It all began with a photograph, taken more than thirty years ago on an auspicious occasion. It pictures a smiling who’s who of a generation of Chicano artists working in Denver in the late 1970s, and at their center, seated on a couch, the great Mexican artist Francisco Zuñiga. He’d…
A precursor to Westword’s signature Artopia on February 23, tonight’s Whiteout Fashion Show caps the Art of Winter by putting the spotlight on local couture. This inaugural fashion display features clothing and accessories from Westword MasterMinds Brandi Shigley, Mona Lucero and Deb Hendriksen of Equillibrium, along with a cast of…
The University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus has a futuristic quality, what with its gigantic neo-modernist buildings, all of them dedicated to medical science. But at the north end of the campus, finishing off one side of the Boettcher Commons, there’s a scrupulously detailed little jewel of a building dedicated…
20th Century Modernists. For her first show, Thérèse O’Gorman — who moved from Santa Fe to become the exhibition director at David Cook Fine Art in LoDo — has put together 20th Century Modernists, which highlights abstraction done in the West. The show proper, in the street-level space, is dedicated…
If Side Effects, an immensely pleasurable thriller centering around psychotropic drugs, really is Steven Soderbergh’s final big-screen film, as the director claims it will be, then he has peaked in the Valley of the Dolls. Scripted by Scott Z. Burns, who also wrote the screenplay for Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011), Side…
Just a week or so after the Pentagon reversed its ban on allowing female soldiers into combat, here’s another breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in the confused and shaggy comedy Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy —…
Here’s a play that creeps into your consciousness on little cat feet, so quiet and unassuming, so slow-moving at first, so indifferent to the flashier aspects of conflict and plot, and finally so emotionally absorbing that after you’ve seen it, you find yourself being visited as you drift off to…
Ed, Downloaded. Michael Mitnick’s Ed, Downloaded, which was commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company, had a reading at last year’s New Play Summit and is currently receiving its world premiere. It tells the story of a young man with a terminal illness who is engaged to an intellectual Englishwoman,…
To watch Melissa McCarthy as lovable chef Sookie St. James on seven seasons of the Gilmore Girls was to see an actress perfect the art of playing a sidekick. As the best friend of the show’s protagonist, Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), McCarthy dutifully provided comic relief and a shoulder on…
“I’ve been lucky in that I’ve always worked with writers whose voices are so specific that there really isn’t any way to recalibrate things without them being intimately involved,” says Steven Soderbergh as he swivels in a chair in the happily cluttered Flatiron District loft space that doubles as his…
Think of it as a snowy portal to Westword’s Artopia, which follows in just a couple of weeks: In the spirit of that multi-venue, multi-disciplinary night of Denver-made culture and art, tonight’s Whiteout Fashion Show focuses on fashion, with a healthy taste of Artopia-style art and culinary finesse offered on…
For the ninth annual Design After Dark fundraiser, the Denver Art Museum wanted to manipulate this year’s “Cirque” theme a bit. “The idea is to play off the theme with three words — illusion, contortion and tension,” explains Darrin Alfred, associate curator for the department of architecture. The thirty participating…
One of the most beloved (and most duplicated) albums of the twentieth century, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon has been adapted into endless forms of live entertainment, from kid-friendly laser-light half-time shows to the Flaming Lips’ brain-bursting acid tests. So it only makes sense that the album would…
Set your pin curls, grease up your pompadour and get ready for the Rock Steady Fundraiser and Fashion Show, a rockabilly-themed charity event that promises a swinging good time while raising money for the Action Center, a nonprofit that helps homeless individuals in Jefferson County. Taking place within the multi-million-dollar…
Brilliant from the start, Buntport Theater’s “live comic book,” Trunks, turns children’s theater on its nose by acknowledging the cyber-savvy wit of the modern kid and inviting the ’rents and everyone else to join in the delicious fun. And the literary thread of Trunks — each episode is based on…
As the Denver Center Theatre Company’s literary manager and dramaturg, Douglas Langworthy helps select the offerings for each year’s Colorado New Play Summit, which brings in theater people of every discipline and from all over the country for a two-day marathon of readings, panels and networking. Scripts are chosen from…
Growing up as an introvert, Susan Cain was constantly being pushed toward extroversion. “As I got older, I started realizing that so many of the people I admire, both in my own personal life and also some of my historical heroes from Charles Darwin to Dr. Seuss, they were introverts…
If the thought of Valentine’s Day fills you with horror, why not celebrate its imminent arrival with a scary movie? The Denver Public Library’s Fresh City Life program and Mile High Cinema are teaming up to show Pontypool for the second annual Heartburn Party. The Canadian cult classic is a…
Follies Voudou, the new incarnation of a year-old project by local burlesque darling Frenchie Renaud, is in many ways similar to the show formerly known as French Quarter Follies — but there’s more. “Normally, what was previously known as French Quarter Follies and is now Follies Voudou would be a…
Humans generate a lot of junk here on Earth, it’s true. But in space — the final frontier — the junk is spinning out of control, so much so that it could endanger the future of space travel. The hazards generated by colliding space junk — dead satellites bashing into…
In Michael Hollinger’s Ghost-Writer, the literary title takes on a literal undertone: When Franklin Woolsey dies in the midst of dictating his novel, his secretary, Myra, continues to type, loading up the play with questions about love, loyalty, ambition and plagiarism. It’s a three-person drama, in which the concept of…
Groups of friends have been enjoying nights out in the nice weather this week — and when it comes to street style, friends are always a good accessory. Education and insurance investor Melina Ward was spotted with her pals in tow, and was even wearing her friend’s coat at the…
