Watching the lauded but fatally slight Mid-August Lunch, a comedy of manners about a middle-aged Italian who finds himself caring for four spunky old dames, it’s hard to believe that writer, director and star Gianni Di Gregorio also co-wrote the bloody mafia hit Gomorrah. Amiably self-deprecating to a fault, the…
Chicago. Sort of Brechtian, sort of Cabaretish, Chicago tells a story of injustice and corruption, and tells it in the most seductive way, with witty, memorable songs, elegantly glistening dance sequences and a smart, cynical and grown-up script. Roxie Hart is an evil, self-serving little hoofer. Having murdered a man…
As Iron Man 2 begins, Tony Stark — mechanical genius, Forbes 400 perennial, the pop-star CEO of Stark Industries — has dropped any pretense of a secret identity. Stark is garishly “out” as Iron Man, performing a one-man air show before touching down to host his Stark Expo, which transforms the…
George Orwell once said, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever,” and that pretty much captures the tone of Mouse in a Jar, an unrelenting chronicle of violence and suffering. Orwell was talking about totalitarianism, and the play, with…
Artist Sharon Brown and her husband, Rex, own the Pattern Shop Studio in the RiNo district. It’s a unique place that’s not only their home and Sharon’s studio, but also a gallery. For The Collectibles, the Browns have invited three artists — Tracy Weil, Danyl Cook and Jimmy Sellars —…
Watching the lauded but fatally slight Mid-August Lunch, a comedy of manners about a middle-aged Italian who finds himself caring for four spunky old dames, it’s hard to believe that writer, director and star Gianni Di Gregorio also co-wrote the bloody mafia hit Gomorrah. Amiably self-deprecating to a fault, the…
What better opportunity than Cinco de Mayo to return to the excellent 1987 bio pic La Bamba, about the life and death of one of rock history’s most promising and tragic figures, Ritchie Valens? “It’s not an official, citywide event, but the Cinco de Mayo celebration is that weekend,” explains…
After 32 years of dream-job journalism, covering everything from the Final Four and the Super Bowl to the Olympics for the likes of Sports Illustrated and ESPN Magazine and spending more time interviewing nude men in locker rooms than he ever could have imagined, Rick Reilly set out in search…
Anyone who’s ever had any question about whether immigrants are taking our jobs would do well to step into an immigrant’s shoes, at least in the metaphorical sense. Just such a learning experience can be found in the pages of Jean Kwok’s semi-autobiographical novel, Girl in Translation, the sharp-eyed tale…
This, declares Jesse Morreale, is “where all the dive bar, rockabilly, East Colfax crowd crashes the Cherry Creek ’hood.” He’s talking about Rockabilly and Ribs, which goes today from 2 to 7 p.m. and continues every Sunday through September 5 at Tambien, Morreale’s rollicking Mexican cantina at 350 Steele Street…
Denver is a town that likes the arts but doesn’t always acknowledge art from the fringe. Still, Patrick Mueller and his Packing House Center for the Arts are drawing ever closer to solidifying the elusive goal of becoming a major venue for avant-garde performance with Stop. Crawl. Walk. Run., a…
For six generations, Tupperware preserved leftovers and gave women a good excuse to party, but recently it seemed that those parties had become passé. Then Dixie Longate got involved. With her bouffant hairdo, trailer-park pedigree and penchant for calling everyone “Hooker,” the drag queen has taken Tupperware and proved that…
It’s reassuring to starving artists/waiters everywhere that the multiple Tony Award-winning creator of Rent, the late Jonathan Larson, was a decade-long waiter who seriously entertained the idea of giving up his art for a more conventional path. Larson’s pre-Rent doubts are showcased in the posthumously produced rock musical, Tick, Tick…BOOM!,…
Mile High Marketplace, the year-round value-conscious shopping extravaganza, is “very multicultural,” notes event and venue director Gina Hallisey. “We celebrate that all year long. And it only made sense for us to celebrate the Hispanic culture.” Highlights of the Mile High Cinco de Mayo Event include live music from Alegres…
There’s no shop-till-you-drop affair more time-honored in the metro area than the annual Ladies Only Sample Tour, which began several years ago in Historic Downtown Littleton and spread more recently to fellow Original Shopping Districts member neighborhoods. It’s a sweet idea, wherein local independent merchants band together to offer free…
When Augustus Gloop, the obnoxious and greedy dolt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, drowned in a river of chocolate, families all over the world nodded in unison: If it’s my time, they all agreed, death by chocolate sure as hell beats getting flattened by a semi or dying of…
Ten years ago, both the comedy club and the resident ensemble Bovine Metropolis kicked off their careers by moving into the old Changing Scene theater space, a quaint upstairs location at 1527 ½ Champa Street, and staging something called The Confession Stand. “It was the very first sketch show performed…
Local painter Rita Derjue’s specialty is wildly colored neo-Fauvist watercolors of the Western landscape, and her latest efforts are now on view in Roadblock at Artists on Santa Fe. You can see them today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or wait until tomorrow’s First Friday reception, from 6 to…
More than a few participants in Create Denver Week, which took place earlier this month, came away giddy with the power of networking and collaboration. And many had the same question: “Why can’t it always be like this?” The answer is that it can. Transplanted Chicagoan Sandra Fettingis was already…
Maybe the only thing you know about the Salvation Army is that volunteers ring bells in front of storefronts during the holidays and stand next to red metal buckets to hold your donations. But the group is really “a 365, twelve-month-a-year organization,” says spokesman Roger Miller. “The money we collect…
One thing’s for certain: Godzilla, King Kong and a robot have more in common than most of MCA Denver’s Mixed Taste lecture topics. “Mixed Taste is tag-team lectures on unrelated topics,” says MCA development director Scott Anderson. “The audience gets to listen to two totally different lectures on two unrelated…
Reyna Von Vett’s alter ego, Cora Vette, has been emceeing burlesque events at Bender’s Tavern for the past few months, but the time has come to move on. “Bender’s was awesome,” Von Vett enthuses, but she’s excited about getting back into a theater space. “We’re going to add back a…
