This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, May 22

Here’s your chance to take a gander at DU’s highly touted, newfangled Gates Concert Hall: The Lamont School of Music’s Opera Theater Department will break the place in with a four-day production of Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow, beginning tonight at 7:30 and concluding with a 2:30 matinee Sunday. Yuk it up with the husband-free gal for $10 to $25; to reserve tickets, call 303-871-2336. Gates Hall is located in the spanking-new Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 East Iliff Avenue; for information, call the Lamont Concert Line at 303-871-6412 or log on to www.du.edu/lamont.

The trend in small-scale independent theater seems to be veering toward finding ways to increase community involvement. Among the most effective, so far, are the proliferation of play readings and workshop productions that invite participation through feedback. Su Teatro jumps on the play-in-progress bandwagon this month by presenting The Sun That You Are/El Sol Que Tú Eres, a work by ST guiding light Tony Garcia that’s based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, with an Aztec twist. Sun, a longtime Garcia project in collaboration with his musician friend Daniel Valdez, will tentatively premiere in October, but you can see the rougher version now, nightly at 8:05, today through Saturday, at El Centro Su Teatro, 4725 High Street. Tickets are $10 to $13; call 302-296-0219 or log on to www. suteatro.org.

Friday, May 23

The enterprising young lads and lassies in the Denver School of the Arts Theatre Department have been nominated and selected to perform at the American High School Festival of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. To raise funds for the trip, they’re putting on a production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. During the intermission, they’ll try, try again with a benefit auction featuring Denver voice-over celebrities Maggie Roswell (The Simpsons) and Hal Rayle (who’s distinguished himself vocally as Toucan Sam and Miss Piggy, among others). Silent bidding begins at 6:30 tonight in the Seawell Ballroom of the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex,14th and Curtis streets, followed by the performance and live auction at 8; admission is $25. Call 303-300-8906.

Saturday, May 24

?Teach your kids a lesson in civic duty by taking them to the front line of this year’s Memorial Day Parade. The annual tribute to our fallen takes place, with the usual marching bands and units, floats, vintage vehicles and general hoopla, beginning at 10 this morning in downtown Denver. After wending its way from 15th Street and Court Place to the State Capitol, the parade dissipates. But the festivities march on: The Veterans Memorial Fair 2003, featuring all manner of military-related entertainment and displays, continues from 11 to 2 at Colorado Veterans Monument Park, Broadway and Colfax Avenue. For information, log on to www.memorialfairandparade.com.

It’s a common complaint in this day and age: Technology keeps passing us by, and everyday consumers are left with a stockpile of obsolete computers and electronic equipment that used to fit in a closet someplace but now threatens to bury us all alive. Well, we know that Dell makes and sells a lot of computers, but give ’em a little credit: The computer empire is atoning for its progressive sins and coming to our collective rescue with the Dell/Recycling Tour, a fifteen-city recycling event at which folks can drop off their old motherboards and modems for donation to local charities that can still use them. Pack up your car and head for Parking Lot A at Invesco Field at Mile High; for information and a list of acceptable items to donate, log on to dell.com/recyclingtour.