Often it is the case that from bad comes good. For Natalie Brown, it took a few slipped discs, a natural disaster, the untimely death of a loved one and the Great Recession to find her calling: the Phantom Circus, the performance group she founded that will debut at the Oriental…
Local stages are going dark as companies prepare to raise the curtain on their fall seasons. But there are still a few worthwhile productions around town, including The Last Romance at the Barth Hotel. Keep reading for our capsule review of that show, as well as two more. Footloose. The…
As summer draws to a close and the school year begins in earnest, workaday concerns crowd out the carefree vibe of summer. But you still need to get out and enjoy yourself, so we’ve assembled a list of ten shows that demonstrate the wide variety of comedic entertainments in town…
Whether you like your theater ribald, incredibly creative or made up on the spot, there’s something new for you on a stage in Denver this week. The curtain’s rising on a new season; sit yourself down at one of these three shows: The Money Shot Avenue Theater September 1 through…
The Edge Theater Company has never staged a musical during its six years, nor has Edge artistic director Rick Yaconis ever directed one — until now, when Edge is roaring into the new season with a scintillating pop-rock work called Murder Ballad. This isn’t a standard musical. The small-scale, sung-through…
Cameron Esposito is a zeitgeist-seizing standup comedian who’s performed on late-night staples like Conan and The Tonight Show, written regular columns for Vice and The A.V. Club, landed a recurring role on Maron and joined the ensemble cast of the romantic comedy Mother’s Day. Esposito also co-hosts the weekly live show Put…
Frankie and Johnny work at a greasy spoon in New York. He’s a short-order cook and she’s a waitress. When we first encounter them in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, they’re having passionate sex in the dark. Which leaves us, the audience, in the dark, too, listening…
The Boulder Fringe Festival is under way, with performances in unexpected places around the town. In fact, tonight you can see the redoubtable Band of Toughs present its adaptation of As You Like It, which is set in the Forest of Arden, as a kind of primitive rager outside the Highland…
Though they’re usually buried under weightier news stories, mainstream media outlets are full of outlandish tales, bizarre characters and endless comedic possibility — especially this election season. Brent Gill digs up these gems for Infauxmation!, an improvised comedy show that presents a series of wacky news stories to a crew…
It doesn’t so much arrive as it does infiltrate. The Boulder Fringe Festival sweeps into town for its twelfth annual celebration, twelve days beginning August 17, sprouting up in the most unlikely, ad hoc places all over downtown Boulder. Twenty-five acts will freewheel along, entertainers from around the world that…
Daniel Reskin, a transplant from Miami, relocated to Denver with little but solid material and a few connections; he quickly ingratiated himself with the local performance scene. (An under-acknowledged benefit of new residents is that they find opportunity where locals see only wreckage.) Space Owl Alliance, Reskin’s new comedy/music hybrid showcase,…
“The Bug Theatre is truly the most unique performance venue in Denver,” says Deb Flomberg, who’s used the Bug for some very unique performances. But on Friday, August 5, Under the Big Top was all about the Bug itself — the second annual family-friendly event designed to raise funds for…
“The first time I wrote a play, I was teaching high-school theater, 25 years ago,” says John Moore, the award-winning former Denver Post theater critic and current senior arts journalist at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. After that came a long hiatus until Brian Freeland, then artistic director…
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival wraps up its 2016 season this weekend on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. To see if you can still score a ticket, call 303-492-0554 or go to coloradoshakes.org. Read our capsule reviews of three of this season’s shows, all still playing. The Comedy of Errors. Egeon…
In August, many people escape the city for one last summer vacation — but here in Denver, you can escape your everyday life by simply spending a night at the theater. Here are three new options: The Greater Good Three Leaches Theater at Spark Theater 985 Santa Fe Drive 7:30…
Every year, Senior Housing Options, which provides safe, caring housing for indigent older and disabled people in several Colorado locations, mounts a theater production at Denver’s Barth Hotel as a fundraiser. This year, the play is Joe DiPietro’s The Last Romance, and the money will go toward safety equipment and…
With the dog days of summer fully under way, sweaty Coloradans may wish to heed the stars and avoid the sweltering outdoors. A second skyward glance, however, reveals that the August firmament sparkles with comedic luminaries all month long — many of them products of the Denver comedy braintrust. In…
Love will be in the air, along with the loins of several able-bodied improvisors, when the Air Sex Championships gyrate onto the Oriental Theater stage on Tuesday, August 2. Air Sex is conceptually similar to air guitar — if the axe were replaced with the body of an imaginary lover…
For years, Quincy Jones was known in the independent comedy scene in Los Angeles for his welcome presence and laidback observational humor. Like most fledgling comics, he hustled hard at local shows and open mics, longing for the opportunity to get a crack at the infinitely larger audience that a…
In Little Shop of Horrors, currently showing at Miners Alley, Seymour, a nerdy young guy who works in a failing florist shop that’s situated, inexplicably, on skid row, is hopelessly in love with fellow worker Audrey. Unfortunately, she is in a relationship with Orin Scrivello, a sadistic dentist, and is…
The fourth annual High Plains Comedy Festival begins just thirty days from now, and the 2016 lineup has all the makings of an old-fashioned giggle gauntlet. From August 25 through August 27, over 100 of the country’s funniest people will descend upon Denver’s Baker neighborhood to crack wise, tickle fancies and…
Whatever happens at Voodoo Comedy Playhouse this weekend, it will definitely come as a surprise. “They like to keep it a secret,” says Voodoo head honcho Steve Wilder of the mockable movies on the menu for Friday and Saturday, when Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff, stars of TV’s iconic 1988-1999 Mystery Science…
