Everybody by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a… hm. You see, it… huh. It’s a stumper, at least when it comes to describing it. It’s the kind of stumper you should see. Based on a 15-century morality play called Everyman, Everybody is a ponderous and philosophical exploration of life and death, posing chewy questions about what […]
Read More[Review] Tiny Beautiful Things (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company)
Hurray: the 2019-20 theater season has opened! My first opportunity this season came through Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (BETC)’s production of Tiny Beautiful Things, a one-act play based on a compilation of essays by author Cheryl Strayed, recounting her interactions with strangers through an advice column she penned. Strayed anonymously contributed to the column Dear […]
Read MoreTwo Fringe opportunities in September
I have written before about my ardent love for Fringe Festivals — smorgasbords of new, developing and boundary-pushing theater, dance, and art experiences. (Read a bit more about my local Fringe here and here.) In the course of my fanatical passion for this art form, I have made several friends who make their living performing […]
Read MoreHeadwaters New Play Festival
Hello, Creede! In the past few weeks I have mentioned Creede to many people who have lived in Colorado their whole lives, and have received blank expressions in return. However, when I mention it to someone who cares about theater, I can count on a different response altogether. In the summer, Creede is home to […]
Read MoreFort Collins Fringe Festival
The 2019 Fort Collins Fringe Festival has wrapped! (For an introduction to this Fringe Festival, read my previous post here.) This was my first year being able to attend my local Fringe in earnest. A few of my favorite moments from this year’s festival, in no particular order: Stalking a bridesmaid around Old Town as […]
Read MoreFort Collins Fringe is coming
When I lived in Cincinnati, my friends all knew that if they wanted to spend time with me during the Cincinnati Fringe Festival their best bet would be to join me for a show. When my schedule would allow, I would catch roughly 30 shows during the Festival’s two-week run; it is very difficult to […]
Read MoreNirvamlet (Band of Toughs)
Something is rotten in the state of… Seattle. Nirvamlet, a theatrical event by Boulder-based Band of Toughs, twists Shakespeare’s classic by casting Hamlet as the son of 90s grunge legends Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. Over the course of an evening you can meet Hamlet’s entire cast of characters, though they may be sporting more […]
Read More[Review] The Wolves (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company)
I have been interested in theater since at least fourth grade, when I began participating in my school’s plays. I am certain that before Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company‘s production of The Wolves I have never seen a play about nine high school-aged women — girls whose lives and struggles might have, at one point, resembled […]
Read More[Review] Men on Boats (The Catamounts)
There is an old Slate article that I am particularly fond of: a mother is reading The Hobbit to her 5-year-old daughter, and the daughter gets it into her head that Bilbo Baggins is a girl. She won’t be dissuaded, and insists that her mom read the story “the right way.” The mother says the pronoun switch was […]
Read More[Review] The Constant Wife (DCPA)
At intermission my husband leaned over to me to say, “This could have been written today. And it would still be shocking.” After all, The Constant Wife wasn’t penned recently; W. Somerset Maugham wrote the play in 1926, nearly a century ago. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) calls the play a “cheeky satire [that] […]
Read More