Immigrants and those who support them often talk about the richness and vitality that newcomers bring to this country, from the original settlers to the slaves dragged here in chains to the lonely and much-reviled Chinese men who built the railroads (Chinese women being legally excluded at the time). They…
Although rare, there were once American musicals that talked about politics and even acknowledged that poor people existed. Bertolt Brecht was their father. Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock, written in 1937, was a fable about workers and corporate greed so outspoken that the House Un-American Activities Committee tried to…
Improv theater is risky, especially when it calls for pulling an unsuspecting audience member onto the stage for the entirety of the show. Case in point, the Garner Galleria’s production of Blind Date, in which the show’s creator and only star, Rebecca Northan, hand-picks a fellow from the crowd to…
Of Love Songs for Poomouse, which opens tonight in Boulder, this much we know: It stars Bobby Dartt, whose unique sense of humor and elan is central to the musical revue. And it is all about the love songs — during the first half, Dartt covers some favorites; in the…
Clybourne Park. Racism persists, but the ways in which we feel and express racism change with the times. Bruce Norris’s brilliant Clybourne Park was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, at the end of which the Youngers, a struggling black family, are about to move into a…
One of the main things that differentiated America’s hippies from their counterparts around the world — France, Mexico, Poland, Germany and Ireland were all seething with protest at the time, and the Soviet Union drove its tanks into Czechoslovakia in 1968 to quell the Czech spring — was a zany…
To Kill a Mockingbird is an institution, a revered American novel that’s a must for every high-school curriculum, the inspiration for a well-loved film starring Gregory Peck and scripted by Horton Foote. Mockingbird has influenced discussions of race ever since Harper Lee’s novel first appeared in 1960; idealistic lawyers like…
2009 Broadway revival cast photos below by Joan Marcus. I don’t know exactly what I expected when I walked into the Buell Tuesday for the opening night of Hair, and after the curtain went up and the once-controversial musical got started, even my theater-going companion, an old hippie in every…
Denver comic extraordinaire and former Westword writer Adam Cayton-Holland is scheduled to make his TV debut tonight on the ABC sitcom “Happy Endings.” “I ably played the role of ‘Customer’ and it was my duty in the scene to order a sandwich. And I ordered the shit out of that…
Clybourne Park. Racism persists, but the ways in which we feel and express racism change with the times. Bruce Norris’s brilliant Clybourne Park was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, at the end of which the Youngers, a struggling black family, are about to move into a…
When Mary Shelley — poet, essayist, novelist and, most famously, the creator of Frankenstein — lost one of the four babies she conceived with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (only one child ultimately survived), he placed her in a tub of ice water to stop the hemorrhaging that threatened her life…
At the beginning of Parlour Song, demolitions expert Ned is showing videos of his work to his neighbor, Dale, owner of a car wash. Dale is polite but uninterested — he’s seen these many times before, though Ned seems to have forgotten showing them to him — but for the…
Beginning Saturday, Paragon member and executive director Michael Stricker joins co-founder Warren Sherrill and Emily Paton-Davies in the troupe’s production of Jez Butterworth’s Parlour Song, the last show of its present season, as well as the last to be performed in a sublet venue (in this case, the Kim Robards…
Clybourne Park. Racism persists, but the ways in which we feel and express racism change with the times. Bruce Norris’s brilliant Clybourne Park was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, at the end of which the Youngers, a struggling black family, are about to move into a…
As a musical, Ragtime inevitably lacks the complexity — as well as the violence and darkness — of E.L. Doctorow’s wonderful novel, but it still has a thousand times more intelligence, charm and integrity than the average musical. As written by Terrence McNally, with music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics…
Cats. There’s not much of a plot to Cats. You meet the Jellicles, with their cheerful faces and bright black eyes, who dance “under the light of the Jellicle moon”; the Ming-vase-smashing cat burglars, Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer; fat, elegant, gentleman’s club-haunting Bustopher Jones; and contrary-minded Rum Tum Tugger. The show’s…
Many people think of farce as a lesser genre than tragedy or even thoughtful comedy, because with farce there’s no focus on theme, subtext or characterization. But putting together a workable farce takes a lot of wit and ingenuity. Every piece of action has to be perfectly timed so that…
If you’re looking for the perfect date-night destination, keep on looking. Love, Sex & the Second City isn’t a show for a first date — because it’s about first dates and why we never make it to that second one… or the third…or the fourth. Love, Sex & the Second…
The gig is up! Last night saw Denver dance troupe Silhouettes take second place after Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. Tensions were high as both dance troupe Team iLuminate and teen band POPLYFE were initially given the boot. It came down to the final two and…
Cats. There’s not much of a plot to Cats. You meet the Jellicles, with their cheerful faces and bright black eyes, who dance “under the light of the Jellicle moon”; the Ming-vase-smashing cat burglars, Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer; fat, elegant, gentleman’s club-haunting Bustopher Jones; and contrary-minded Rum Tum Tugger. The show’s…
Denver’s fall theater season is already off to a hot and heavy start with offerings of every stripe, from classically funny (The Liar and Unnecessary Farce) to explosive (Justin Bieber Meets Al Qaeda) to thought-provoking (Clybourne Park) to just plain silly (Completely Hollywood (abridged)). And due to the wealth of…
Racism persists, but the ways in which we feel and express it change with the times — as exemplified in Bruce Norris’s brilliant Clybourne Park. The play was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, at the end of which the Youngers, a struggling black family, are about…
