Because of chance employment as a waitress at Comedy Works, Crystal Allen found herself surrounded by comedians — and her husband, Ben Roy, even became one. An aspiring photographer, Allen used this opportunity to start capturing on film not just aspiring Denver performers, but some of the most accomplished standup…
Over the weekend both Louis C.K. and Bill Maher dropped some wisdom about how the Internet is draining us of empathy and encouraging a consequence-free environment of cruelty and debasement. After spending the last two weeks whining about homophobic roasts and the irony of “clean comedy”, it feels good to…
Reading is about more than following a narrative or learning facts; it can also be a profound shared experience that culminates in a better understanding of ourselves and each other. In that spirit, welcome to the Westword Book Club, a weekly feature celebrating the books that inspire Denver artists.
Known as a blitz-eyed giggler from Half Baked, or the animal-hybrid, nostalgia talk-show host Goat Boy from Saturday Night Live, Jim Breuer has been subtly shifting his comedy content over the last five years, relating stories of domestic life and spiritual yearning through his autobiography and documentary. While avoiding any…
A wild-mannered legend of comedy history, Jon Lovitz has created a mid-tempo career with roles on The Simpsons and in movies like Casino Jack and Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks since his unforgettable years as a pathological liar and Jewish Santa on Saturday Night Live. Rarely a leading man and…
If 1967 was the summer of love, then 2013 was definitely the summer of laughter — at least in Denver. After absorbing three comedy festivals in four weeks, there must have been a lot of chuckle-trimmed abs that got another workout last night. Because closing out this season of the…
People love talking to their pets — and some even imitate their pets. But how many people can not only imitate their pets, but play a slew of characters at the same time? Somehow, Gemma Wilcox morphs seamlessly from male to female roles, from feline to feathered pets, in her…
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. There are so many levels to Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and such a mix of clarity and evocative ambiguity in the way these levels are presented. The play talks about the ugliness and irrationality of war and the dividing lines between cultures…
Playwright Amy Herzog enters a very specific world in After the Revolution, now receiving its regional premiere at Curious Theatre: the passionate, close-knit, hyper-idealistic world of Jewish Communism in New York City during the early decades of the twentieth century. In The Romance of American Communism, Vivian Gornick showed this…
Throughout all three hours of Camelot, I was entertaining a single question: Why would anyone decide to stage this thing? I’d been pleased when I first read the show’s title on the Arvada Center’s season announcement: I had never seen Camelot before, and was anxious to make up for it…
For Racheli Mendelson, a former EMT who’d been creating performance-art pieces since she was thirteen, it just made sense to explore her time serving in the Israeli military through a red-nosed clown performance. See the result at Mendelson’s Boulder International Fringe Festival debut, Shoot, Cry & Forget About It!: A…
On Sepember 19 Denver crowds will unload a serious amount of cash on an event titled “The Clean Guys Comedy,” which features such stand-up legends as Jamie Kennedy (Scream), Uncle Joey from Full House, and some other folks you vaguely remember from somewhere. The comics themselves aren’t what’s selling this…
Reading is about more than following a narrative or learning facts; it can also be a profound shared experience that culminates in a better understanding of ourselves and each other. In that spirit, welcome to the Westword Book Club a weekly feature celebrating the books that inspire Denver artists.
If you missed the big announcement of Off-Center@The Jones’s upcoming programming at the theater’s season opening event last night, you also missed a big party with lots of free beer. Under wraps until the live trailer show commenced, the venue’s third season of nonconformist theater can now be discussed, and…
Zoos tend to fare badly during wartime, with the plight of captive animals mirroring that of besieged populations. Diane Ackerman’s beautiful book The Zoo Keeper’s Wife tells the story of the Zabinskis, who ran a zoo in Warsaw that was devastated by German bombers: “The moaning of lions and yowling…
Multimedia artist Adam Stone has collaborated on four of Buntport’s most interesting shows, making music for three and contributing a soundscape and his own haunting presence to Wake, the company’s take on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. So a fair amount of excitement greeted the recent announcement that he had created a…
Homophobia in popular culture began to fade in the ’70s, and for the most part was dead and gone by the ’90s. With music, it began with disco and was stomped to death by riot grrrl. In film it was exposed with Boys in the Band, and deemed passé with…
The story of three multi-generational drag queens traveling through the Outback in a glittery pink bus — to a disco beat — takes a back seat to the costumes in Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical. The touring Broadway show is in the middle of its run at the…
Since the beginning of his career, Dave Coulier has worked in the realm of family-friendly comedy. His first major television role was in 1984, hosting Nickelodeon’s children’s sketch-comedy show Out of Control, where he became known for his goofy voices and the catch phrase “Cut it out.” He took that…
Happily wedded Hollywood sweethearts Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman make beautiful music together — and comedy, too! Although both found fame and fortune on sitcoms — Offerman as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation, Mullally as Karen on Will & Grace — their talents are too big to be confined…
50 Shades of Loud. Heritage Square Music Hall will close down at the end of the year after more than two decades of hilarity in its Golden home, where a unique small company evolved an equally unique performing style. The shows are simultaneously bumbling and brilliantly staged, professional and apparently…
Inviting the audience to work with musicians, dancers and performance artists in intimate, one-on-one shows, Tara Rynders, creator of You & Me, has seen great success across Colorado since she started her site-specific interactive perforcmances in 2011. The dancer has also taken her show on the road with events in…
