Exhibition designers at the Denver Art Museum have been getting cutesy recently with kid-friendly gimmicks and other tricks that make it easy to ignore the art. But there was no ignoring the high quality of the paintings in last winter’s Painters and the American West, which highlighted the collection of…
This loosely related trio of one-acts (Anton Chekhov’s On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, Maria Irene Fornes’s Dr. Kheal and Eugene Ionesco’s The Lesson) explored knowledge’s capacity to empower or paralyze. Propelled by Ed Baierlein’s tour-de-force performance in each play, the evening was by turns hilarious, intriguing and frightening — especially…
To organize Vance Kirkland, Asian Paintings, a breathtaking show displayed late last summer, Hugh Grant, the director of the Vance Kirkland Foundation, which is the keeper of the late Denver artist’s legacy, selected a combination of Kirkland’s 1940s surrealist landscapes, and his abstract-expressionist paintings from the 1950s and ’60s. Grant…
An evil barber’s wet dream, Sancho’s Broken Arrow provides a safe place for Denver’s hairier denizens to converge, drink microbrews and compare notes on Dead bootlegs. A sister establishment to Quixote’s True Blue (also on East Colfax), Sancho’s tie-dyed, trippy interior is an atmospheric improvement over the Golden Nugget Country…
The Powerpuff Girls: Heroes & Villains (Kid Rhino) is ostensibly a CD tie-in to the Cartoon Network series in which a trio of tots named Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup regularly triumphs over animated evil. But it’s also an exceedingly enjoyable indie-pop primer in which two first-rate local acts, the Apples…
Over the years, Bud Shark’s Lyons print studio, Shark’s Inc., has attracted famous artists from across the country who wanted to make prints at the mountain compound. Oddly, these prints have ended up more often in New York and London than in Denver. But that changed when the William Havu…
Secret South proves that 16 Horsepower has survived the hurdles of record label fallout (the band has signed with Razor & Tie) and shifting membership with its creative faculties not only intact, but heightened: This swirling mass of music, informed by the skewed American traditionalism of David Eugene Edwards, his…
Paintings done with stripes, bars, lines and planes is what you’ll find at Rule Modern and Contemporary Gallery on most days. Director Robin Rule fills the rooms with a mix of minimalist old masters from New York, like Carl Andre and Mary Obering, and local talents, such as Clark Richert,…
Arguably the best art-rock band ever to hail from Denver, Thinking Plague first introduced itself to the public with …A Thinking Plague and Moonsongs, a pair of platters recorded in the early and mid-’80s, respectively, that have been out of print for ages. Early Plague Years (Cuneiform) corrects this error,…
Smartly directed, honestly acted and imaginatively written, HorseChart’s production of O.T. took on prickly issues with the kind of spunky tenacity that one expects from a group of theatrical renegades. Clay Nichols’s drama, which was mounted as part of the National New Play Network, mixed flashback-style scenes with current happenings…
The self-titled debut from Open Road is a bone-chilling masterpiece of Kentucky-grown sound. Leader Bradford Lee Folk sports a harrowing voice, and he and his mates possess a commanding, retro-respectful grasp of their adopted music. From giddy stompers to tear-jerking laments, this record delivers all of the rustic goods…
The revolution will not televised; instead, it will be in multimedia, and it’s already getting started at Cafe Nuba in Five Points. Located at the Gemini Tea Emporium and run by Denver’s Pan-African Arts Society, the cafe hosts monthly sets of hip-hop poetry, performance art and political prose, monthly screenings…
The oldest community-theater group in the state, the Evergreen Players celebrated their fiftieth anniversary last year by winning the regional American Association of Community Theatres competition in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The group’s production of All in the Timing qualified the actors for the national AACT competition, which takes place this June…
Teachers at Denver’s East High School remember Don Cheadle (class of 1982) as an able student and a dedicated student actor; his turn as the Artful Dodger in Oliver is still cherished there. Since then, this talented character actor has stolen a show from Denzel Washington in Devil in a…
Following his own muse and intuition, local six-stringer Neil Haverstick coined the term “micro-noodling” a few years ago in reference to his disciplined knack for coaxing more than twelve notes from a musical scale. Using custom-built instruments (including an electrified ax capable of producing 34 tones per octave), Haverstick brought…
Before it was disbanded, the Denver Center Theatre Company’s Playwrights Unit gave local playwrights a chance not only to see their works receive a major production, but also to collect some actual cash. The group rewarded us with an embarrassment of artistic riches, including such plays as Molly Newman’s Quilters…
Alex Lemski, the driving force behind Denver’s Creative Music Works, is on a mission to keep the spirit of jazz alive, and his fanatical promotion of concerts featuring acts that share his goal is doing just that. His efforts to bring underground music into the light help make Denver a…
When the proprietors of perennial punk establishment the Raven got tired of their old digs on Welton street, they simply packed up and moved down the road to a space they christened The Cat. The new club is not an entirely different animal, however: The adornment is still minimal, the…
Matt Need and his friendly staff do what few proprietors of Denver music rooms do: They treat local bands with respect. Beneath the Gothic Theatre’s large stage lies a greenroom with furniture you’re not afraid to sit on, a shower you’re not afraid to step into, and bathrooms with toilet…
Peace, Love, Unity and Respect. The raver’s clever acronym seemed almost like an actual religion during the second annual Colorado Dance Music Awards, where club kids, candy ravers, promoters, performers and DJs put down their pacifiers to give each other big fat pats on the back. The event, organized by…
Undercover cops develop a sixth sense about people who may not be what they seem. That skill is probably what helped Steven Cowles win $510,000 on ABC’s reality show The Mole. For 28 days, Cowles, who works for the University of Colorado Police Department when he’s not in the limelight,…
Save the first Saturday in August for all the Olathe sweet corn you can eat. Last year the Western Slope Vegetable Growers Association donated more than 70,000 ears of the Colorado specialty, which were consumed by an estimated 20,000 attendees, all to benefit nonprofit organizations in the Uncompahgre Valley. It…
