A crash course in criticism

Summer camp for theatre critics, a community theatre showdown and our top 10 Colorado Headliners

Toni's back from two weeks at the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, where 14 working critics from around the country spent every day seeing shows, writing overnight reviews and having their work critiqued by peers and program director Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune. He shares what he learned about writing leaner reviews, leading with a clear opinion, staying "on the side of the art" and why the future of arts journalism looks a lot like what we're building here at OnStage Colorado.

Plus, Alex talks with Shane DeLavan, board president of the Colorado Community Theater Coalition, about the Colorado Theatre Festival coming to the Historic Elitch Theatre in Denver Aug. 14-16 — how adjudication works, why this cycle year could send two companies to regionals and how to attend or compete. Details at cctcfestival.org.

And as always: the best things we've seen lately, our top 10 Colorado headliners and a preview of our theatre road trip to Creede.

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome and episode preview

01:26 – Best things we've seen: 'Shakespeare in Love' at CSF, 'Sinners' at Red Rocks, plus review crew reports from Aspen, Breckenridge and Central City Opera

06:04 – Main topic: Inside the National Critics Institute — daily reviews, peer critiques and the three audiences every critic writes for

14:09 – "On the side of the art": cheerleaders, haters and how to assign blame (hint: it's usually the director)

25:02 – First time in a newsroom, plus lessons from film, food and dance critics

30:58 – The state of arts journalism and why local platforms are the answer

36:59 – Interview: Shane Delavan on the CCTC's Colorado Theatre Festival, Aug. 14-16 at the Historic Elitch Theatre

59:22 – Top 10 headliners: 'Around the World in 80 Days' (Buntport), 'Grease' (Theatre Aspen), 'The Yeomen of the Guard' (Empire Lyric Players), 'Henry V' (Telluride Theatre), 'Dames at Sea' (Butte Theater), 'Honky Tonk Angels' (Little Theatre of the Rockies), 'Matilda' (Candlelight), 'The Witch' (BETC), Thingamajig Theatre's summer season and 'Dear Jack, Dear Louise' (Vintage Theatre)

1:11:12 – Upcoming reviews and our Creede road trip, July 17-19

1:14:45 – Offstage: 'Bridesmaids' at Red Rocks, Nolan's 'The Odyssey,' 'Silo' season 4 and 'The Invite'

Subscribe to the OnStage Colorado Weekly Blast newsletter at onstagecolorado.com for reviews, news and detailed calendar listings every Thursday.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Hey, hey, hello, and welcome again to the Onstage Colorado Podcast. I'm Alex Miller.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

And I'm Tony Tresca. In this episode, for our main topic, we're going to be talking about my experience in Waterford, Connecticut, participating in the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. It was basically a big summer camp for theater critics, and I learned a ton that I am really, really looking forward to bringing back here to the Colorado market.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

All right. Yeah. A summer camp for theater critics sounds sounds awesome. Uh, or or hell if you're if you're uh if you're not of the persuasion.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Definitely. Yeah. I was like, there were definitely some days where uh lots of bug spray was needed as well as copious amounts of sunscreen. But uh all 14 of us fellows, we made it through.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Great. All right. Well, look, definitely looking forward to hearing more about that and talking about uh what you learn can be applied to the Colorado market. So uh in addition to that uh main topic, we're gonna dig into some of the best things we've seen recently, share an interview that I conducted with Shane uh Delavan of the Colorado Community Theater Coalition about that organization's upcoming festival in August, talk about the most exciting shows coming around up around the state, and also preview our upcoming theater road trip to Creed. So let's get into it all now.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Yeah, tons of fun stuff to talk about this episode. But let's start like we normally do with some of the best things that we saw since we lot since we last podcasted in June. Uh what do you want to kick us off with this month, Alex?

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Well, uh strictly just speaking of theater, I saw Shakespeare and Love at the Colorado Theater Festival, which is, of course, an adaptation of the film uh that was written by Tom Stoppard and another guy and then adapted uh, I think in 2014. Uh it's really, uh it's really a great piece of comic theater, uh, and it's so much fun. It's just, and it's it's incredibly well done uh production and and just I don't know, I can't say enough about it. It was just a really, really fun show uh all around. It's kind of a short run. So if you're interested in seeing it, you need to jump on, jump on tickets. But uh, you know, and it's also uh in the newly refurbished Mary Rippon outdoor theater. So you saw the first uh show uh 12th night uh there this summer. Uh one other thing, just kind of a creature comfort that they've introduced is they're they give out uh stadium seats there. So you don't have to lug in your own stadium seat or to sit on the hard, hard rocks of the theater there.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yeah, that definitely does help make the experience a lot more comfortable out there. And uh it's it's a lot easier on your back.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So um yeah, I I'll talk about like uh some film and and TV uh maybe a little bit later when we do our offline stuff or offstage stuff.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah, sounds good. I'll I'll just spend a quick moment on film, but it's film over at Red Rocks. I s I saw centers out there with tons of other folks in late June, and that was quite an experience. There were tons of folks donning vampire attire, lots of fake blood. Uh, and it was just a perfect film to see as the sun set out there, because as the film ramped up in intensity, it got darker and darker, and there was nowhere to look but the big screen. And that film is just awesome. If you if you haven't seen Centers, please do yourself a favor, check it out.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Yeah, that's a that's a wild film. Uh was it sold out or did it appear to be sold out?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

It was I it was not totally sold out, uh, which was a bummer. Colorado, where were you? Uh but it was pretty full, and the folks who were there had an incredible energy. I'm talking like when the Irish dancing part started, there were folks in the audience who started who got up and started doing the jig along with the Irish vampire. That was very fun.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

That's great.

unknown 4:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

So uh other members of the review crew were out and about. They uh uh Kim Nicoletti took a trip to Aspen and saw a chorus line at Theater Aspen, and she had some interesting things to say about that, most notably about the choreography, which uh she thought was was quite a bit different than pr previous productions of that that she'd seen.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Well, yeah, chorus line is a really interesting piece of musical theater in that uh with most musicals, you just have to buy the right to the score and the book, and you have you are obligated to perform the lyrics and the written text exactly has been written. Chorus Line actually goes a step further. When you buy a production of chorus line, you also have to license the license the original choreography that was used in the production and are obligated to perform that. This one is different that they did because they actually added in more ensemble choreography throughout, which typically there is after every after the big ensemble number at the start and they do cuts, those ensemble members are just kind of offstage throughout it, and the other chorus line members are also kind of just isolated during the solo numbers. This production didn't do that, which is that's fascinating to think about. I wonder how they got the rights to do that.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Yeah. Well, I don't know, maybe because they have lots of money there in Aspen and they just went paid them off. Like I don't know. Likely likely story. Uh also in the mountain areas, uh Kim also saw Murder on the Orney Express at the Breckenridge Backstage Theater. Uh, and that's the of course the Ken Ludwig sort of humorous take on the Agatha Christie classic. And then Alice Caterlin was out at the Ballad of Baby Doe at the um Central City Opera, and she'll be also checking out Masterclass, and she also did um the Marriage of Figaro there. So she's been covering all the shows up there this season. So if you're interested in opera, definitely check that on the site as well. Totally. All right. Well, let's switch to our main topic. So, Tony, you recently spent uh nearly two weeks at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut as one of 14 fellows at the National Critic Critics Institute. And I wanted you to talk about it, not because we necessarily have a lot of critics listening for tips, but because I think it's just sounded like an amazing experience and it reveals a lot about how critical writing about the arts is thought about at this level and what others are saying about how important this kind of coverage is.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Yeah, it was an experience unlike pretty much nothing else I've ever been in. I can honestly say with a great degree of confidence that I've never been in a room with that many critics, working critics, all at once. It was 14 of us uh at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center from July 1st through July 12th, and we were just totally living in the world of writing and learning how to improve our criticism the whole time. It was as the program director, Chris uh Jones, who is the head of the opinion section, as well as the chief theater critic for the Chicago Tribune, said he was like, this is like a grad school program in theater criticism packed into two weeks. And that it was Chris Jones, that it was.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

Yeah, it's an interesting kind of writing because it's it's pretty rarely taught, I would say. I mean, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a theater criticism class at a college. You know, I think a lot of us were sort of self-taught uh in one way or another. So uh the fact that you got a more formalized education in it is really cool. So uh so starting with the experience itself, what exactly did they put you through?

SPEAKER_02 7:46

So pretty much every day we would uh we would kind of wake up super early, like we got there, woke up super early, kind of got or uh got oriented right away. And then that first night we saw, we went and saw a show. We saw uh production of Crazy for You at Godspeed Opera House. Then we had that evening and the morning before 9:30 to write up a review of that production that then we would we had to edit and submit and that for a group criticism uh with uh the our instructors as well as the other fellow critics. So critics criticizing critics' work, it was rather intimidating, to be honest. Um, but you kind of quickly learn fell into a rhythm, and as you got to know everybody in the group, it became a lot more comfortable to share your work. And it was also just kind of incredible to kind of do that on rinse and repeat. Every n every day, see something, have to have an app have an opinion, and not just an opinion, but a really specific argument that I was making about the show. That was what was kind of one of the things that I really took away tangibly, is that like too many theater reviews are trying to cover everything. You try to do this long exhaustive laundry list uh where you kind of mention every element that you think worked or try to assess it all. And that's just not all that compelling for a reader. Um, what's way more interesting is to kind of really isolate what really worked or really didn't, and don't comment as much on the kind of competence as it was called. Competence is not rewarded by audiences, it's glossed over. And so I I was I thought that was interesting, kind of an interesting element that I'm using to kind of make my lighting, my writing more lean and kind of really get to what works and what doesn't in the heart in a theater production rather than kind of trying to do this thing where I kind of try to summarize the entire experience of seeing a sometimes two and a half hour plus theatrical production. Because the theatrical reviewing is also an art in and of itself. And if you're just doing that kind of exhaustive summation of how each element worked rather than kind of sharing an opinion about that and giving a distinct perspective, you're doing your writing and our readers a disservice.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

All right. Well, that's interesting because I know you and I have talked uh recently about your your reviews have have tended to run on the longer side, uh, you know, up to uh like 1500 words, which is pretty long. So are you like really thinking and about rethinking uh how you approach these?

SPEAKER_02 10:19

I am. I think that those days are gonna be that's gonna be really reserved for kind of a diagnostic review on like potentially a new work that I'm like, okay, nothing really it doesn't really work in its current form, but it could get there. So here's like some really specific detailed notes to push this process forward. But for your more average show, no, I think I'm gonna be aiming for about like 700 to 800 words to keep it really clear, crystal clear for readers, not get bogged down in too much summary, don't want to ruin or spoil that experience for folks, and really kind of try to capture the why now element of this show and the emotionality of the experience of going to the theater. So many, what originally attracted me to theater in the first place was the kind of raw authenticity of seeing a performer enact an experience on stage in real time and being present with them in that moment and trying to evoke some of that more in my writing to kind of capture that emotional experience rather than just the technical effectiveness of the experience. Because I think a lot of audience members, and I've kind of gotten away from that, I think a little bit. I'm critiquing myself and kind of and I think I'm gonna see that you're gonna see that reflected in my writing uh going forward, is uh I'm really kind of gonna focus on cap trying to capture a really specific point of view as well as the emotionality of the experience and how that either worked or didn't work with the piece itself.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Okay. Yeah, that's interesting because I was just talking about Shakespeare and Love, and I kind of felt like I was doing that when I wrote that review because there were so many good things that happened, and I felt like I was uh checking boxes. Uh, and sometimes you feel like if you've mentioned one actor, you have to kind of mention more of them. And and so getting away from like feeling like you have to make sure that everybody's fi fees are satisfied or something is probably not not the best thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah, I Chris Jones kind of put it into words that there are really three types of audiences that you write reviews for. The first kind of audiences are people in your local market, are readers who I think have primarily read on stage Colorado and are listening to this podcast right now, who may actually go to a show based off of what we write or say on this podcast. They may actually go out and buy a ticket. That's our the most important group of folks who you should write for. Number two is people who are maybe not in the market or are a little bit too far away to actually go to this production or their schedule doesn't work out, but they're curious in the happenings of the Colorado market, for instance. And so this will be used for archival purposes. And so it is really important to kind of think about the longevity of your review when you're choosing your words and your argument to kind of think about how, like up any good play or piece of theater should be able to stand the test of time. Will your words stand the test of time? You should actually think about that before we hit publish. And I have it was great to be able to deeply consider that with some other great minds from around the country. And then the third audience is kind of the theater insiders. That's your artists, yourselves, your theater admin folks, the institutions like the DCPA. And they're the people who are most likely to read our work, but are actually the audience who we should consider the least when in our writing. Because if we're kind of overly considerate as to the artist's perspective and like trying to please everybody, like you just said, and kind in that, we kind of aren't actually then engaging with the art itself and what's on stage. We kind of are trying to pease everybody, trying to curry favor, maybe trying to do that. And I just think that's not exactly doesn't create the most interesting pieces of criticism to read. Those aren't the reviews that I enjoyed the most reading at my time here. They were always the ones who had offered a really either clear argument on the piece or really captured the experience of attending the production in a way that I really admired and I'm definitely going to be stealing to put into my own work.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

That's great. Yeah. So um, one phrase that you came home uh repeating was that critics should always be, quote, on the side of art. So uh is that that's something that they were talking about there. What does that mean when your job still requires you to say that a production does or doesn't work?

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Yeah, so I think one thing that I really came home with was that critics are the biggest lovers of whatever they're criticizing. Like I really consider myself, I was there, it was largely theater critics, but there were also some food writers there, some dance critics uh as well. And every one of them just had a deep love for their discipline. And Chris Jones kept saying that phrase: you should a good critic should always be on the side of the art. And what I think that he was really trying to say with that phrase is that a good critic really tries to see what the art is doing primarily first and assesses that. And it doesn't try to like treat a comedy as if it were an experimental theater piece. You really try to deeply understand first what the art is. And if it doesn't work, your assessment then should come from a either a frustration that it doesn't live up to the experience or the mode of this art form, or a sadness that it doesn't, not a contempt for it. Not you should never just not dismissing artist or or being like this shouldn't have been created, or this is a waste of everybody's time. Don't treat it from that place of disdain or existential kind of place about the work. You kind of really do engage seriously and treat it from if you have criticism, it's to make the work better. I really do just want to help support this form, help audiences make a more informed decision. It's not personal. You are still on your on your role as a critic is to champion that art, uphold uphold it, have a high standard for it, don't be a schmuck and just say everything is great. The two kill, the two biggest killers of criticism uh they postulated at this camp were uh cheerleading, which just is in which you say everything is great all the time, you have no clear standards, and being a hater, just a all the time hater, everything is bad, there's nothing good, there's nothing that's good enough, because both of those do the same thing, and which they're not on the side of the art. One is the cheerleader is on the side of the artists, totally, just the people and trying to be the uphold that and being this champion with no critical perspective, and the hater is on the side of themselves, just kind of upholding their own opinion at the expense of the form. And you really don't want to be either of those. You want to be in the middle and be on the side of the art, be that advocate for the art and the surrogate for the audience to kind of champion that experience because that's what we are. We are the ultimate audience champion.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Yeah, that's a great way to think about it from that perspective. Um, one other note that you had here was about uh assigning responsibility and and how critics sometimes blame actors for choices that may belong to the director, uh, or or even somebody else could even be the lighting director that's that's not lighting them or something like that. But that that's a really interesting question for me because one of the things I struggle with when I write reviews is sometimes I don't know what the director did. I don't know if that was in the script. I don't know if it was something the actor made up. I wasn't there during the rehearsal. So how do how do they talk about addressing that?

SPEAKER_02 18:43

So this was a really big point uh that was kind of talked about is oftentimes too often critics get it wrong and they blame actors for choices that are either in the script, like you just said, or on the director. And the kind of big thing I took away was when in doubt, one, you should always request the script. That's something that theater companies can have uh can send you. So if you're going to make a point that like it doesn't work because of this, because of this with the script or this the way this character was written, you should have read the script actually to be able to intelligently make that point. Uh and on and honestly, I've had great success when I request six uh scripts from companies here in Colorado. Uh and I'm not always doing like a detailed read. I usually have like very specific things within the script that I want to go back to and check if I'm gonna make a certain point. And um, but I think you, yeah, you kind of need to, if you're gonna make that assessment on the script, you should have read it. But then by and large, when you're assessing theater, everything comes down to the director. If something tonally is off, like an actor's performance is way too over the top uh compared to the more serious tone. Rather than blaming the actor and that performance, put that on the director because the director is ultimately the big person in the room. They are the person who all of the decisions fall on. And so it was I thought it was really interesting, a fascinating way to think about that. Because I think I myself, can I can admit it, I've definitely maybe blamed an actor. Not maybe I have blamed an actor now for something that I'm like, actually, I when I think back on this experience, that actually was the director's fault because it was a tonal imbalance that I missed I wrongly criticized an actor for. It didn't work, the element was still off, but I had placed the blame in the wrong place. And that's super important to think through uh in that regard. And it's hard, yeah, because we weren't in the room, but when in doubt, I am going to most certainly be blaming the director. And then if you have a problem with the script, you can either, yeah, read, go back to the script and pull out that line, or you can put that on the producing company. If you're like, this script has no value, it should not have been produced. That's not the director's fault, and that's not the actor's fault for embodying that or the designer's fault for doing for designing this show. Blame the producing company. So I think just kind of thinking critically about how I assign blame and keeping the most, the people who have the most power in those rooms the most accountable for the choices made is super, super critical and something that I am absolutely going to be doing going forward and really thinking critically as I write my words.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

So, did you talk at all about the role of the critic and how how to respond to feedback from the community, whether it's from, you know, uh other people who saw the show and said you're nuts or people from the theater community saying, How could you say this, or or that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02 21:41

We did talk a little bit about that. It's definitely Chris was very open about how he's like, this is not for everybody. If you're not somebody who is comfortable kind of dealing with it is a position of some power in a community, and kind of being willing to be an authoritative voice and being willing to stand by your words, even if it is unpopular, and being willing to call out things that don't work. You pro this is probably not the industry for you because those things will happen regardless of who you are, regardless of what market it is, and regardless of how nice you are as a person or how kind you try to be in your writing, because it's a difficult form intrinsically, and it's a tricky relationship to navigate. There is, it is a critics play a vital role in the arts ecosystem the audience and being that experience, but it's an uncomfortable relationship there because we're also people who are going to sometimes be critical. And so I think I the one thing I learned was just uh from there that we kind of talked about was just being willing to stand by your opinion while respectfully engaging in conversations with folks in the community, not shutting them down, not kind of trying to not listen to folks who have a different opinion, but really do be if you're gonna make an app, if you're gonna have make that statement, really think through and be willing to own your opinion because that is really super critical and important in the community. And audiences are doing that too. They're only, they only have the one shot to make an impression. There. And so and audiences make up their mind quick, just like that, too. And so really being sure to kind of think about that experience as you're writing there. And but yeah, we it's a tricky role. I think honestly, that was what I learned and from hearing from other markets too. There's no right answer, and like everybody does deal with it. I mean, work critics should expect that they will be criticized.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Right. So uh thinking about kind of more like the nuts and bolts of the writing, as you were you were having your own critiques critiqued. Uh, did you come did you uh was it revealed to you that you had some things that like, oh man, I should never say that. Like I always think like, you know, if somebody says, like, in my opinion, or you know, um, you know, but that's just just a little nitpick that I said, or, or, you know, those those little phrases that you're trying to temper things, do they talk about like kind of exercising that out of your writing or stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Oh yeah. We it was all about purging any hedging in your writing. Just own, like going back to that last point, just own your opinion. If you're gonna say a thing, don't try to like mm-modify it to make it appeal to everybody or make it go down a little easier. People are adults who are making this art. Uh we're not we here at Onstage Colorado don't do any children's theater. So it is everybody we're reviewing our adults, just say the thing. It's more often more kind to just actually say your opinion than to try to couch it and make everybody's feelings feel better because then it just feels like you're doing well, then you are just doing your our audience a disservice, and we don't want to do that. But yeah, so removing of hedging for sure. Um, we also kind of talk talked a lot about how attention spans are a lot shorter, and so you really do need to make your lead kind of have be basically uh and the lead for non-journalists who are listening is like the opening part of your story. That opening, either like first couple paragraphs or even just that first sentence or two right at the top of a story that really hooks a reader and makes them want to continue reading on. And I think sometimes I get I try to I get a little bit, I had been getting a little bit poetic or kind of overly funny in my leads and not actually having a value judgment or making it clear what I think about the piece until a little bit further down in the review. And that one thing they were very clear about is like readers are very they make decisions really quick and they'll move on if they don't immediately know what your opinion is and what you're going to be saying in this piece. And so just making the top of it a lot more clear while still in kind of imbuing it with some artistry uh up top, but really kind of making that point of view clear right up at the top. Because yeah, people do have we live in a very fast world. People, if I I know I often people tell me they just read my headlines. And so I'm like, I I was like, I'm and I said that, and he's like, well, yeah, that's true too. Obviously, if you're writing headlines, yes, the headline is the most important part because most people won't read beyond that. But if you are lucky to get them to click, that lead up at the top is the make or break thing for whether or not they continue reading all the way to the bottom. And so you gotta make that sexy and actually have a value judgment in it. And so I promise you, readers, it'll be super, super clear from now on exactly what I'm thinking about a show from the top.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

All right. Well, you know, uh, one of the things that I was thinking about while you were away is that, you know, you you've kind of uh as a journalist, you've really been as a freelancer, you've never really worked in a newsroom, like a physical newsroom. So this one, it must have been a different experience for you to be uh, you know, with real life people in the same place.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

So how did that uh uh how did that feel it was honestly really invigorating. I like I said up at the top, I'd never been in a room with that many working critics before. And I'd never, like you've like you just said, never been in an actual physical newsroom before. Everything I've done in the journalism industry has been totally in the online space, which is very rewarding in its uh in itself. And because I cover live performance, a big part of my job is actually going out and experiencing things and talking to people in public and doing interviews. So I get out. It's not that I'm isolated, but it's not the same as being in an environment where you are just all there and you can get real-time assessments on your work and you have people giving you on real honest feedback about how something lands, or just like being able to say, like, this is this was all really great, argument really clear, and then we got to this point, and you just totally lost me. Cause like, I know sometimes I'm work I can work on a piece for a really long time and then like go hit put hit publish on it, and then like have missed the most basic thing, like, or like not something was not clear because I just had gotten so I read it so many times, I was not able to actually see the piece clearly. And so being able to have my peers give me intelligent real-time feedback was amazing. Also, I'd never read this much criticism in real time. Like every single day, I read 13 other pieces of criticism to the thing that we had just gone to the night before. And I really think just reading a lot in that in that environment also was really something I get. I'm like, I need to do that more now. I'm like, I've just got to start reading arts writing from around the country, find some really good writers that I really respect. And dig these folks, honestly, in my cohort, I will be reading a lot of them. I'm like, uh like Daniela over at American Theater Magazine. I'm like, I'm gonna be reading her pieces from now on. I'm like, fantastic writer, really, and it just it and I think reading more does make you a better writer. And I I felt that.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Absolutely. So uh so the National Critics Institute didn't limit you to just theater, you did uh you looked at dance, food, music, radio, criticism, criticism. Uh so uh compared to, I don't know, is is there any real difference other than some of the technical aspects of how you criticize things, or how did that feel writing about these other these other arts?

SPEAKER_02 29:13

I think there's what I really did learn is that they're not all that different. You are in all of these, you are the champion for the audience. The and that may be a little bit different. The live performance audience is definitely different than a diner at a restaurant. The experiences are very are very different, but in essence, you're there to kind of k do the same thing. What I found really helpful about digging into all these other forms and particularly getting to a big part of the institute was we had a lot of different special guests kind of come in and share knowledge. Like we had Katie Welsh, who is a big film critic in LA. She does a lot of work for the LA Times. We had um Pulitzer Prize winning dance critic come in, lots of theater critics from around the nation kind of come in and music writers. It was really and it was a really awesome experience to just kind of be able to hear from them and learn a lot about like the technique of it. I think particularly the dance stuff, I'm really taking, I learned a lot out of because I've always been somebody who I'm intrigued by dance, but I'm not really a dancer myself. And I feel really insecure, honestly, when I was tasked with writing about stuff. I mostly I feel more comfortable writing about Wonderbound because it's dance theater, and I'm just able to focus on the theater as the entry point and just kind of be like, and the dancing happened.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

But now I think I think I can spell plie and jette and maybe pasadie.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Exactly. But what I think I learned so uh from uh what I really learned and took away from uh from this workshop uh was just um Sarah Kaufman, who is the Pulitzer Prize winning uh dance critic, really encouraged us to be like, don't think about all that comp the complexity in trying to really impress you, a dance reader. Most people aren't actually dance people. It's a very it's a pretty niche thing. What you can focus on is physical is body language and motion. Everybody understands those concepts. We all deal that on a daily basis. And by just describing what the motion is you saw and how it made you feel within the experience and how it related to the larger dance piece itself, that's honestly a more interesting entry point for most readers than if you're like, and then they did XYZ dance technique, and it was a-okay, it was okay, but there was a little shakiness and had, you know, okay, that's maybe appeals to like 10 super dance aficionados in your area. But the majority of your readers, the people who are actually buying a ticket, they're not buying a ticket often because they know the most about dance. They like how they made it feel. So lean into that and describing that motion and the body language and how that how that contributed to the storytelling, or if it's an abstract piece, the kind of thematic ideas that it's circling around rather than getting so bogged down in the jargon.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Right. Cool. Well, let's talk a little bit about um, I was just curious to know. Uh, so you know, we know that there's no full-time theater critics working inside Colorado or in most other states uh and newspapers. Uh that's kind of gone away. Um, did did the group talk at all about the importance of you know what we're doing and what's lost when that local criticism disappears?

SPEAKER_02 32:37

It was a major theme. I mean, everybody there was real honest about that. Uh, there was not a person there who was a full-time theater critic on staff in any market. I had folks from Detroit, from Philly, uh, from New York, uh, from South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and all of them were in a similar boat to me. They're freelancing uh and doing theater criticism in addition to or other kind of things to kind of make ends meet and whatnot. And so it was pretty everybody, yeah, was very honest about that. And I think we had a we had a guest, Peter Marks, the former Washington Post theater critic, who came in and gave a very gloom and doomed talk about the state of the industry. He had been let go slash left three years ago, depending on who's telling the story. Um and he came in and he was definitely had some strong words about the state of the industry and how he was like, there will never be any more mainstream things. And everybody in there in the group, I I was really encouraged to kind of push back against them and were like, yeah, we kind of agree with you. There probably won't be like Jeff Bezos is not going to support arts journalism at the Washington Post. And that sucks. That is a bummer. It would be a better if it might be a better world that we lived in if the rich folks started supporting uh journalism in a more robust way. Or maybe not. Maybe rich, that's a maybe, maybe that would lead to where we are right now, and that is a part of the problem. But it's not coming in the mainstream pockets. Where it is coming is in these kind of localized efforts, like what we're doing here at Onstage Colorado. It's folks who are stepping up to fill the gap that's been left in the marketplace, often building their own platforms and cultivating new audiences, because I think the thing I learned from talking with these folks from all around the country is that interest in arts is still there. There are people who want to read about this stuff, want to have this information. What is changing is how you get to them. There is no legacy media outlets where you are guaranteed to be able to have a newspaper delivered to 100,000 people, more or less every day or at least every Sunday, and have that theater review in front of those people by guarantee. You have to be thinking about how you're meeting those audiences and doing it in a more localized, authentic way than a lot of these mainstream media outlets were actually able to do. They've lost a lot of credibility. I don't think they're getting it back anytime soon. And so the answer is not to kind of try to force the mainstream models to adapt. It's leaning into these local solutions. And if you're somebody who's listening and you want to be a part of that, Onstage Colorado would love to talk to you because we are super invested in being a part of that solution here at the state level.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

Yeah, absolutely. And um, I I was also wondering um in speaking with some of these other uh people, were there some other similar um websites to Onstage Colorado that sounded like they were kind of doing similar, similar things?

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Yeah, there definitely were. Like I heard a lot of examples, not necessarily in New York. In New York, it is they're still very much like worshiping at the altar of the like New York Times and the Post and whatever. And they seem really like honestly, the folks who from my cohort from New York seemed a lot more stressed out about the state of everything than folks who are in the regional markets. Um they seem I yeah, I take that that's take that for what you will. But there are a lot of folks in the regional markets like Detroit and Philly and DC, they there are folks there who are actually building out these really interesting largely online platforms that are attracting a large readership. They're able to pay these folks, people are able to make a living doing it. It's again, it's a different way to make a living. I don't, I mean, I full transparency, I free I freelance. I have to, I don't have any healthcare anywhere, I have to pay out of pocket for that. It's a different model than if you're at a newsroom full-time and kind of doing and kind of have all those benefits built in. But just because I think everything about the world is adapting. I mean, I talk to a lot of folks my age who just don't even who can't get a full-time job anywhere or doing anything. And so, or not, or if they are, it's definitely not in the thing that they're interested and passionate about. And so I feel very fortunate to be have found a way to make it work. And from hearing with these folks in other markets, it sounds like there are folks uh in in these places who are also invested in ensuring that arts, journalism, and theater criticism in particular doesn't die away and that it continues to serve that vital role in the theatrical landscape.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

All right. Great. Well, thanks so much for sharing those thoughts. It's really fascinating to hear about and look forward to uh seeing what how your reviews change and also some spreading some of that wisdom to me and the rest of the review crew here at Onstage Colorado. So uh if you want to learn more or hear more about Tony's experience, uh he's written a little piece about it uh uh to dig deeper on onstagecolorado.com. So about the lessons he learned and how we plan to apply them to our coverage here in Colorado. So thanks, Tony.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, it was a pleasure chatting with you about it. Moving on, we have got an interview that Alex did with Shane, who is the board president of the Colorado Community Theater Coalition, to talk about this year's uh Colorado Community Theater Coalition Festival that is taking place at the historic Ealich Theater on August 15th and 16th.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

So uh all right. Well, we are here with Shane Delavan, the board president of the Colorado Community Theater Coalition. Welcome to the On Stage Colorado Podcast, Shane. Thank you, Alex, for having me. Yeah, I was just I was just joking with you. I uh I follow you on on Facebook, and you're always posting these beautiful cocktails that you've uh made up. Uh, and I always want to reach through the computer and and grab one because they always look so good. What's what was the what was the last fancy cocktail you made?

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Uh last, I do it weekly, and the last one I did was a Clover Club, which is is a pre-prohibition cocktail. And it's it's I gotta say, it's quite a nice, uh, delicious, light, summery, um citrusy kind of uh something that you can just sit on the porch and enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

All right. Well, that's one of your claims to fame. The other one has been uh you know, uh leading the board at that CCTC. So this is uh an annual adjudicated community theater festival. I think I believe it's every other year that it's adjudicated, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Uh uh to uh let me say kind of. Uh yeah, we had in the past had an annual festival that that was always adjudicated. Um and every other year, the uh the companies that would um kind of rise to the top, kind of to kind of talk conceptually, would then advance to uh additional festivals. Um and then the off-year we call it, they would be adjudicated, they'd still be ranked, but that would that was it. You just kind of stop at the state level. Yeah. So every and since COVID, you know, things have changed. Like the needs have changed for community theaters, and we have we took kind of a hiatus like a lot of people did, and we're kind of back at um the annual production of the festival.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

All right. Well, the annual festival this year is August 14th through 16th at the historic Elich Theater in Denver. So uh we'll get to that, that uh venue here in just a little bit. But I wanted to start by asking you a really basic question from your perspective. What is community theater? How do you define it?

SPEAKER_01 40:26

It's it probably varies from person to person, to be honest with you. I, for me personally, and I think um leading an organization that that enriches and supports community theaters throughout the state of Colorado, to me, community theater is any theater where there is some element where it's important to engage the community, whether it's in a large city where there are a lot of attractions that are kind of competing for people's attention, or you're a really small community, where you're one of the very few opportunities for people to connect with theater, connect with storytelling. Um, that's an important element of it. And it really kind of has a different focus relative to true professional theater, where you really are trying to um pay people a living wage, your production staff, your actors, all the sorts of things kind of for me, from my perspective, as a is how a professional theater is defined. Community theater really is can either be a hybrid of that, where some people have some compensation, but really it's more of a if it's an avocation for them. They're really kind of trip contributing out of love for the craft of theater and all that sort of thing, or it can just be straight volunteer. There are a lot of theaters all around the state that people truly just do it for the love of theater. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Yeah. I mean, it could be two guys in a tent, you know, performing in a park, uh, all the way up to something that looks like professional theater, uh, but maybe they're, you know, they're not using equity actors or anything like that. So it's just a it's just a real continuum. So it's one of those squishy terms uh that's kind of interesting. Um but it it doesn't always mean it's just uh, you know, volunteers or or amateurs or anything like that. It really runs the game at so so uh so for people who've never been to a theater festival like this where it's adjudicated, can you explain what does that mean to be adjudicated?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

So uh just as uh all all all theater companies that present a show at the um Colorado Theater Festival uh have certain guidelines, and I can talk about that in a little bit. But to answer your question about adjudication, it's um professional adjudicators, and we usually we usually try to have one who has kind of an educational background, has has been a theater professor usually. And then the other person is a practitioner, somebody who has certainly has education in theater, but is really kind of implementing that in a theater environment. They're an executive director or they're an artistic director, and they're bringing those two different perspectives to how they view each production. And there are specific guidelines that the adjudicators follow to determine the show that uh, as we call it, is most fully realized. And so there can be a wide range of size of production, um, and uh the quality of the script can vary, and a lot of things can vary. But really, what the adjudicators are looking for is for that theater company, are they taking all of the resources they have available to them, the script and all all of the other production elements, and are they are they presenting something that is the most fully realized version of that show possible? And those that succeed with that are the ones that tend to get a lot of accolades from the adjudicators. Um, the nice thing about adjudication is it's a very constructive opportunity for theater companies to really be acknowledged for the good work that they're doing, but also get some really constructive guidance. And it really, we're very careful with our adjudicators that it's it is to be constructive. It's it's guidance that will help that theater company grow the effectiveness of either that production or grow the effectiveness of future productions within their theater company. So we really look at it as an opportunity. If the the theater companies are uh kind of take notes and want to continue to improve their ability to deliver theater, uh, they actually then improve their productions as a result of the experience they've had at the Colorado Theater Festival.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Okay. Yeah. So I mean, they uh after they complete their performance, they come out and they sit in the front row of the theater and the adjudicator gets up on stage and gives it to them. You know, so it is immediate feedback. Uh, you know, and a lot of times, especially with dramas, you know, you don't know sometimes. The comedy, if you're getting lots of laughs, you'd probably have a pretty good idea that you're you're hitting it. Uh but drama, I think, is is really important to hear that. So as I recall, the the rules are you have an hour to perform. Uh so you're either doing a one act or a cutting. You've got 10 minutes to set put up your set in a 10 by 10 foot square and 10 minutes to strike it. And if any of those don't work, you get DQ'd. So there's definitely a a hurry up and and get her done uh kind of thing. So uh so it's it's really an interesting thing to see if you've never if you've never seen it. So well, how does a theater company get um picked or selected to be in the in the competition? Do they just uh just raise their hand or it is raising their hand, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

We have we have interestingly enough, we have theater companies um from around this this year, interestingly enough, it's kind of uh good representation around the st around the state so far. Um often we'll have companies that tend to be closer to that host um venue that will have it's just easier for them to get there. It's either easier for them to get all of their production elements there. Um, but we do interestingly enough have um a company representing the Western Slope, a company representing the mountain region, and um some theater companies kind of representing the the front range as well. Uh so it's it's really kind of whatever, whoever kind of feels that they want to um try something out, uh, grow from the experience, make connections with other theaters, learn, share ideas, share resources. Those are the companies that do raise their hand and they'll end up uh presenting a show at the at the theater festival.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

Yeah, and if you win an award, you can stick award winning in front of your theater from for forever, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:51

You can, absolutely. And, you know, there are a lot of companies that sometimes depend on that kind of recognition for grant writing. And so there is there is a bit of a financial um benefit to participating in this sort of thing, along with other opportunities as well, to really up your game. And we have had some pretty small theater companies that have really done well at the festival and they have used that recognition and have really grown their abilities to deliver theater in their home community because they just have shown, they've demonstrated that they are not only strong at what they do, but they're continuing to improve their product.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Right. Uh the other thing that's interesting is that, you know, this is on top of whatever else they're doing. So it really is it's a list for fit theaters, especially small, to ramp up a whole other production and uh find a set that's gonna work and you know, and and and travel with it and all that. So it's definitely uh, you know, it's a labor of love. But uh it's fun. So uh you talked about how you uh find the adjudicators, um, but uh and you talked about like kind of things that they they will talk about. Um so uh beyond the performances themselves, do you have any other uh like workshops or things going on at the festival?

SPEAKER_01 48:14

This year we've really tried to kind of phone in on uh primarily the performances of the theater company. So we've kind of scaled it down a little bit this year. Um we will have um a couple of roundtable discussions, which really gives an opportunity. It's it's it's just sometimes you hear roundtable discussion, you think, oh God, there's gonna be three people on a panel and they're they're talking and ata infinitum, and you just get bored. But really, the way we design our roundtable discussions is to be a community conversation. So it really is with it with the intention to maybe convey some information around a topic, but also um have people get some feedback, get some resources, get some ideas that they can go back to their theaters and use. And then, of course, we're we're going to be at the historic Ealich Theater. That's uh such a very has such a fascinating history. And um, so another aspect that we're gonna offer is uh tours of the of the venue, hear about the history, hear about all the people who over the hundred plus years that have performed at that historic theater. And that should hopefully be a lot of fun for, especially for those who really love theater and kind of remember all of those old-time um performers and recognize that they, you know, quote, tread tread the boards just like they are um when they perform on the stage at historic Ewlich Theater.

SPEAKER_03 49:38

Right. Yeah, that was the next thing I wanted to ask you about. How did it come about? It seems like a perfect venue for this. And you know, you've bounced around to different uh venues uh over the last few years. How did how did this uh come about?

SPEAKER_01 49:50

It's interestingly enough, it was a connection between one of uh the Collar Community Theater Coalition's board members and uh an association he had with the historic Ewlich Theater. Uh so it was just kind of a natural, uh kind of built-in connection uh that we just started the dialogue with this venue. And the thing that one of the things that really appealed to us around hosting the festival at this venue is um if you probably you probably aware of this, maybe, maybe some of your listeners aren't. Uh historically the sheeter was dormant for multiple decades and uh was at risk of being torn down at one point in the past. Um, people saved it and uh it still continues and has a historic landmark uh designation, which is wonderful. Um, and they're just starting to kind of rebuild that venue, start to have programming um kind of more regularly at that venue and kind of make it more kind of restore at least a little bit to its like gem as as um as a performing opportunity in the Denver metro area. As we all know, um, you know, kind of venues are harder and harder to come by. So it's really nice that this probably in the past two or three years has started to emerge as another place for community theaters to have a production at a really cool venue with a lot of history.

SPEAKER_03 51:23

That's great. Yeah, it really is. It's it is a neat, uh, you know, it's it's got such a story to it and uh a fun place to go. And that's cool. You're gonna have like tours and so people can poke around and see, see what's going on. Yeah. So um thinking of uh say I'm a community theater and you know, whatever, Delta or or some someplace in Colorado or wherever I am, and I'm thinking about, well, that might be kind of fun. Like what kind of advice would you give to a theater if they wanted to participate in this?

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Well, really, we have we have some resources on our website, uh, which is cctcfestival.org. And there are a couple of uh pages on our website where it really spells out what it's what some of the benefits of participating as a company, um, the guidelines that the adjudicators use to evaluate the shows. So you know what you're kind of getting yourself into even before you you uh maybe raise your hand and say you want to participate as a presenting company. Um, especially since this year is what we call a cycle year, and the top or the top two companies from this festival will advance to a regional and potentially a national um theater festival. There, there's just some additional guidelines that people need to be aware of. And so that's the starting point is to um go to our website and kind of and find those pages under the Colorado Theater Festival banner. And then there's an opportunity on our website to just kind of sit, just literally click on a button, say, hey, I've an I have an intent to register, I want to learn more, I want to wanna talk to somebody, and we'll obviously very, very quickly get get in touch with you. Just want to make sure that you have sufficient time to be prepared to be at the theater festival. Right.

SPEAKER_03 53:18

Yeah, and it is really fun to advance going to regional and a national, and you could even get an invite to an international festival uh from the national. That is possible. Yeah. Yes. Um so um I wanted to ask you, how long have you been involved with CCTC?

SPEAKER_01 53:34

As a board member, it's been about 15 years. Um it really has. It's been quite a while, and we do have people kind of rotate on and off, but really some, some, some of us have just kind of stuck around because there's such a love of supporting community theater. Um, some board members are involved with their own community theater. I'm I'm one of the people who, you know, is also a performer, does some things around town, but I don't have an affiliation with specific community theater. So I really love the opportunity to get to know all of the players around the state and see the new interesting things that they're doing, how they're adapting to the new environment, um, how they're attracting additional patrons, choosing seasons, all those sorts of things. It really is fascinating to see what's working, what isn't working, what used to work, what what you know, what used to not work. Things have been changing a lot. So certainly a lot of theaters are constantly trying to figure out what that secret sauce is. And it's really interesting to see what people have found works for them. Right.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

So you've been to a lot of festivals. Do you have any any kind of really favorite memories that stuck out, like a performance that just blew everybody away or something that you you really sticks with you?

SPEAKER_01 55:00

Yeah. Um, and um it's it's been a while. Um, so I might forget um, I might forget the title of the show, but it was a show presented by uh a theater that's renamed themselves, but at that time it was called Theater Is Free Asia. And the uh the one of the heads of that theater, um, Maria Cheng, wrote a show and performed in it and presented it at the festival. And it was just one of those uh kind of immersive experiences into Asian culture and the various aspects of kind of the con the comedic element of it, the dramatic element. She she crafted a really beautiful piece of theater, and you just got lost in it. Um, you just were there with her. And when when the show came to an end, it just people were crying, people not because it was emotional, but just they saw something magical. And that is one of the experiences that I recall. And that was that was a handful of years ago, so it wasn't a recent production, but there are those moments where just something is special and magical and it lands and it just touches everybody. Just like any theater piece that we go to, and you can just feel it. There's there's obviously a very unique experience with live theater versus any other performance mode that you just feel like you're all in it together. And that was one of the highlights of the theater festivals I've been to so far. That's great.

SPEAKER_03 56:39

So uh are you thinking about um uh someone who's wants to go to the festival? Any advice on like how to I don't know, how to take it in, especially if you don't, you know, you're not gonna don't have the ability to be there for both days or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

Um especially for people who are who are not representing a theater, they just want to attend, they just want to kind of be in kind of maybe get a little uh escape from the everyday world and just kind of live in the world of community theater and making those connections. Uh the majority of the performances will happen on Saturday and Sunday. Um, so you can you can register as a full festival registrant and see all the shows and be there the whole weekend and do the what we call wet working, which is just talking to other people that are that are that love and are passionate about community theater and going to a restaurant or a bar and just you know having a fancy cocktail or a non-alcoholic beverage or whatever, and just just kind of communing, and it's really a nice opportunity. And and um it's just a different experience to kind of go all in and um really kind of become part of this community for the weekend. Um, but there are a lot of people who just come to see and support a particular show, or they're just interested to see a couple of shows, and they just kind of go for an afternoon and they see a couple of shows, and then they and yeah, hey, it's it's even if you just see two shows that are no longer than an hour, you get a really interesting uh taste for variety of theater, and you see the whole process, and then you can be like, okay, I'm just gonna go on my way and do other things this weekend. So there's kind of varying levels of ways that people can come support, be part of, and commune with this uh community in the community of this festival.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

All right, yeah. If it's a great opportunity to get out and support uh community theater and also see something uh, you know, it's it's different. It's a very different experience than you know, doing just a regular show. So uh Colorado Community Theater Coalition's Colorado Theater Festival uh is happening August 14th through 16th at the historic Eallich Theater. Um and uh that's uh um should be it should be a banger. So should be a banger, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 59:04

We're very much looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_03 59:06

Yeah. Shane, thanks so much for coming on Onstage Colorado and telling us all about this.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

My pleasure. Thanks so much for having us, Alex.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

All right, let me hold on one sec.

SPEAKER_02 59:16

Well, that was a cool conversation. Thank you so much to Shane for dropping by to talk on the Onstage Colorado podcast.

SPEAKER_03 59:23

Yeah, that's a neat program. I was as I I've talked about in previous podcasts, it's something I was really involved with when uh when I was doing theater back in the in the 90s with the Breckenridge Backstage theater and got to go to a lot of these uh these competitions, and it really is a ton of fun. And kind of almost like what you were talking about uh being around other theater critics, it's a rare opportunity for you to be around other, uh not just other actors, of course, all actors are around other actors, but around other whole theater companies and kind of see what their program is like and share, you know, compare notes and that kinds of things. So it's a it's a neat opportunity, not just for the competition, but for theaters to to kind of uh check in with each other and and maybe learn from each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Yeah, that's in a state like Colorado that is so spread out, it can sometimes be hard to build that community in the theater community. Even though there is so much activity that's happening, we don't have like a centralized arts district for that kind of free exchange of ideas to happen. It is a great opportunity to build up community in a state like Colorado that's so spread out. I mean, it can sometimes be hard for companies to really authentically network and have that kind of free exchange of ideas. And places like the Colorado Community Theater Coalitions Festival is one place for that to happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:35

Yep, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:38

All right, now let's turn to our top 10 Colorado headliners. So these are some shows coming up in the next few weeks that we think may be worth checking out. Alex, what have you got to start with?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

All right, the first one is this really incredibly unique show called Around the World in 80 Days. And I'm really curious, I'd really like to try and get out to this because you and I were at a an earlier iteration of it that kind of had a lot of technical difficulties, uh, but but we really saw the potential in it. And I'm sure so this is uh Thaddeus Phillips. It's it's a um it's kind of a mixture of uh theater and film and also like little shadow boxes. And uh boy, it's it's really hard to even describe, but uh it's a fascinating little show. So I would definitely recommend if you get a chance to get out to Buntport to check this out. Uh and then Thaddeus has taken it to the uh inner uh Edinburgh International Fringe Festival uh on a global tour. So it's uh, you know, chance to see it here in Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:36

Yeah, this piece I remember being a really surreal experiment that happened at Buntport about about a year ago, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

Um and yeah, like you mentioned, uh, in when we saw it, there's a lot of complicated video elements, live video elements that are can that are used in combination with little figurines or uh either on the camera or uh kind of have being used as a shadow and kind of not all of that worked out. There were often places where the camera would turn to nothing, and then he'd have to manually kind of adjust it. But oh my god, were the bones of it so cool? And when it was hitting, you were just like, this is unlike anything I've ever seen on a stage before. And so given that he's taken another year and had a little bit extra time to polish, yeah. I'm really I man, maybe I just have to get over to Gunport. My schedule's already so packed in July. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm not gonna be able to commit to that, but I would love to. All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

Um what's your what's your first headliner?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:34

My first headliner is over at Theater Aspen. It's a classic Grease that follows the ups and downs of teenage love, friendship, and finding your place in a crowd. It had an eight-year run on Broadway, followed by two subsequent revivals. It's been performed on tons of school and community productions. So it's definitely one of the more popular musicals in the repertoire. Uh, and it's being staged at Theater Aspen through August 29th in that incredible theater there. Uh, and if Grease is not your cup of tea, also on stage in Aspen is a chorus line, which we talked a little bit about earlier, which our correspondent Kim had a lot to say about its new choreography.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

Yeah. Yeah, it's Greece is funny. I was I always remember that was one of the first Broadway shows I ever saw as a kid. And uh it was part of it was like a field trip from my junior high school, and I don't think they realized how what it really was because at least the the original script had a lot of F bombs in it, and it was, yeah, it was definitely not really suitable for you know 12-year-olds or whatever I was at the time. Uh, but we all thought it was great. Um, it was a very funny show. So all right, my next headliner is uh this is a Gilbert and Sullivan show that I'm really not familiar with. It's called The Yeoman of the Guard. So Empire Lyric Players, who is the Colorado's really only regular purveyor of Gilbert and Sullivan. They do a show every year at the Lakewood Cultural Center. So this will be July 17th uh through 19th. So just this weekend. Uh this is set uh in and around the Tower of London in Tudor times. It follows uh a man who's falsely condemned to death for sorcery, awaiting execution and and all this um kind of thing. So uh it sounds it sounds like a really interesting uh show there at uh at uh the Liquid Cultural Center.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

That yeah, I've no that's also a Gilbert and Sullivan one. I have not ever heard even, I don't think I've even heard anything from that one before. Me neither. Fascinating. Well, it wouldn't be Colorado without some outdoor Shakespeare, and Tell Your Ride Theater Company gives you an opportunity to see one of his histories, Henry the Fifth, outdoors on the town park stage as a part of their yearly tradition of putting Shakespeare's outdoors. So if you're not familiar with this one, it follows Henry, who is the young and newly crowned king who is impatient to assert control over the people of England. After having received a humiliating gift from overseas, his bruised ego leads him to double down on a military invasion abroad in a bid to expand his power. Um it's uh it's uh it's certainly an interesting time to be programming this play. I wonder if there's any political undertones uh in the current staging.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:18

Aaron Ross Powell The follies of kings with too much power and uh buckets of hubris is always a theme.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:26

Yeah, it seems like that uh that's uh it feels like it's uh perhaps relevant solely to our time, but uh bombastic rulers crazily pursuing power or their own for their own self-interest is that's a common theme, it seems, of humanity.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

Yeah. I I think what makes it seem unusual, a little bit more unusual in our time, is that it's not as easy for for them to you know to amass that much power in in so many democracies in the world. And uh that's what's that's so striking about it. But uh, you know, they certainly knew plenty about it back in the days of kings when they could just do whatever the hell they wanted uh and damn the consequences. Like I'm gonna leave my kingdom and go on a crusade for the next two years and uh take care. Things like that. Or just you know, attack attack whoever's around and try and grab some land. Uh well, on a totally different note, uh, my next one is from Butte Theater in Cripple Creek, Dames at Sea. So this will be uh running through August 23rd. Uh it opens this weekend. So this is a really campy show. It's uh it's got a lot of nostalgia for Hollywood musicals of the 30s, uh, about, you know, it's kind of like the tale of, you know, the little little kid from uh small town, you know, USA is going to the big city to make her mark on Broadway, meets uh another boy from uh hometown USA, and all kinds of hijinks ensue on this this ship. Uh so uh that's uh that's at uh at uh the butte in Purple Creek.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

One of these days we will get down get down there and see one of these melodramas. They always sound like such a hoot.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

I know. That's right, kind of like where all these fires have been happening too, down around that area. Hopefully uh to not impact the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:07

Yeah, that is a good point. Yeah. Thought so. Thoughts to the folks in that community. Hope all is well there.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

My next pick is Honky Tonk Angels. This is being performed by the theater company of the Rockies in Greeley for just one weekend, July 23rd through the 26th. And this is a jukebox musical that features a bunch of kind of pop country favorites and celebrates the enduring power of music and female friendship. So they've got a bunch of songs in there like Stand by Your Man, Ode to Billy Joe, These Boots Were Made for Walking, I Will Always Love You, and a Lot More. So it really sounds like a kind of a feel-good crowd pleaser.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:51

All right. My next one is a really familiar title, but it's being done. This is Matilda the Musical being done by Candlelight in Johnstown. So I think you're going to see that tonight, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

I'll be yeah, I'll be there on Thursday afternoon for actually a non-dinner theater production of it. I'm going in the afternoon for a non-food service of Matilda. It's just like the only time that I could actually get there. Okay. At a reasonable time. You know, I I'm going to have to ask them when I get there. I Jolyn said she was going to be there tomorrow. And she, and I'm maybe just asked directly, be like, hey, uh, is this a new thing that you guys are doing? Has this always happened? Because I was not familiar with it either, but they said it was for folks who just like uh they couldn't their attention span couldn't last that long. Because it is a pretty lengthy experience at Candlelight that you're committing to with the full dinner service, plus usually a two and a half hour musical with that intermission.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

Yeah. So anyway, well, I think everybody's pretty familiar with Roll Doll's Matilda the musical. Uh it's about this uh this little girl and uh surrounded by a bunch of horrible adults, which seems to be a common theme for Roll Doll uh in this school. So uh definitely uh if you get a chance to head up, that's it's right in their wheelhouse of shows they do really well at Candlelight.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:11

Mm-hmm. Speaking of shows right in a company's wheelhouse, uh Betsy, the Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, is doing Jen Silverman's reworking of the 1621 drama The Witch of Edmen, just called in this version The Witch, which revolves around a devil who appears in a small village to recruit souls and finds that everyone is very happy to give away their souls in order to get whatever they want. But one woman is not having any of this. She calls out all this BS, and she happens to be the same person who everybody thinks is the town witch, thus leading to a pol a kind of a political drama in the town kind of unfolding. This play is uh runs about 90 minutes and it's being done as is pretty standard for the company now in two locations. It's opening first at the Savoy Denver uh in ear in late July, and then it moves over to the Dairy Center in Boulder for the rest of its run through August 23rd. Um I'm gonna be checking this one out. Betsy has been doing just a really impressive job of producing these kind of meaty dramas uh that uh in an interesting manner. And so I'm curious to see what this one is. I believe it's also the regional premiere of this script. Um Jen Silverman's a fascinating writer, so looking forward to hearing this one.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:33

Me too. Yeah, I'm gonna get out and see that one too. Uh no, you're reviewing it, but I'm gonna I gotta go see it too. Um my last one, uh I just wanted to give a shout-out to to Thingamajig Theater down in Pagosa Springs. They're generally mostly active in the summertime, so they're doing come from away through August 27th, which is always a big crowd pleaser. They're also um doing um company, uh the musical and fiddler on the roof uh this season. So if you're down uh Tool on around in southern Colorado this summer, uh check out Thingamajig at the Pagosa Springs Arts Center there.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

I I love that they're also in that season they're doing company in there too. That's like a a really you've got two big crowd, I guess more crowd pleasers, your fiddler and your come from away. And then you've got this really heady uh Steven Sondheim musical about relationship drama right tucked in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:26

Yeah, I'd be curious to see what their ticket sales are like uh for those three shows.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

Yeah, I I yeah, I I would be curious about that as well. I would I would bet Come From Away is the bestseller. Yeah. Since them and every other regional theater in America seems to be doing that musical.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

Uh my final pick is Dear Jack, Dear Louise, over at Ventich Theater in Aurora. Uh this is written by Ken Ludwig, and it is a romantic comedy uh that it kind of unfolds in letters that are exchanged between a military doctor and an inspiring actress in World War II. It's the whole thing is inspired by uh Ken Ludwig's parents. Um, and this version is directed by Linda Scuttle and stars Aubrey Tappa and Darno Koria over at Vintage Theater. And we saw a really a really spectacular production of this at Bailey Theater back in 2024. It's a really, really wonderful script, very, very poignant and tugs at your heartstrings.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:27

It is. It's a really neat script, and of course, it's it's it's interesting, also coming from Ken Ludwig, who's much more well known for his comedies and verses and all that kind of thing, but it's a deeply personal story. Uh based on his parents, really cool. All right. Well, other uh upcoming reviews on the site, including uh Friends, Romans, Countrymen, which will be the last Colrose uh Shakespeare Festival show that we'll review this year. Tony will be at that one. Uh Matilda, as we just talked about, Masterclass, uh Alice will be at that production at um Central City Opera, which uh Betsy we just talked about, uh Macbeth Foothills Theater Company, which I think that's is that in Littleton where they do it outside for free? I think so. Uh I think that's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

Okay. So that's I'll let you know after I go. Uh yeah, Clement, Clement Park in Littleton.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:15

Okay. Yeah. Uh and then Hockey Tac Angels, which you just talked about. So you're going up to Greeley to check out uh Little Theater of the Rockies production there.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:23

Uh absolutely. I'm uh excited I, you know, I'm I like Greeley. It's a it's a nice area. There's some good restaurants in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:31

All right. Uh and then also uh Tony and I are gonna be in Creed this coming weekend. We're gonna hit all four shows as part of our theater road trip. Uh and we're also gonna do a special bonus episode of the podcast. We're gonna be interviewing Emily Van Fliet, the artistic director at Creed Repertory Theater, as well as uh well-known, uh well-loved Denver-based, usually actress uh Noelia Antweiler, uh, who's in a couple of the shows down there. So that'll be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:59

Yeah, it's uh it should be a fun podcast episode. We're gonna be recording that one uh together in our Airbnb that we've got in Creed. A sort of unusual setup for the podcast. We're taking it on the road. Uh, but it should be a really interesting way, hopefully, for you guys to kind of get inside uh what it feels like to be in Creed along that one main street where everybody does these performances, lives, and does all their businesses. And if you happen to be mulling around Creed from uh Friday, uh July 17th through Sunday, July 19th, and uh you see Alex and I wandering around, don't be afraid to say hi. We'd love to talk theater with you.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:39

Absolutely. All right. Well, the last thing I wanted to mention was uh if you hadn't, if you didn't happen to hear it, uh we we just recently were featured on uh Colorado Public Radio on their Raise the Curtain series, which is about uh generally theater, performing arts. Uh so that was a lot of fun. Tony and I were on there. It was actually a little while ago. They finally took got around to getting it on the air, but uh we talk about uh a lot of the theater that's going on this summer, uh, as well as you know, just kind of theater criticism in general and and lots of other things. So uh you can catch that um on the CPR website. They have a section for the raise the curtain. So I think I think it's on there. So uh did you get a chance to listen to it, Tony?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

Yeah, I did. It was a it was a very generous edit they gave us. I thought that the segment can't turned out really well. And if you're wondering why a lot of the news that we discuss in there sounds like it was from April, it's because that was when we recorded the segment and that and the Buntport news and uh the stuff with Curious was all fresh on the mind. Might have picked some slightly different news topics if we had known it was going to be coming out in July. But even that considered, I mean, it was still great to be able to get to share with a broader audience on CPR information about Central City Opera, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and stuff happening at some of the other summer stock locations around the state.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:00

Yep. All right. Um, we talked real quick about off our off-stage section where we talk about other arts, film, concerts, etc. We saw uh Tony, what did you uh you got out to see some film?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

Well, I've just got a couple that I'm looking forward to. So my final film on the rocks that I'm gonna be going to is Bridesmaids. Very, very much looking forward to seeing how a comedy like this plays out uh on the big screen with a ton of other folks. And then uh I'm very eagerly anticipating the release this weekend of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Me and every other film, bro, but listen, I I'm excited. I can't help it. It looks really epic, and uh I don't have my tickets yet because we're going to Creed this weekend, and so I didn't uh I didn't want to buy anything in advance, but uh I'll see it at some point and I'm re I'm really excited to check it out.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:52

Oh, me too. I mean Odyssey is just um just such a great story, of course. Uh everybody knows it, but uh it'll be interesting to see a new take on it. Uh if you want to really brush up on your Odyssey, uh the podcast, The Rest is history, has a two-parter this week. I just listened to the first one this morning. Uh it's really, really great. Um, and uh can definitely get you get you ready for this one.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:15

Um Okay, that's a great recommendation. I'm going to add that to my podcast feed right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:20

I love those guys. Um I was just gonna mention a couple of things I that I I'm watching Silo season four, which is just this fantastic sci-fi series on Apple TV with uh Rebecca Ferguson, uh, and just this really fascinating performance uh uh about these people that live in this underground silo after like some sort of Armageddon or apocalypse, and they don't really know what they're doing there, and they've been there hundreds of years. Uh, and so it's it's just uh it's a really compelling series that I really enjoy. Uh and then for film, boy, I went and saw the invite. Uh, this is Olivia Wilde's new film the other day. Um holy crap, this is a really good film. I mean, it's it's kind of like, I don't know, think about like maybe some later Woody Allen uh mixed with like uh uh Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? It's like this real uh pressure cooker of two couples in this small apartment. Um, and it's it's got a great cast. It's uh, of course, Olivia Wilde is in it. Seth Rogan and um Penelope Cruz and uh Ed Norton. So I mean, yeah, and she directed and and uh too. It's it's a really, really great great film that I would definitely recommend checking out.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:32

I am planning to see that this week. I have not yet seen it because I had been in Connecticut uh for a little bit, but I it that is the next thing movie that is on my list to see. I'm gonna either see that tonight or tomorrow. So I'm glad to hear that it lives up to the hype. I've heard a lot of good things about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:51

So well, that is it for this episode. If you want to stay up to date on what's going on in theaters across the state, be sure that you're subscribed to the Onstage Colorado Weekly Blast, which is a newsletter that goes out every Thursday and just shares all of the reviews and news we've published, as well as some really detailed calendar entries. So if you're wanting to plan your weekend, you can check it out there. And then be sure to rate, review, and be sure that you are subscribed to this podcast so you don't ever miss an episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:22

All right. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. I'm Alex Miller.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:25

And I'm Tony Treska, and we'll see you in just a little bit at 3.