Pakistan’s K2 mountain is the second highest in the world, and it kills climbers: One dies for every four who make the summit. Very few of us can understand what drives those who attempt these summits, deliberately exposing themselves to terror and pain, nor can we know what it feels…
Memory deceives. The written word tries to encapsulate memory, but it, too, deceives — and sometimes it deceives deliberately. And so does playwright Steven Dietz. His plotting for Fiction is cunning, and the layers of complexity he builds around the basic concepts of truth and fiction are even more so…
According to Kent Welborn, the mind behind the samurai host of the new “Laughing Dragon Cake Samurai Fun Show” at the Bovine Metropolis Theater tonight, the intention is not to make fun of Japanese culture. “We’re trying to celebrate it,” he amends, “and we’re trying to get laughs by making…
The Field. Bull McCabe has been farming a few acres for several years — fencing, tearing out weeds, fertilizing — until the barren soil has become a lush pasture for his herd of cows. And now the owner, a poor widow, needs to put the field up for sale. Enter…
I was enthralled the first time I saw Cirque du Soleil, forever ago when all that myth, glitter and spectacle was new to me. I still remember one specific moment clearly: I had the luck to be sitting very near the stage, and at the end of the performance, the…
Some directors might get a hold of the script for David Holstein’s The B-Team — about a group of second-string terrorists who fail at everything they try — and think, “A play about Pakistani terrorists must be cast by Pakistani-Americans. Obviously. Of course.” But not Jeremy Make. No, he cast…
After two months of bankruptcy proceedings, an eviction and at least one accusation of looting, the embattled Shadow Theatre Company opens its first production since it moved An Evening with Nina mid-run from its former space at 1468 Dayton Street to the Aurora Fox in January. The show, In Search…
In its five years of existence so far, the Curious Theatre Company has lured some pretty prodigious figures into its annual Denver Stories production, where it pairs local celebrities with playwrights and has them produce autobiographical short plays; previous lineups have included former Governor Bill Ritter, MCA Denver Director Adam…
Written in 1939, Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes is showing its age — both in the dated characterizations and the high-pitched, melodramatic tone. This is a serious melodrama, though, exploring the shifting of an era as, thanks to industrialization, the old order in the American South gives way to the…
Naughty Pierre, looking naughtyIn the true spirit of cabaret, Lannie Garrett and her Clocktower Cabaret have always brought a diverse array of entertainers to the stage, focusing on the more nostalgic entertainment like burlesque, skits and sing-alongs. Tomorrow night, Clocktower staple and goofball MC Naughty Pierre will be hosting a…
Though it’s set in rural Ireland in 1965, John B. Keane’s The Field, now playing at the Denver Vic, tells a universal story about land — at least on one level. Bull McCabe has been farming a few acres for several years — fencing, tearing out weeds, fertilizing –until the…
If you’re a real Denver old-timer, you might remember the Third Eye, a brave little independent theater that operated out of a second-floor loft at Second and Broadway by local theater pioneers Joey and June Favre. It was a funky little space with black walls, plush red chairs pirated from…
The Catch. Ken Weitzman’s play explores the well-worn concept of baseball as a metaphor for America itself, but in new and interesting ways. In the hands of Darryl Love, the boastful, charismatic player at the center of the story, the ball itself becomes a symbol, its seams stitching over the…
If memory holds, I tried reading Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment when I was a dutiful little swot of about seventeen, and didn’t get much beyond the murder of the old pawnbroker. It’s one of those seminal works I’m sort of ashamed of not having read but probably never will now,…
As Reasons to Be Pretty opens, Steph is railing at her lover, Greg. The girl’s a spitfire, with a habit of tossing Greg’s goldfish into the john when she’s angry, but at this moment she’s beyond all reason, incandescent with rage, a shrieking, spitting harridan who won’t allow the poor…
Reality TV is great because it’s obnoxious, because it’s trashy and because it’s unpredictable. The former characteristics are more or less unique to television (little else owes its appeal to the fact that it’s so terrible), but the latter element of relentless surprise is also definitive to Improv Star. This…
“I don’t think in terms of clean or dirty,” says comedian and promoter Onus Spears. ” I think in terms of funny or not funny.” Spears’ Huge Comedy Show, which goes down tonight, is definitely poised to be the former. Spears, who put this night together, got his start at…
Adam Carolla comes to Denver this weekend to perform some visual-aided stand-up. Carolla, who is most famous for his stints on Love Line and The Man Show, now runs a daily podcast and last year released a book, In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks. We talked to him before…
From a very young age, Edie was chasing a dream common to many young girls: She wanted to be a showgirl. Except Edie is actually a boy. A dancer since age 8, Christopher Kenny spent years as a professional ballet dancer, but he never stopped chasing his real dream, the…
The Catch. Ken Weitzman’s play explores the well-worn concept of baseball as a metaphor for America itself, but in new and interesting ways. In the hands of Darryl Love, the boastful, charismatic player at the center of the story, the ball itself becomes a symbol, its seams stitching over the…
It’s hard to get enthusiastic about another production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve seen so many oafishly boring and over-the-top Bottoms; puppet-like Hermias and Helenas; Demetriuses and Lysanders so generic you can’t tell them apart; annoying Pucks. And just what in hell is a director supposed to do with…
This weekend’s New Play Summit at the Denver Center Theatre Company made it clear that after decades of sometimes sputtering movement, Denver has finally become a serious force in American theater. A large crowd — local and national playwrights, press folk, tech people, poor actors and rich benefactors, along with…
