Doug Benson, comedy’s stoner laureate, defies the facile stereotype that weed makes you slothful and unmotivated. Despite being a habitual wake and baker, Benson currently runs two live podcasts, spends a healthy percentage of every year working the road, has starred in three documentaries and released an album and live…
May 6 is a pretty wild day, since it’s National Beverage Day as well as International No Diet Day. It’s also the day that kicks off the weekend, and there will be plenty of events to help you celebrate both beverages and no diets, as well as outdoor markets and live…
More than any other Denver co-op, Spark Gallery has held onto its members, some for decades. So it’s no surprise to find the two main rooms occupied by a pair of artists who are longtime members and veterans of the alternative scene: In the west gallery, there’s Sue Simon’s Anxiety, and…
Denver’s a pretty great film town, but that doesn’t mean that all of cinema’s many niches and genres are equally well represented. You can always catch a blockbuster film at any neighborhood multiplex, and plenty of arthouse, indie and repertory fare is available around town. But the weird stuff is…
New queen on the scene Jessica L’Whor gathered together every lady on Westword correspondent Keith Garcia’s January list of the Thirteen Freshest Faces of Denver Drag last Saturday at Charlie’s for a vision of the future of Denver drag. Photographer Ken Hamblin III documented the grand coming out with these images…
“Are you the woman in the photo sitting in the chair? I keep seeing these posters everywhere…” This Tweet from April 29 is buried in Ru Johnson’s Twitter feed by now, but it’s something the Denver writer and creative consultant has been hearing a lot in recent weeks. The now “buzzworthy”…
If Opera Colorado’s world premiere production of composer Lori Laitman’s adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, which debuts May 7 at the Ellie, is a hit with staying power, it may one day be thought of in the repertoire simply as “Laitman’s Scarlet Letter.” But opera is a team sport…
I like robots. That’s probably no surprise, if you’ve read this column once or twice. I like art, too. That might be a surprise, I suppose. But even if you were a little surprised at that, I bet your surprise would quickly evaporate when I told you the art I…
Shows in town right now include work by artists who haven’t exhibited here in some time — and they’re a welcome sight. That Was Then, This Is Now, conjoined solos at Goodwin Fine Art, pairs paintings by Mark Villarreal and Andy Berg; though both have lived in Colorado for decades…
This week on Denver stages, you can find everything from tongue-in-cheek local color to a play about origami in which love and life fold up into the plot. Or don your best chapeau to help ensure that women playwrights continue to be heard in the Mile High City. Here’s the…
In the back of his store, at the trestle tables set up for visiting artists, Wayne Winsett considers what it takes to make it for 32 years in the comics business. “It consumes you,” says the owner of Boulder’s Time Warp Comics & Cards. “You have to be wholly devoted…
As spring begins in earnest and Denverites bask in the long-awaited sunshine, our city’s parks and a variety of outdoor activities tend to outshine cultural pursuits. While little can compare to the allure of the natural beauty blooming us, the comedy calendar this May is pollinated with a series of…
Stephen Graham Jones is hungry. It’s early afternoon on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. Jones, in black boots and a black ponytail, sits in his cramped but cozy office, digging into a bag of fast-food burgers. The office has the rich, dusty smell of a used bookstore, which…
#81: Louise Martorano When original RedLine director P.J. D’Amico stepped down, veteran deputy Louise Martorano was there to take the reins, assuring that the art center’s mission of supporting artists while engaging all sectors of the community would continue to evolve and grow. Mission accomplished: All systems are go as…
I have never been good at naming things. I usually tend towards a one-word solution; my former shop, Pod, and gallery, Capsule, were prime examples of this propensity. It takes me hours to name a work of art, googling and reading etymology of words as I overthink. When it came…
Theater in the area has really come to life lately, introducing new plays and writers, posing interesting ideas and offering glimpses into worlds I’ve never really known. Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina, receiving its regional premiere at Edge Theater, brings us into an enclosed and semi-secret world: a 1962 Catskills retreat…
Breastfeeding, stretch marks, stitches – gulp – down there: “People are very freaked out about mothers’ bodies,” says Michelle Baldwin, aka Vivienne VaVoom, the mother of burlesque in Denver. At 8 p.m. Sunday, May 8, Baldwin will host the Hot Mamas! Mother’s Day Burlesque peepshow at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox, where…
If nothing else, Captain America: Civil War stands as something of a corrective to this spring’s other superheroes-bludgeoning-each-other opus, Batman v Superman. While that film was severe and downcast, Civil War is expansive, at times even light. BvS strove to redefine its superheroes to fit newer, darker, borderline-sociopathic molds; Civil…
The lure of everything Cuba is strong. It’s in the news, on top of everyone’s travel list and in our movie theaters. But the recent films about Cuba aren’t exports from the still-embargoed country. Most come from visiting filmmakers. Irish director Paddy Breathnach captures a gorgeous portrait of Cuba with…
Is it too much to ask that all these holiday-themed rom-coms — Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve and now Mother’s Day — one day merge with the Halloween movies? Michael Myers might be the only one in either franchise with a truly cutting response to all the rhetorical musings about relationships romantic,…
It’s easy to think, based on the marketing, that the first feature film from acclaimed comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele will be a hundred minutes of an adorable kitten dressed in a do-rag and gold chain for easy laughs, but Keanu is so so much more than that…
Imagination and a lot of fancy folding, fitting and old-fashioned cut-and-paste make the annual Art Directors Club of Denver’s Paper Fashion Show a true art experience, and this year’s event, which raised funds for Downtown Aurora Visual Arts, was nothing less than fabulous. Here’s a peek down the runway from…
