Formed by Harvard alums Thomas Lauderdale on piano and China Forbes on vocals, Pink Martini mixes up music with a distinct, pedigreed sophistication. And yet the group’s cheeky wit and smooth orchestral swing amounts to a kind of comfort food for the ear, eye and soul. Over the course of…
Every now and then, the Buntport troupe decides to remind audiences that they’re not just clever, funny, creative and entertaining; they’re also artists. And that’s just what they do with Indiana, Indiana, a production based on a novel by Laird Hunt of the University of Denver. The story isn’t complicated…
Jeffrey Nickelson, who passed away last week, made a huge contribution to the theater scene in Denver, both as an actor and a director. He created Shadow Theatre on a $500 donation, and — against all organizational and financial odds — kept the company alive and artistically kicking for a…
It’s been a wild season for the Colorado Rockies, the kind that had fans cursing the club before the All-Star Break and jumping on the bandwagon after it. In fact, the Rockies have won more games than any other National League team since Jim Tracy replaced Clint Hurdle as the…
Denver artist Michael Brohman is known for conceptual sculptures and installations with ambiguous narratives. He’s also known for having edgy, if not questionable, tastes that result in the use of stomach-turning materials like human bones and skulls, animal pelts and remains and, believe it or not, horse manure. And then…
Currents. Traditional American Indian art is a well-established genre, and many Native American artists still practice the old forms of weaving, pottery-making, metalwork and basket-making. But there are also contemporary artists among the tribes, and this latter group is the focus of Currents: Native American Forces in Contemporary Art. The…
Dial ‘M’ for Murder. Frederick Knott’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder is one of those stylish, intricately plotted murder plays, though not a whodunit. We know early on that the villain is onetime tennis pro Tony, who wants his wife, Margot, murdered; we watch as he hires the man to do…
When, in the early ’00s, I worked as a freelancer for a publication two floors below Vogue — this was pre-Devil Wears Prada — each sighting of Anna Wintour, from no matter how great a distance, was terrifying enough to immobilize me for a few seconds, leading to a sweaty…
Sophie Barthes’s clever metaphysical comedy Cold Souls has been dubbed “Being Paul Giamatti” more than once since its Sundance 2009 debut. But if comparisons to the films of Charlie Kaufman are inevitable, the similarities go only so far. Sure, Paul Giamatti plays “Paul Giamatti,” another “real” actor unwittingly embroiled in…
Shadow Theatre’s last celebratory opening took place over a year ago, when then-artistic director Jeffrey Nickelson unveiled the company’s comfortable, brand-new theater to a throng of elegantly dressed well-wishers. The show was Dinah Was, and though it featured the magnificent René Marie in the title role, both script and production…
Fort Collins’s three-day TriMedia Film Festival showcases a handful of movies featuring recognizable faces, including Trucker, co-starring Michelle Monaghan and Nathan Fillion, and Broken Hill, with Timothy Hutton. But the curators also serve up a potpourri of more obscure offerings that encourage, and frequently reward, cinematic spelunking. Documentaries include Blue…
Earlier this year, curator Christoph Heinrich undertook a major reinstallation of the Denver Art Museum’s Modern and Contemporary collection. The result, dubbed Focus: The Figure, is in the Hamilton Building. For the 2009 Logan Lectures, sponsored by Vicki and Kent Logan and the DAM Contemporaries, Heinrich invited artists whose work…
Everyone knows it’s good for the community to support local businesses and projects, especially in these economic times. Well, here’s an opportunity to put your money where your “buy local” mouth is: The world premiere of the brand-new Olivia Rox! — an independent film that was shot entirely in Boulder,…
Conspiracy theories are as much a part of the American landscape as Facebook and apple pie. The moon landing was faked, 9/11 was an inside job — this is the fuel for Denver native Steven Dietz’s new play, Yankee Tavern. Set in a run-down tavern in New York City, Dietz’s…
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read,” Scout, the young tomboy narrator, confides in To Kill a Mockingbird. “One does not love breathing.” Now To Kill a Mockingbird has been called on to breathe new life into One Book, One Denver, the five-year-old program that…
Meet up with like-minded advocates of technology and social media and help some kids in Africa tonight at the Denver Twestival. That’s short for “Twitter Festival,” and it’s the local iteration of a global event organized via Twitter to help worthwhile causes. The Denver event will raise funds and collect…
William Biety, director of the van Straaten Gallery, never fails to come up with interesting shows to fill the place, and the current pairing, Floyd Tunson: Remix and Andrea Modica: Platinum/Palladium Prints, is no exception. Interestingly, both artists have an association with quaint Manitou Springs: Tunson has his home and…
Fort Collins’s three-day TriMedia Film Festival showcases a handful of movies featuring recognizable faces, including Trucker, co-starring Michelle Monaghan and Nathan Fillion, and Broken Hill, with Timothy Hutton. But the curators also serve up a potpourri of more obscure offerings that encourage, and frequently reward, cinematic spelunking. Documentaries include Blue…
One of the region’s most solid a cappella choral groups, the Ars Nova Singers prove themselves year in and year out, with a repertoire that spans the ages of choral music, right up to the minute, and a vocal savoir-faire that can’t be beat. This year’s Ars Nova season, which…
Matt Kowal’s a busy guy. When he’s not occupied with his band, the Reals, he’s working as the Tour de Fat Creative and Sustain Director at New Belgium Brewing Company, aka the Tour de Fat impresario. In that capacity, those big old clown boots he wears oblige him to make…
Kids today don’t know from circuses; it’s either all Ringling’s bang, pop and elephants or the mystical nonsense of the cirque-style shebang. But the other kind of circus — the mom-and-pop-style extravaganza that’s been in the family since, say, 1842 and travels about from town to town with its tent…
Can anyone out there tell me exactly what the hell happened with this whole subprime-loan fiasco that apparently completely screwed up the economy and led to $12 trillion and counting of our hard-earned American dollars disappearing into the bottomless coffers of Wall Street? Anyone? Because all I’ve heard on the…
