FRI, 3/12 “We love Denver,” say the producers of Rattlebrain Theater Company, as if to cover their tracks. “And you always hurt the one you love.” The improvisational troupe will explore its abusive relationship with the city in its fifth original comedic production, It’s Hickenlooper’s World — We Just Live…
THURS, 3/11 The average person has probably never heard of the seven women artists featured in a pair of exhibits opening today at the Metro State Center for the Visual Arts. The shows highlight the women’s works from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. “That’s what’s wrong with this world,” grumbles…
It’s amazing how readily recognizable the imagery associated with the American West is, especially considering how quickly the whole cowboy-and-Indian thing came and went. In less than a century, the Western states were transformed from a huge, unknown frontier into a settled region linked by railroads and lit by electric…
The unusual group offering in the main gallery at Pirate: A Contemporary Art Oasis (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058) includes pieces by artists from around the world. Mapas y Espejos (Maps and Mirrors) showcases the Matrix Art Project, a loose collective that mounts presentations such as this one throughout the United…
BECAUSE THE EARTH IS 1/3 DIRT. The CU Art Museum on the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus is an unlikely setting for a blockbuster contemporary ceramics exhibit — but here it is, anyway. The show was curated by a committee that included museum director Lisa Tamiris Becker and CU art…
Critic and scholar Vivian Mercier once described Waiting for Godot as “a play in which nothing happens. Twice.” I went to the Bug Theatre’s production of Godot with no particular expectations. The days when the play puzzled and infuriated the theater-going public, garnering equal parts derision and passionate support, are…
With Carlyle Brown’s The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show, Jeffrey Nickelson’s Shadow Theatre Company continues its mission of education and enlightenment. The play deals with a musical form that many of us would rather forget. According to a pre-show explanation by director Hugo Jon Sayles, minstrel shows did…
Cookin’ at the Cookery. Singer Alberta Hunter had an extraordinary life. She left her Memphis home at the age of twelve for Chicago, where she got her start at a rough club called Dago Frank’s. Eventually, she moved to New York City, becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance of the…
At first glance, Hidalgo seems to be nothing more than an old-fashioned, flat-footed adventure epic plunked down on a vast stretch of desert and amply furnished with the usual Hollywood conventions — a strong, silent cowboy on horseback, a couple of villains with nasty black mustaches, a killer sandstorm and…
Maybe the most amazing thing about the big-screen version of Starsky & Hutch is how much smaller it feels than its predecessor, the William Blinn-created, Aaron Spelling-produced cop series that ran on ABC from 1975 to ’79. Everything about this cineplex variation feels rinky-dink, like some extended variety-show skit that…
Of all the films directed by the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Effi Briest (1974) is probably the most literary (it’s adapted from an 1894 novel by Theodor Fontane), but there is nothing staid or inert about it. Using his customary command of technical skills and his uncanny empathy for actors,…
Christine Lavin is a storyteller. She naturally breaks into stories as she talks: about baking, about the airport, about her New York home, about chance encounters. Her talky tales answer questions or illustrate other vignettes. It’s what she does for a living, and the words bubble out of her spontaneously,…
Thursday, March 4 The Original Drag Queen Bingo hasn’t left the building, or even the city; it’s simply moved on up to the new Serengeti Nightclub, 1037 Broadway. That’s where hostesses Alexandra Winters and Chamblee Tucker, two of Denver’s funniest female impersonators, will now bitch and vamp their way through…
Violinist Joshua Bell is hot. The artist’s latest release, Romance of the Violin, a collection of thirteen works that span 400 years, is currently burning up the classical-music charts. “There are so many great melodies out there to choose from,” says Bell, who will warm up the stages of the…
TUES, 3/9 Slurp some slippery suckers during tonight’s sixth annual Oyster Eating Competition at the Boulder Jax Fish House, where competitors with stomachs of steel will down as many raw oysters on the half shell as possible in ninety seconds. “We’ve seen people pack oysters into a pint glass and…
SAT, 3/6 Alpine skiers, telemarkers and snowboarders can all hit Vail Mountain big time at today’s bump, big-air and rail competition — part of the 2003 Mogul Mania Series. Open to all ages and skill levels, Mogul Mania’s amateur and professional head-to-head dual mogul competitions and the two-hour Mogul Mania…
FRI, 3/5 Tom Quinn Kumpf believes in fairies. He’s even had an encounter with one, and like any native Irishman raised to take for granted the mythology of the land, he has no doubt about what happened. It’s just one of many intriguing stories in the Boulder-based Irish-American photographer’s new…
SUN, 3/7 John Leguizamo has never been afraid to make audiences squirm. As the Latino comic once said, “That’s my philosophy: Offend them all equally. You know we all have something wrong with us!” Leguizamo blasts into town to share his hilarious characters, jarring life commentary and personal anecdotes in…
These days, it’s hard to mention the University of Colorado at Boulder and keep a straight face. I’m referring, of course, to the involuntary smirks, cringes and eye-rolling that are among the most common responses to hearing all the juicy dirt about the athletic department’s controversial recruiting practices. (With the…
The current show at Denver’s modest but highly regarded Artyard Sculpture Gallery (1251 South Pearl Street, 303-777-3219) features the latest body of work by Carley Warren, a famous name in local sculpture circles. The exhibit, Burdens, highlights the artist’s signature style with a group of her familiar wooden sculptures, which…
Full Frontal: Contemporary Asian Art from the Logan Collection. The normal stock in trade for the Denver Art Museum’s Asian-art curator, Ron Otsuka, is traditional styles, but he’s been drafted into doing contemporary duty by a gift that includes more than a score of pieces by Asian and Asian-American artists…
The Denver Repertory Theatre is a new company inhabiting an old railroad station hard by Denver’s light rail. It’s a terrific building that houses a collection of artists’ studios and boasts shining wood, interesting rooms and crannies, bits of antique furniture and odds and ends of art. In other words,…
