Ben Dicke, a local actor and director, was inspired, astounded, knocked out, when he saw Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson in New York last year, and he decided it was a show that Denver audiences had to experience. The musical tells the story of our seventh president, set to propulsive emo-rock…
Comic T.J. Miller will be premiering his new series, Mash Up, on Comedy Central tonight. Known for his white-boy ode to Denver, being stabbed in Get Him to the Greek, and feuding with Dane Cook, Miller has become one of the most recognizable comedians to come out of this city…
Kevin James, best known for his leading role in the decade-long TV series The King of Queens, stopped through Denver on Thursday to promote his new film Here Comes the Boom. He was accompanied by former UFC champion, longtime friend and costar of the film, Bas Rutten. See aslo: -…
In this week’s Westword cover story, “It’s a Mall World After All,” we recognize the 30th anniversary of the 16th Street Mall by visiting some of the most important sites and looking back on its history in the heart of downtown Denver. As part of this effort, we took a…
Well before it was a Disney cartoon, the story of a beautiful princess cursed by an evil witch to sleep for a hundred years, then awakened by the kiss of a handsome prince, was told through dance: The Sleeping Beauty was first performed as a ballet in 1890. And dancers…
The sixth play in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, Fences revolves around a deeply flawed protagonist, Troy Maxson. The year is 1957, and Maxson is a garbage collector; fairly early in the play, he becomes the company’s first black driver, only to complain later about the isolation of that position. Maxson…
Elijah: An Adventure starts with an arresting visual image: a group of people posed on a dock in attitudes of farewell while a great liner prepares to head out to sea. On the deck stands Elijah, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, seventeen years old and about to embark on a…
Mixing steampunk with the surreal and combining opera, theater, dance and circus arts, Luminous Thread Productions wants to give Denver a kind of show that the city has never seen before. That’s what Mary Lin and Ben Sargent had in mind when they began dreaming up their unique production company…
It’s going to be a Gorey October at Bovine Metropolis Theater. Edward Gorey, that is. Every Wednesday this month, the theater company will be performing an improv show based on a peculiar play titled The Helpless Doorknob by the macabre author and illustrator. But unlike a standard theater production with…
Peter Davison is a juggler with a difference. He is co-artistic director of the Boulder Ballet Company, where he has danced roles ranging from Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet to Herr Drosselmeyer in the annual Nutcracker, and has won the National Juggling Championship both as an individual and with his…
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. The opening moments are pulse-poundingly exciting — music, live wrestling, flashing lights, tons of adrenaline from an already hyped-up audience. But the actual scripted beginning of the play is quiet, as a Puerto Rican kid called Mace describes his lifelong fascination with pro wrestling…
“Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed. — William Shakespeare, Othello As The Value of Names…
Ben Dicke, director and producer of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Aurora Fox, gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “blood, sweat and toil” — he’s invested all three in bringing this historical emo-rock opera to the Denver stage. Bloody Bloody was all set to open two weeks…
Now celebrating its one year anniversary, Denver’s all-female sketch comedy group, Ladyface, has become a strong counterweight to the booming male stand-up scene, often hosting the boys from Grawlix and Fine Gentleman’s Club in their sketch-comedy vignettes, and working the mic themselves as solo acts. “They’re both totally different, but…
In all of its forty years, Denver’s Su Teatro has never performed a more iconic work than the satire I Don’t Speak English Only. And considering that nearly everything the troupe and artistic director Tony Garcia touch is entrenched in Chicano culture and activism, that’s saying a lot. See also:…
Pulitzer finalist Dava Sobel is definitely a star — the asteroid 30935 davasobel is even named after her. And tonight you’ll be starstruck when the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company offers a free reading of Sobel’s play And the Sun Stood Still, which dramatizes the events that led Nicolaus Copernicus to…
In the early decades of the twentieth century, millions of people fell ill with encephalitis lethargica, a disease that seemed almost supernatural or like something out of a fairy tale: These people froze. They experienced a suspension of all life and activity, becoming silent, still and comatose, sometimes for decades,…
With autumn arriving on Saturday, many people are ready to sport new looks, complete with coats. One of them is local comedienne Kristin Rand, who has many humorous observations on Denver street style. Continue reading to learn Rand’s personal take on fashion, the best place to people-watch in the city,…
Cleo Parker Robinson is a Denver institution. Her dance company is now in its fifth decade, and tonight will perform the long-forgotten Southland, which Katherine Dunham had danced more than sixty years ago. This production should be a real revelation, but when we spoke with Cleo about the dance, we…
Few Denver natives have made as lasting an imprint on this city as Cleo Parker Robinson. For over forty years she’s been dancing her way through Colorado’s cultural scene, establishing a dance troupe and a school, winning countless awards and bringing social awareness to controversial subjects along the way. Her…
The opening moments are pulse-poundingly exciting — music, live wrestling, flashing lights, tons of adrenaline from an already hyped-up audience. But the actual scripted beginning of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety is quiet, as a Puerto Rican kid called Macedonio Guerra — Mace — describes his lifelong fascination with…
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, based on John Gay’s satiric eighteenth-century piece, The Beggar’s Opera, burst onto the Berlin scene in 1928. Revolutionary for its time both in content and form, it rocked the art world, and it has since been staged and re-staged, as well as…
