I’ve seen the Denver Center Theatre Company’s production of A Christmas Carol more than once, and as someone who was brought up on a diet of Mr. Magoo, Reginald Owen, that nice thick novel by Charles Dickens and, later, Bill Murray in Scrooged, I never tire of it: Well-played by…
Collapse. Comedy doesn’t usually get the respect accorded tragedy, but if you analyze the way that playwright Allison Moore has put together Collapse — the varying rhythms of the dialogue (everything from a touching monologue to a hyper-rapid patch of stichomythia); the surprises that seem inevitable once they’ve occurred; the…
Playwright Arthur Kopit and composer Maury Yeston were still putting together their Phantom when Phantom of the Opera, the Andrew Lloyd Webber juggernaut, trundled onto the scene with its thunderous music, grandiose special effects and falling chandelier. Phantom’s backers quickly vanished, as did any chance of a Broadway opening. But…
Everyone has a story to tell, including Matthew Taylor. Once one-third of the local comedy trio A.C.E. (shorthand for American, Canadian and Englishman — you do the math), he lost his job when ensemble partners Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein hit it big with their performance piece, Girls Only. Which…
American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose. Written by Richard Montoya, of the San Francisco performance group Culture Clash, American Night: The Ballad of Juan Josetells the story of immigrants in America through a crazed mix of skits, historical references, inspired parody and moments of pathos and insight. But the…
When Blanche, desperate and destitute, comes to live with her sister in A Streetcar Named Desire, she finds Stella sexily and happily married to Stanley, a working-class yob — a Pole, not a Polack, as he angrily informs Blanche. The couple’s home in the steamy New Orleans French Quarter is…
Cannibal! The Musical began life as a movie written by pre-South Park and Book of Mormon Trey Parker, when he was a film student at the University of Colorado. It starred Parker himself and Matt Stone, and later evolved — or perhaps degenerated — into a stage production that bears…
Ever since he attained cinematic immortality with a moving performance as Ranger Jones in last year’s live-action adaptation of Yogi Bear, T.J. Miller has been pretty much the greatest thing to come out of Denver ever. But the best part is, he loves us back: Six months ago, the East…
A Streetcar Named Desire opened this past weekend at Germinal Stage Denver. Juliet Wittman’s complete review will run in our November 17 issue; in the meantime, here’s a capsule critique:…
As founder of the Shakespeare & Company theater (a tradition in Lenox, Massachusetts for more than thirty years), Tina Packer knows her Shakespeare — frontwards, backwards and any which way you want. She’s also determined over time that the Bard created, by her estimate, only 177 major women characters, as…
This is one in a series of posts in honor of Denver Arts Week that salute some of our favorite people and places on the arts scene. The Nix Bros. have been busy the last few years doling out comedy films of all shapes and sizes, from the patently absurd…
Comedy doesn’t usually get the respect accorded tragedy, but if you analyze the way that playwright Allison Moore has put together Collapse — the varying rhythms of the dialogue (everything from a touching monologue to a hyper-rapid patch of stichomythia); the surprises that seem inevitable once they’ve occurred; the easiness…
American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose. Written by Richard Montoya, of the San Francisco performance group Culture Clash, American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose tells the story of immigrants in America through a crazed mix of skits, historical references, inspired parody and moments of pathos and insight. But…
It was always kinda, sorta meant to be, but late last week, the official announcement was made: The LIDA Project theater troupe led by Brian Freeland (a member of Westword’s Mastermind class of 2009) and the Control Group Productions avant-garde dance ensemble led by Patrick Mueller are forming a partnership…
For every parent out there worried about pedophilia, Doug Stanhope offers a reassurance: In all likelihood, nobody wants to fuck your kid. That bit is up there on the list of incredibly offensive Stanhope material, but it’s by no means all there is; over the course of his twenty-year career,…
American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose. Written by Richard Montoya, of the San Francisco performance group Culture Clash, American Night: The Ballad of Juan Josetells the story of immigrants in America through a crazed mix of skits, historical references, inspired parody and moments of pathos and insight. But the…
Certain moments from the past decade of reviewing remain indelible. I can still conjure Mare Trevathan’s riddling phrases in The Skriker; Nick Sugar’s bravura-filled but crumbling Hedvig; Randy Moore as A Christmas Carol’s Scrooge, knocked out by the sheer joyous wonder of a household chair; William Hahn’s protracted suffering in…
Rebecca Northan, a Canadian actress, walks a highwire in her almost-one-woman show Blind Date — almost, because two zealous men periodically pop in and out to check on her, facilitate the action or plough into the audience impersonating waiters. The evening begins as Northan sits forlornly at a cafe table,…
The melody of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going to Take It” floated in and out of downtown for thirty minutes Saturday. While the cries and tub-thumping of Occupy Denver protesters were louder, and the people dressed up as gorillas for the Gorilla Run seemed stranger, Denver’s first city-sponsored performance piece…
Tomorrow afternoon, all ninety members of the Bear Creek High School marching band will be strutting around downtown playing their instruments, individually. Each high schooler in Playing Apart (First mentioned on Backbeat) will be dressed in street clothes and playing for a mile or so (in the same territory as…
The whole point of Vox Phamalia: Quadrapalooza, the Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League comedy show opening tonight at the Avenue Theater for a two-weekend run, is that differently-abled people (or whatever the politically correct terminology is this week) have a sense of humor about themselves. And they think…
The Lion King is about to roar into the Denver Performing Arts Complex, followed by a revival of West Side Story. Such shows are not just popular with audiences, but with bogus ticket sellers, too. “We just want to make people aware that we’re really the only authorized ticket sellers,”…
