver comedy exodus.” Biblical hyperbole aside — a half-dozen comics departing for Los Angeles is about 600,000 Hebrews short of…

Paula Poundstone on Writing, Public Broadcasting and Denver Audiences

No one deserves success more than Paula Poundstone, who’ll be in town for a special solo benefit for Colorado Public Television on Saturday. A genuinely sweet person with more than thirty years of touring as a comedian under her belt, she has diversified into writing, acting, interviewing and commentating —…

Playbill: Three New Plays on Denver Stages for April 23-26

This week a pair of respected regional ensembles will present strong work on stages in Boulder and Lakewood, while the Avenue brings back a crowd-pleasing favorite. Hysteria Dairy Center for the Arts April 23 through May 17 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 4 p.m. Sundays 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April…

Review: The Cherry Orchard Harvests Humor but Isn’t Deeply Rooted

The ghost of Anton Chekhov has been haunting area stages lately, what with last fall’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, an absurdist Christopher Durang comedy-parody at the Denver Center, and the Boulder Ensemble’s recent Stupid Fucking Bird, in which playwright Aaron Posner closely follows the plot of The…