I’m a sucker for storytelling: I have to be as I’m a theater reviewer, although I suppose that all of us humans are to some extent. Stories on Stage is to theater as rap is to music. The ongoing storytelling series happening in Denver and Boulder takes short stories or segments of longform works, puts them into the hands of charismatic actors, and brings them to the stage with no accoutrement of movement or props—just as rap takes the bones of rhythm and word and presents them without the trimmings of instrumental music. The effect for both is addictive. I recently attended the performance... Read More

I ponied up for a glass of wine at the concession stand at the Aurora Fox Arts Center because I was there to see Squirrels, and the billing for it made me wonder if I was about to see an interation of CATS, but with more incest and a political agenda. It seemed like wine might be the drop of social lubricant needed to help me appreciate the experience. Here’s how it went. The setting of Robert Askins’ play is a drey (a squirrels nest) and it’s a time of inequality and distress. The fox squirrels, hailing originally from “the other side of the 7/11,” have encroached on the territory of... Read More

So, Othello is one of Sheakespeare’s plays. Billy the Bard himself wrote this rag hundreds of years ago and we just can’t get enough of it. You see, we’re still all f—ing and fighting and all hot and bothered about women making their own choices about who to f— and we get especially uptight when pale-skinned women decide to f— less-pale menfolk. Here’s how the story goes, basically.  Othello is a black dude who lives in Venice a long time ago. Desdemona is a hot, white chick who also lives there. She catches the feels for him and they elope or something, but anyway, her... Read More

“A story doesn’t have to be real to be true.” One of the opening lines of Kyle John Schmidt’s new play The Secretary could just as easily be flipped around to say, “A true story has many realities.” A dark and darkly funny new play at the Curious Theatre dives deep into the twisted and conflicting meanings of guns in America and how we all are related to the violence and power that they bestow upon us. The scenario is this: a small town, probably in the South or Midwest, based on the characters’ accents, is slowly dying from economic starvation. The only real moneymaker in town is... Read More

Sometimes, writing about art and theater feels a lot like falling down the proverbial rabbit hole as I try to find the angle to write about wandering through a haunted-theater immersive experience, getting splashed in a Halloween horror show in the basement of a spaghetti emporium, sweating through a DIY D&D in a comic shop, savoring (har har!) Sweeney Todd’s enraged high notes, and trying to quiet my howling dog in a public house. I’ve found myself in some odd and awkward scenarios. To update the metaphor, writing this column is a lot like drunk-clicking through an endless algorithm of... Read More

Puppets are like drugs: every culture has them, most people have tried them, and some of us have succumbed to non-salvageable addictions to their pleasures. I include myself in the ranks of that latter group. I find all kinds of live theater to be magical, but I especially love puppets. I find them enchanting; they’re just the right distance away, on the other side of the uncanny valley, where we trust them as humans (regardless of their corporeal form) AND they can do and say things that actual humans can’t. They embody the whimsy and fantasy of our imaginations, but are tangible in the present.... Read More

I went to see The Thanksgiving Play at the Curious Theatre this past week and I’m having a hard time writing about it. Not because it wasn’t well-produced (it was) or beautifully played (it was indeed), but because I walked out of the venue feeling like yet another clueless white person who should probably just shut up for a while. That’s a weird thing to write and it makes the play seems like kind of a downer, which it both totally is and completely isn’t. It was simultaneously both one of the most uncomfortable and one of the funniest things I’ve seen in 2019. The premise is this: the... Read More

Caution: Includes Spoilers! With October comes pumpkin spice lattes, last year’s limp Halloween decorations dragged back out onto my neighbor’s lawn, and gothic theater productions. Front and center of Denver’s autumnal theater roster is Equinox Theater Company’s production of Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Bug Theatre in LoHi. Stephen Sondheim’s opus is notoriously difficult and, well, the Bug isn’t quite Broadway, so my expectations were…reasonable. I’m happy to report that those expectations were far exceeded. Sweeney Todd is basically a Liam Neeson... 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

You guyz! You guyz!! You guyz!!! One of my favorite things EVER is coming to Denver! It’s called Bike Smut, and it’s rolling through Denver on May 8. Bike Smut is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a two-wheeled celebration of sexuality and transportation. And. It’s. Awesome. I first stumbled upon this treasure of short films shortly after I discovered that I really enjoy watching creative, independent erotica in large theaters. This was a whole new world of goofy people having fun and not caring what others thought about them. I loved it. Then I found out that goofy people can have fun... Read More