In the annals of American film, On the Waterfront is a juggernaut. The Marlon Brando-led classic about corruption and crime in a dock-workers’ union was not just a commercial success; it won eight Academy Awards and was named one of the American Film Institute’s top ten movies of all time…
Where there is legal pot, there’s bound to be pot art. Denver artist Michael Canada is banking on the assumption that if people in Colorado can smoke pot in their homes, perhaps they’ll want some pot-inspired imagery over their mantels to go along with it. Although there’s no way to…
According to Kevin Hart, producer of the Drunken Bachelor Talk Show, “there’s a real paucity of drinking-driven shows.” So he and comedian hosts Michael Collins and Eric Mather decided to rectify that situation a few years back by launching their own retro-style variety show. Hart, Collins and Mather designed the…
There aren’t many outlets for local playwrights in Denver, but Rick Yaconis, artistic director of Edge Theater Company, is determined to change that. This is the second year for the company’s On the Edge: A Festival of New Plays. “We wanted to diversify our programming and make a commitment to…
In 1944, Lena Baker became the only woman ever to die in the electric chair in the state of Georgia. The black woman with a checkered past was sentenced to death by a jury of white men during a five-hour trial for killing her white employer — and abusive lover…
The photogram, or “cameraless photography,” one of the most primitive photographic techniques, first gained attention in the 1930s through the experimentation of artists like Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Pablo Picasso and others, who made images by placing and exposing objects directly on light-sensitive material, leaving a negative image behind. More…
Ever wonder just how much real science is in your favorite science-fiction films? Thanks to the Denver Film Society and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science — who are teaming up for their fourth annual Sci-Fi Film Series — you’re going to find out. The series presents some of…
Superlatives are handed out way too often in the arts, but you can’t avoid them when describing the Vail International Dance Festival, which every year stages two weeks of dance ranging from classical ballet to contemporary to performances by artists from such shows as Dancing With the Stars. Director Damian…
Sam Gregory, one of the most interesting and talented actors around, began his professional life working for the California Shakespeare Theater soon after graduating from college. “I made $50 a week,” he says. “Maybe $43.37 after taxes.” This summer, Gregory returns for his third season with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival,…
While it’s not unusual these days to find an artist moving from medium to medium with ease, Paul Sietsema seems to do it in a completely original way, says MCA Denver curator Nora Burnett Abrams, who has just finished pulling together the exhibition Paul Sietsema: Films and Works. The show…
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender cinema is becoming the new norm, according to Denver Film Society programmer Matthew Campbell: Festivals such as Sundance now feature films about LGBT characters who are fully fleshed out and whose stories have less to do with their sexual identity, he points out. Marriage and…
The new projector that Joe Machetta has been waiting for has finally arrived. The owner of the Sands — focus of the cover story “Can the Sands Theatre survive digital conversion?” — was looking at a questionable future for the movie house he’s been running in Brush since 1958. But…
In the ballet world, Damian Woetzel is a rock star. A one-time New York City Ballet principal, he retired in 2008, his last performance marked by a burst of critical praise, a shower of blooms and an ovation that lasted ten minutes. Since then, he’s been busy. It’s impossible to…
There’s no crying in air hockey.Do you consider yourself a gladiator in the arcade? When the Denver County Fair hosts the 2014 Air Hockey World Championships next weekend, all of Colorado’s rec-room warriors are free to join — but the competition sounds stiff. See also: “Beer pavilion out, super-sized pot…
When people travel through Denver International Airport, they’re rarely thinking about the art there. Typically, a travelers are more concerned with cramming McDonald’s hash browns into their kids’ mouths and getting to the gate without a mental breakdown than they are with marveling at the artwork in the terminal. But…
Summer is a mixed bag at metro-area stages, where the local companies entertain with audience-friendly fare, new play festivals and Shakespeare under the stars. And there’s more, so what will you see this weekend? Here are a few ideas. See also: Dance Fever: The Vail International Dance Festival…
With Broadway now the center of the hipster universe, it’s hard to remember that time thirty years ago when Denver’s once gleaming “Miracle Mile” — a stretch of streamlined stores and car dealerships — had devolved into a malevolent mile of boarded-up storefronts, decrepit hotels and vacant lots. The area…
Outside in 303, the main summer feature at the Museo de las Americas, is absolutely spectacular, and makes a real contribution to local art literacy by revealing a scene of Latino taggers that has been more or less hidden from the rest of the art world — though their efforts…
For Paper Work, Cecily Cullen, the creative director at Metropolitan State University’s Center for Visual Art, has put together an exhibit that surveys artists from Colorado and around the country who are using paper to create 3-D compositions. Paper is a familiar art material, but it’s typically used as a…
Artist Jon Zahourek teaches anatomy from the inside out, creating model skeletons from clay. And with the Studios at Overland Crossing, just off Santa Fe and Evans, he’s also built a community center from the inside out, taking a former pottery factory and turning it into a space for art…
Beyond Pop: A Tom Wesselmann Retrospective is the Denver Art Museum’s summer blockbuster. Though Wesselmann was part of the initial group of artists who launched pop art in the ’60s, his accomplishments are not as well remembered as are those of his fellow-traveling contemporaries. Maybe it’s because his chosen topics…
The Colorado Theatre Guild’s Henry Awards, which were presented last night, have been growing in stature, professionalism and efficiency in some ways for quite a while — but this has come at a cost. The awards used to be judged by around a dozen professional theater critics, and because those…
