#46: Susan Lyles Denver actor and director Susan Lyles saw a gap and for the last ten years has made filling it her major concern: She took on the mission of showing deserved support for overlooked women playwrights by forming Denver’s And Toto too Theatre Company, a group solely dedicated…
To call comedian John Leguizamo versatile is an understatement. The man is a show-business chameleon, flexing his talents in writing and producing, while also acting in film, television and on Broadway. This weekend Leguizamo will bring his Latin History for Dummies tour to Comedy Works South. In advance of the…
The musical Kinky Boots, which was inspired by a modest 2005 film, tells the story of an unlikely partnership. Charlie has just inherited his father’s shoe factory in Northampton in the English Midlands, a factory once known for producing some of the highest-quality shoes in the country. But the business…
In 2012, comedian Tig Notaro delivered a set at Largo, a Los Angeles club, that would change her life. Notaro had lost her mother, lost her relationship, contracted a life-threatening intestinal disease and just been diagnosed with breast cancer — and she says she felt compelled to share her misfortunes…
As the holiday season approaches, the entertainment calendar for the month holds a cornucopia of comic delights in store for local giggle gobblers. Sidling up to a table richly dressed with top notch performers, local comedy fans will be heartily stuffed and belly-sore by the month’s end. With options including a Denver comedy institution celebrating its fourth anniversary, two of The Daily Show‘s most accomplished correspondents dropping in for grand theatre shows, club sets from movie stars and comic heroes alike, as well as a truly exceptional month of programming from both Comedy Works locations, it’s a moveable feast of funny all November long.
Ambition Facing West. Anthony Clarvoe’s Ambition Facing West is ostensibly about immigration, since it deals with three generations of an immigrant family — their lives, identities and ambitions in the mythical trek west for safety, opportunity and freedom, however defined. But Clarvoe goes deeper than this. His play isn’t a…
Catch up with a somber chapter in the history of Jewish culture at the Mizel Arts and Culture Center or follow an even darker path and get in the Halloween spirit at local stages this weekend. Keep reading for details. See also: Vampire Weekend: Theatre of the Vampires…
Buried Child Edge Theatre Company Sam Shepard’s Buried Child which won a Pulitzer in 1979, still carries a creepy wallop. The story of a violently dysfunctional family — a drunken, abusive father who has destroyed his sons and is now being destroyed in return — it was hailed as a…
Gone are the days when families would gather around the radio to listen to their favorite serials together. But starting tonight, The Night Dial will bring some of that old-time entertainment back to Denver with a Halloween-themed horror radio play at the Bug Theatre. The Night Dial is the brainchild…
Hampton Yount, a rising star on the national comedy circuit, will bring his hilarious laugh-attack to Sexpot Comedy at the Oriental Theater tonight, when Sexpot cofounder Andy Juett will be celebrating a birthday — not to mention the imminent launch of sexpotcomedy.com and the upcoming one-year anniversary of the live…
Lord of the Flies. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is an anguished meditation on the nature of evil. Golding, who fought in the Royal Navy during World War II, was acutely aware of the horrors of which humankind was capable when he wrote this novel, which was first published…
For Christopher Durang, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is pretty weak tea. While the play is relatively funny and does have some outrageously inventive moments, the black humor, zany surprise, sheer unfettered impudence and break-the-dishes iconoclasm of Durang’s other works is missing. Which may explain why this is…
To get in the mood for Halloween, you can head up to Colorado Springs for a campy combination of ’60s slasher and beach movies, or hear spooky stories come alive onstage in Denver; meanwhile, dance aficionados can get their fix at an intergenerational mashup in Boulder. Keep reading for details…
I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I like reality television — up to a point, at least. Wife Swap fascinated me with the rich stew of dissonance it routinely created: the prissy perfectionist wife trying to adjust to a home where teenagers spent all day playing video games and eating…
When you were a teenager, a journal was your best friend and confidante. You told it all your secrets, as well as plenty of banal details about your day. You shared your dreams — and sometimes even imagined that your words would one day be immortalized, read around the world…
In today’s world, the art of storytelling has been diminished by quick texts and 140-character tweets. So Nina Rolle and Johanna Walker are crusading to keep storytelling alive with the Truth Be Told story slam. “I think that people really crave stories,” Walker says. “They help us build community and…
Lord of the Flies. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is an anguished meditation on the nature of evil. Golding, who fought in the Royal Navy during World War II, was acutely aware of the horrors of which humankind was capable when he wrote this novel, which was first published…
Take a wild ride with the dysfunctional family from hell, revisit the legacy of Robert F. Kennedy and begin following a three-part serial sitcom at Denver theaters this week. Read on for the details. See also: Vox Phamalia: Pity Pity Bang Bang at the Avenue Theater…
My friend Geoffrey Stern, who taught international relations at the London School of Economics, used to try and tease out of his students a definition of the word “nation.” Was a nation simply its physical boundaries? A group of people living under a specific government, or with a common language…
Bob Saget has a famously dichotomous public image. While he’s still most widely recognized for his ’90s television ubiquity, Saget was a standup long before he became a huggy surrogate father to a generation of Full House viewers. While the ribald nature of Saget’s act is less shocking now, thanks to his appearance in The Aristocrats and a role that subverted his family-friendly image on Entourage, what stands out about Saget’s humor is how defiantly strange it can be. Saget’s penchant for the absurd shines through, whether he’s onstage or behind the camera for the underrated cult comedy Dirty Work. With his first book, Dirty Daddy, due out in paperback later this month, Saget is really hitting his stride. Westword caught up with Saget over a rambly and digressive phone conversation to discuss Dirty Daddy, his dichotomous public image and why you shouldn’t have sex with things.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown. The Unsinkable Molly Brown is one of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s most ambitious productions to date: The company has spared neither pains nor expense in having Meredith Willson’s 1960 musical, which was fairly insipid, reworked and remounted. This iteration began life as part of the…
In the debate over gun safety, regulation and ownership, people keep firing off their partisan politics without giving the conversation a whole lot of thought. The LIDA Project wants to change that, says Tommy Sheridan, director of the troupe’s latest production, Happiness in Warm Gun, a six-part series of abstract…
