One element, a fictional kitchen pantry filled with community-sourced items, was labeled "Inheritance Kitchen" — a name that stuck when Ozaki-Durgin applied for support through RedLine, imagining a liminal space where recipes, memory and migration overlapped. She cooked up the concept of a storytelling kitchen that spanned decades, tracing the legacy of shared meals and cultural inheritance.
"I thought of it as a story-sharing space where people could learn about recipes and their origins in a kitchen that's a liminal kitchen across decades," Ozaki-Durgin recalls. But as conversations progressed, particularly with collaborators Leah Cardenas, James Brunt and Fronzo D. Gilkey II, who wrote, directed and created the project with Ozaki-Durgin, it grew into something larger: a multi-room immersive theater experience rooted in Five Points history and shaped by diverse communities over time.
“There were a lot of things that came together at once, but essentially we were thinking there is this shared food as a love language across cultural communities," Ozaki-Durgin says. "One example of those cultural communities living in space and place together over the past decades is Five Points. I didn't want to tell the story of the Latin or Black communities. Those aren't my stories to tell, so I relied on my collaborators to share some of those experiences."
Inheritance Kitchen is an immersive experience at Sakura Square that runs until April 27.
Courtesy of Leah Cardenas
Running now through April 27 at Sakura Square, Inheritance Kitchen welcomes audiences into the grand opening of a fictional café called Block Party, operated by descendants of three families who lived in the same Five Points house across the 1960s, 1980s and early 2000s. But as soon as the doors open, it’s clear something is off. Rooms ripple with time. Memories linger like scents in the air. Before long, visitors find themselves immersed in stories that leap across generations and into deeply personal, powerfully political histories.
"Even though we're sharing hard truths about history and how we've had to cope with these moments in history, we also have this character who is like an imaginary friend that cultivates that childlike wonder and allows people to imagine the world they want to exist," Ozaki-Durgin says. "It's a space for kiddos to feel seen and safe, but also for the whole community to feel like they're allowed to still feel happiness amidst the challenges of reality."
Each story unfolds in its own space. Some rooms encourage hands-on interaction, such as rolling out tortillas, while others are filled with memories of the past. The experiences are adapted from the family histories of the co-creators.
Cardenas, for example, drew on her grandfather's manuscript, The Tortilla Lady, about a neighborhood matriarch whose flour tortillas were so delicious that a generation of people still talk about them today. “Apparently these were like the best tortillas you’ve ever had in your life, but they accidentally pissed off the tortilla lady by messing with her pigeons," Cardenas says. "So she cut the family off from tortillas."
As a result, they had to learn how to make their own, and Cardenas's family now has her great-grandmother's flour tortilla recipe. "They're good, but apparently not as good as the tortilla ladies," Cardenas says with a laugh. Another storyline she adapted is Return to Ramos, a story her grandfather wrote about a youth-led protest inspired by Chicano activism, which she combined with historical events in Denver.
"We frame it around Día de los Muertos,” she explains. "It is about how a young girl and her family cope with the death of her dance teacher, who was based on Luis Martinez Jr., a real person killed by the police during the Crusade for Justice, which was part of the Chicano Movement in the 1970s."
In the 1980s room, Gilkey and Brunt co-created a space inspired by the grounding presence of Black matriarchs like their grandmothers. Set during Juneteenth, it invites visitors to a joyful gathering where music, laughter and grilling offer brief respite from the surrounding realities of police violence and gentrification.
"It's a backyard cookout that is open to the neighborhood," Gilkey says. "We really wanted to bring comfort and a sense of belonging within our space. Through Uncle Jerome and CJ, you kind of get pulled into two different worlds, going through the grief of the passing of Grandma Harriet and her impact on the world and the community around them."
"We just wanted people to feel things," Brunt adds. "There's so much going on in the world all the time, so we wanted to create a space where we remind you that you're family, no matter who you are or what you look like. My grandma passed away not too long ago, so I really wanted to bring that energy of the love that she had for everybody around her and I wanted to hold on to that in any kind of way that I could. We're all just trying to bring that love to everyone around us."
Inheritance Kitchen is set at the grand opening of Block Party, a fictional café run by the descendants of three families who have lived in the same Five Points house for generations.
Courtesy of Leah Cardenas
The venue itself, a former dental suite in Sakura Square, is a critical part of the story. After noticing the long-vacant space, Ozaki-Durgin approached the building’s owners and offered to transform it for a previous project, Zotto. Even though the majority of the area had been gutted for that, the team still had to remove an X-ray machine in order to stage Inheritance Kitchen.
"We offered to do that," Ozaki-Durgin says, "and then they offered us subsidized rent because they're really happy that we are activating the space and bringing people here that didn't even know it existed. I think it's a really good partnership, and we're really grateful that they see the value in creating a space like this."
Despite the show’s scale, Inheritance Kitchen was made on a modest budget. “It’s the smallest budget immersive I’ve ever done,” Ozaki-Durgin admits, “but I think we stretched it as far as we possibly could. It's like half of the budget of Zotto but it's about the same level of production." Inheritance Kitchen was co-produced by Japanese Arts Network, Opia House, Brunt, Gilkey, Starry Night Productions and Jessica Eckenrod, with support from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, Denver Arts & Venues, Warm Cookies of the Revolution, RedLine’s INSITE Fund and RiNo Arts District.
Each performance is limited to 26 audience members, keeping the experience intimate. Because at its heart, Inheritance Kitchen is more than immersive theater — it’s a reminder. Of how we carry our ancestors’ stories on recipe cards. Of how love lives in shared dishes. And how resistance, too, has always been part of the meal.
"Something that was important for us was showing how our communities have always overcome oppression, and part of that resilience is through feeding our communities," Ozaki-Durgin says. "We talk about actually getting your hands in the dirt and growing things. It's a prevalent theme through all three stories: using your hands to make, grow or cultivate food. We're talking about heavy things because they're reality, but we also want people to feel the joy that comes from food."
Inheritance Kitchen runs Friday, April 25, through Sunday, April 27 at Sakura Square, 1905 Lawrence Street; tickets are $45. Learn more at inheritancekitchen.com.
