Cavalia is a sensory experience and a galloping triumph

I’d been enjoying Cavalia all along, but the moment that won me over completely came during the second act, in a piece called “Carousel.” To an exotic beat that sounded rather like Ravel’s “Bolero,” a group of robed people rode white horses through misty silver light, the white-lit outline of…

The floor gets very wet in Moby Dick Unread

When I first attended a Buntport Theater Company production and found six people in the audience — myself and my friend two of them — I’d never have predicted that the troupe would make it ten years. Other smart and talented companies have fallen by the wayside, but the six…

Art is more about friendship than art

Yasmina Reza’s cool, witty, much-celebrated and much-performed play is ostensibly about art, but it’s more about friendship. At the center of the action in Art is an all-white painting, purchased by Serge, a dermatologist, for a huge sum of money. Perhaps he feels a genuine affinity for the piece, perhaps…

Buntport Theater’s Moby Dick Unread benefit goes to a water-bound cause

Buntport — Denver’s funniest, cleverest, most low-key and least pretentious theater company — sets aside a benefit night for every production, usually to help a deserving local organization. Fittingly, with Moby Dick Unread, the company is wading into deeper waters. At Thursday’s 8 p.m. show, some ticket proceeds will go…

Now Playing

Garage Sale Loud: This Is It. Almost every summer, the folks at Heritage Square stage what is essentially a musical review with a thin sustaining plot line and the word “loud” in the title. The conceit is that T.J. Mullin and Annie Dwyer are siblings, and they’re reliving their youth…

Curious Theatre’s new grant could be a boon for local actors

Resident theater companies have been on their way out for decades. One of the last was at the Denver Center under Donovan Marley, whose loyalty to his company meant that first-rate actors could actually make a home in Denver — while audiences reaped the benefits. That’s an economically unsustainable model…

Puff piece: Reefer Madness on stage at the Bug Theater

Reefer Madness is a take-off on a legendary 1930s movie about the dangers of marijuana — a black-and-white film, shadowy and portentous, full of lurid warnings about how dope leads to crime and madness. Now that marijuana clinics are opening all over the state, city councils are discussing zoning far…

Daily Calendar: Judith Ren-Lay at the Mercury Cafe

Native Denverite, dancer and quintessential performance artist Judith Ren-Lay long ago left these parts for New York, but she did return periodically to perform here in `80s and `90s, all the while wowing the critics in the places where it mattered most: The L.A. Times called her an “urban griot,”…

A fine madness: Reefer Madness makes a comeback in big way

That old reefer madness has us in its spell: The time is ripe in Denver for a revival of Reefer Madness (aka Tell Your Children), the 1938 anti-pot propaganda film directed by Louis Gasnier. The subject of various revivals over the years, now as a work of comedy, Reefer Madness…

Fringe benefits: Boulder Fringe Festival offers intriguing productions

Since most of us cherish the romantic idea that true artists exist outside the mainstream, we’re intrigued by projects like the Boulder Fringe Festival, a no-vetting proposition with performances selected on a first-come, first-served basis or by lottery. I was so intrigued that at first I contemplated devoting a couple…

Now Playing

Garage Sale Loud: This Is It. Almost every summer, the folks at Heritage Square stage what is essentially a musical review with a thin sustaining plot line and the word “loud” in the title. The conceit is that T.J. Mullin and Annie Dwyer are siblings, and they’re reliving their youth:…