“Look out, Haskell. It’s real.” — From Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, 1969 For all but a small sliver of U.S. society, wars are just a distant rumbling. But for those who have experienced them — soldiers, journalists, refugees — they are devastating. The images engrave themselves indelibly on the brain…
While we wait for Drag Machine, people start handing out freshly spun cotton candy to a line that snakes around the Jones Theatre. Inside, we find that the Drag Queen bathroom (there’s one for Drag Kings, too) sports a glittering tinsel curtain; decorated top hats are taped to stalls for…
Over the past three decades, Paula Poundstone has worked as a standup comedian, political correspondent, television-show creator, cartoon-voice actor and columnist. And during that time, Poundstone has decided that the best place to be is the stage — alone with a microphone and no one else on the bill. The…
Young Americans have lots of experience with war, right? I mean, we’ve lived (very remotely) through wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and we’ve got hard-hitting blockbusters like Battleship and Red Tails to learn from. We can even step into a soldier’s shoes with video games like Call of Duty,…
The Tupperware will be real, all real, when the participatory tour-de-force Dixie’s Tupperware Party returns to the Garner Galleria Theatre tonight for another hi-larious repeat run, just in time for the holidays. And like the contents kept in Tupperware, Dixie Longate, the larger-than-life, big-haired, trailer-trash star who struts out on…
I can’t imagine that I was the only one who felt trapped by the mania of Katt Williams as I sat inside the less-than-half-full Wells Fargo Theatre last night.The first of two Denver shows on his Ghetto National Convention Tour, this was a car wreck from the start. From the…
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. The opening moments are pulse-poundingly exciting — music, live wrestling, flashing lights, tons of adrenaline from an already hyped-up audience. But the actual scripted beginning of the play is quiet, as a Puerto Rican kid called Mace describes his lifelong fascination with pro wrestling…
The opening scene of Sweet Tooth is mesmerizing: a bare stage, a woman in a fur coat standing in front of a white sheet and singing “It’s cold.” A hand appears from behind the sheet offering a glass, sprinkling water on the woman, and then the sheet is removed to…
Molly Ivins was a familiar figure in Colorado. For a while, she was the Rocky Mountain bureau chief for the New York Times. The staid gray lady had hired her away from the Texas Observer to spice up its pages, but the editors decided fairly rapidly that they didn’t want…
Known for their wild, unpredictable comedy nights at Deer Pile, as well as several open mics around town, the Fine Gentleman’s Club comedy co-op will attempt to put chaos to order on Halloween, when they record a live album at Comedy Works. “One of my favorite comedy albums, Dave Attell’s…
Five years after she passed away at the age of 62, Molly Ivins is hotter than ever. In fact, all five performances of the one-woman play based on her life and writings, Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, sold out before the run even started. And at…
If you’re funny, you gotta podcast. Neither the first or the last to realize that, veteran funny man Greg Proops, whom Drew Carey has called one of his favorite comics, launched his own live “Proopcast,” The Smartest Man in the World. And he records it with a live audience, both…
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The story of our seventh president set to propulsive emo-rock, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson could be the bastard child of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Spring Awakening, complete with torn-from-the-gut songs, black humor and lots of violence, suffering and blood. History is presented farcically —…
Most people in the theater world know Mark Collins as a critic — a temperate, thoughtful fellow, almost self-effacing. So it comes as a bit of a shock to see him swaggering around the stage as a boastful Ben Franklin, line dancing, or transforming into a huge, blubbery baby and…
Buntport Theater solved a sizzling crime caper yesterday when a sheepish kid returned the stolen laptop on which the company kept its mailing list and other vital files. The theft happened while Buntport was conducting one of its regular Third Tuesday Great Debate. Since this one coincided with the second…
You probably know him best from his weekly appearances on E!’s Chelsea Lately, where host Chelsea Handler frequently questions his sexual orientation and capitalizes on stereotypes related to his Asian-American heritage. But Jo Koy isn’t just a basic-cable punching bag. He’s been climbing his way up the comedic echelon for…
As the voice of wise-cracking robot Tom Servo and one of the original brains behind the cult sensation Mystery Science Theater 3000 — known affectionately to fans as MTS3K — Kevin Murphy helped elevate the act of jeering at shitty movies to an art form, leaving an indelible mark on…
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The story of our seventh president set to propulsive emo-rock, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson could be the bastard child of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Spring Awakening, complete with torn-from-the-gut songs, black humor and lots of violence, suffering and blood. History is presented farcically —…
Artists tend to be praised and valued far more after their deaths than during their lifetimes, and clearly this paradox was not lost on Mark Twain, who wrote a play about Jean-Francois Millet — a real, famous and very brilliant painter of his time — called Is He Dead? In…
At the center of Memphis, an energetic, Tony-winning musical dealing with race and music in the 1950s, is a white man, Huey Calhoun, who’s fascinated by black music. Stumbling into an underground rock-and-roll club, he’s greeted at first with suspicion, but wins grudging acceptance after declaring in song that this…
Denver native T.J. Miller is one busy comic. But even on the same day that his new comedy series, Mash Up, premiered on Comedy Central, Miller took the time to give us a call and chat about Hollywood success and why he still misses Denver. During our conversation, Miller was…
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. The opening moments are pulse-poundingly exciting — music, live wrestling, flashing lights, tons of adrenaline from an already hyped-up audience. But the actual scripted beginning of the play is quiet, as a Puerto Rican kid called Mace describes his lifelong fascination with pro wrestling…
