Long before Brecht, long before postmodernism, Shakespeare understood the usefulness of self-referential moments in theater — those moments when the audience is reminded that what they’re seeing is a fiction, a construct. At the very beginning of Henry V, the Chorus cautions us that we’re in a theater and apologizes…
Once again, the Colorado Theatre Guild has announced the winners of the Henrys — Colorado’s equivalent of the Tony Awards — and once again the results announced last night are difficult to figure out. As before, there are a lot of wins for the Denver Center Theatre Company and not…
The Biennial of the Americas has already given Denver a marching band continuously walking across the street, Spanish karaoke and orchestral dinosaur calls. Tomorrow members of the Playground Ensemble will team up with young composers to present New Music NOW! The Playground Ensemble is a group of classical musicians who…
It’s not easy to find venues around town that support untested and new forms of expression, and the avenues for experimental and performance art are dwindling. “The art scene was more round in recent years. It’s not so round now,” says Justin Beard, who earned a BFA in sculpture from…
As the final High Plains Comedy Festival draws near and the final lineups are announced, Sexpot Comedy returns to Denver after an exploratory sojourn to Los Angeles, boasting another fine show packed with local talent and a nationally celebrated headliner in Sean White. White, a Chicago based comedian whose album…
The High Plains Comedy Festival will be back for a third round August 20 through August 22, and just released the full lineup. “Our schedule this year is insane — there’s no other way to put it,” said Andy Juett, who co-founded the festival with Adam Cayton-Holland, in announcing the schedule additions…
This is theater as community. It is holy theater not because it exalts something on high, but because for the hour or so onstage, the audience and actor are one, and all those people, though each seeing it slightly differently, are believing — following the same course or going on…
“Summer theater” doesn’t always translate to theater-light: This weekend, you can indulge in the restaging of an award-winning production, a well-rounded learning experience from a novice director and a blockbuster opera for the ages. The Brother/Sister Plays: The Brothers Size Curious Theatre Company Thursday, July 9 through August 1 8…
It’s a good sign when you hear people laughing in the parking lot after a comedy and describing their favorite moments to each other, complete with crazy gestures. In its second week of a now-extended run, The Foreigner was still filling the comfortably worn auditorium of the John Hand Theater…
The plot of The Spitfire Grill, a small-scale musical now at the Vintage Theatre, is in the tradition of those ubiquitous American dramas in which a stranger comes into a small town that’s stuck in time — tradition-bound or dying — and shakes everything up. It’s a story we’ve seen…
July is known for balmy days when the sun lingers in the sky like a drunken barbecue guest. Luckily, comedy fans can retreat to air-conditioned comfort in our city’s fine clubs, bars and theaters while merrily chortling at the rogue’s gallery of stand-ups visiting Denver. The whole month is packed…
This is the second time in two years I’ve watched actor Geoffrey Kent walk away with a production in which he’s not actually the lead. Last year his Hotspur stole every scene of Henry IV, Part One that he entered. Now Kent is playing Iago in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s…
Podcasts are in tune with the democratized spirit of Internet media; anyone with a microphone and a computer can offer their listeners unlimited hours of recordings, usually for free. Limited only by their imaginations, podcasters have a freedom of expression unrestricted by commerce, censorship or geography. Several great podcasts have…
The year is 1517, the place Wittenberg, Germany, site of a famous university. The world is in turmoil in David Davalos’s play, Wittenberg, with new ideas swirling and old certainties dissolving. Martin Luther, priest and professor of theology, is composing his 95 theses, which challenge Johann Tetzel, a friar who…
It was a hot evening when I saw Pinter Early & Late at Germinal Stage, and the tiny theater was sometimes uncomfortably warm. The sound in the space is efficient — you can hear every word — but without the clarity and crispness ideal for Pinter. And yet the production…
Local stages haven’t taken a summer vacation: This weekend you can go heavy with one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces (and casting to match), relax with a feisty musical or guffaw your way through a laugh-out-loud comedy. Othello Colorado Shakespeare Festival Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre, CU-Boulder campus Selected dates, June 26 through…
Geoffrey Kent is a busy guy. He’s playing Don Pedro in this summer’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of Much Ado About Nothing, and he’s doing a couple of roles in Henry V. And Talbot in Henry VI, Part One. He’s also the fight director for all these shows, making sure…
Margaret Cho is a multi-talented entertainer whose massive skill set includes singing, burlesque, acting, writing and standup comedy. From her early days as a teenager at the zenith of San Francisco’s comedy scene, Cho has brought a fearless honesty to her many endeavors. While Cho is a performer first and…
Uncalled Four is a homegrown comedy success story. From its unsteady origins in dive bars (with the prototype name “Comics Against Civility” standing in until a punnier title emerged) to its current status as a full-fledged brand, Uncalled Four has maintained its gleefully irreverent comic voice while continually branching out…
It’s hard to go wrong when you begin a production with a bunch of guys in an Irish pub drunkenly singing the Clancy Brothers’ “Isn’t it grand, boys, to be bloody well dead? Let’s not have a snivel, let’s have a bloody good cry. And always remember, the longer you…
This week, a festival about TV takes a sidetrip onstage for a trio of free readings of comedy scripts by finalists in a high-stakes contest, while a couple of local dance troupes strut their best stuff. Here’s where to get a piece of the action. SeriesFest, Storytellers Initiative Script Competition…
Jordan Wieleba runs a monthly standup-and-burlesque showcase, designs many of Denver comedy’s most eye-catching posters, and illustrates books and advocates for LGBTQ causes in between her own stage-crushing sets. While Wieleba has been performing standup since 2006, her life and career really took shape after 2011, when the Denver native…
