I tried to write a different column about today’s topic and “the thing didn’t happen.” It was stiff and weird and totally contrived, which is a total contrast with the thing that I want to actually write about. That thing is Mouse Couch, a local improv team that I think is really going places. Mouse Couch (no idea what this name is for, except probably something with the repeated “ou” diphthong?) is made up of three dudes, two of whom are deeply strange and one who seems fairly normal and sells real estate in his spare time. The strange ones have respectively inverse relationships with... Read More

I’ve written about boylesque before, the male iteration of the classic art of the striptease. It’s a lot of fun, even if the performers don’t have boobies—boobies being the currency of fun, of course. I want to talk about another specific boylesque event because it’s happening not only for the sheer joy of ogling males with the female gaze, but also for the protection and promotion of all booby-having people in the Denver area. The Front Range’s male improvisers and stand-up comics are moonlighting as Chippendale dancers and taking (most) of their clothes off to raise money for women’s... Read More

Immersive theater is having a moment. I attended a “summit” on immersives just last week. I actually had no idea what “immersives” were and just went because I was invited by someone who thought I should be there. The MC of the event informed the audience that the genre is defined by the audience being an active and interactive part of the theater experience. It’s a broad genre that includes everything from dinner detective shows to escape rooms to live action role-playing games (LARPing). Turns out I’ve been writing about immersives for months and didn’t even know it.  I intend... Read More

Denver Magic Show —————– By Jessie Hanson   Mondays in my world need a lot of help. Case in point: I was supposed to turn in this column on Monday, but it’s now Tuesday and here we are, still pecking away at this keyboard. Let it be known that I don’t do mornings or Mondays. Thus, when I heard that the first day of the workweek would be endowing with a magical evening every week, I trotted my caffeinated bones out to Capitol Hill to see what was going on.  Parking is a bitch in Cap Hill; a magician will never tell you the secret of her tricks, but I’ll... Read More

It’s never too late to enter the Dungeon!!! I’ve never done any role-playing games before, since my mother had warned me that it was a portal to demonic possession (long story—buy me a beer to hear the whole thing), but 2019 is the year to try something new, demons be damned. Mark Zuckerberg, a true nerd who I’m sure played his fair share of chaotic-neutral characters, recently suggested that I might enjoy a dip into the LARP end of the pool. Why not? I clicked the link and dove into the wild world of Woodlands & Wyverns, a partly-improvised, audience-guided, scripted theater piece... Read More

“Sonder, noun: (1) the sudden and profound realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own (2) a new production by the Circus Foundry” Sigmund Freud diagnosed all women as having penis envy. I would disagree with this, but I do confess to having a serious case of circus envy. I wish I were super good at the circus arts. I wish I could toss my body around on every aerial apparatus like a ragdoll. I wish I could juggle dozens of oddly-shaped objects with grace and alacrity. I’d love to bend myself like Gumby into pretzel formations. But I don’t. I just... Read More

There’s something appealing about late nights, a liminal space between being who we *should* be at work and who we *would* be if we didn’t have to work. Even when you do “real” work late at night, there’s an odd feeling of suspension from reality. You’re out prowling your way home, cold sober and still in your work uniform, while everyone else sleeps or applies more eyeliner in the bathroom of dive bar that’s never going to be as dive-y as your reality when you lock your car doors when waiting for a traffic light under a bridge in tiny hours of the morning. Aside from working late-night... Read More

We all have that one friend…the one who says, “Let’s get the *big* bottle of tequila,” or “You wanna go birdwatching in Deadhorse Canyon?” or “I got you a new vibrator because you look so pathetic lately.” If you don’t have such a friend, please go find one. The one in my life is called Taylor and she forwarded me an email a few weeks ago with the header “wanna go?!” I don’t know where she finds this stuff. It was a promotional message from a theater company called the Pandemic Collective, “a non-profit 501(c)(3) theatre company based in Denver, Colorado, dedicated... Read More

I spend a lot of my time doing things by myself. I would like to play a team sport like soccer, but I don’t have enough social skills to handle that, and so I run marathons instead. Sometimes this singularity bothers me more than others. Mostly, I’m OK with it. It provides connections I would not otherwise make. When you venture out alone and decline the Succubus of your cell phone, the world offers you unexpected opportunities. Such was the case when I found myself without a biking buddy one Wednesday night and so I pedaled myself down to the Denver Cruiser bicycle ride all by myself.  A... Read More

Bikes are a splendid example of a thing that unites a community and offers a network of caring and support. Cities that plan and build for bicycle transit have a higher quality of life. People that ride bikes are happier than those that don’t. Bikes are the closest thing we can get to human-powered flight. This last statement is subjective, but I stand by it. Bikes are not God per se, but they are goddamned fun! This premise might come across as a bit hokey; clearly, bikes are not omniscient deities. But I really do believe in the power of bikes to do really important things in the world. For... Read More