by Juliet.Wittman | Aug 24, 2022 | Theatre, Westword
The Denver Actors Fund is an amazing organization started ten years ago by arts writer and reviewer John Moore. It has now disbursed over a million dollars to members of the theater community with medical needs. I have admired John for his work for years–I...
by Juliet.Wittman | Aug 3, 2022 | Theatre, Westword
Kathleen Traylor knew that she wanted to act when she was a teen, but her therapist told her that goal was unrealistic. Traylor was born with amniotic band syndrome, which is caused by damage to the mother’s amniotic sac; when she was nine months old, her left leg was...
by Juliet.Wittman | Jul 18, 2022 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. BDT Stage — or, as it was known in the beginning, Boulder’s Dinner Theatre — has occupied a home on 55th Street and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder for 46 years. Now we’ve learned that the site has been sold for $5.5 million by...
by Juliet.Wittman | Jun 7, 2022 | Language and Life, Theatre, Thoughts on Aging, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. Curious Theatre Company’s founder and producing director, Chip Walton, recently announced the company’s 25th season, which opens September 10 with Heroes of the Fourth Turning, by Will Arbery. This announcement was coupled...
by Juliet.Wittman | May 16, 2022 | Language and Life, Thoughts on Aging, Westword
A draft of a Supreme Court decision banning abortion has leaked, and although reporters are carefully explaining that this is preliminary and may yet be edited, the import is clear: The court plans to destroy Roe v. Wade. Abortion will be illegal, and it seems no...
by Juliet.Wittman | Apr 27, 2022 | Thoughts on Aging
There was a Pig that sat alone Beside a ruined Pump: By day and night he made his moan— It would have stirred a heart of stone To see him wring his hoofs and groan, Because he could not jump. Right now I am feeling the deepest empathy with Lewis Carroll’s...
by Juliet.Wittman | Apr 25, 2022 | Thoughts on Aging
In less than two weeks, I will turn eighty. It feels huge. When I was young, no one I knew lived that long. My father died at the age of forty-three when I was four; my mother lived to be seventy, and my stepfather seventy-three. I encountered my first...
by Juliet.Wittman | Apr 8, 2022 | Theatre, Westword
This article first appeared in Westword. Some twenty years ago a group of ex-students from Colorado College founded Buntport, a unique Denver theater company that is opening its fiftieth group-created original production, Richard, this weekend. The troupe has...
by Juliet.Wittman | Mar 17, 2022 | Theatre, Westword
My trip to the Arvada Center to see Nelson Bond’s adaptation of Orwell’s Animal Farm was more electrifying than the hundreds of theater trips of the past several years of reviewing. As many of you know, I had surgery for a hip replacement early in January, and this...
by Juliet.Wittman | Nov 16, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. In normal times, the story of Scrooge — his stinginess and bad temper, his visitation by three ghosts and ultimate conversion into a kindly, charitable soul — may seem a bit of a Christmas cliché. Who doesn’t know the...
by Juliet.Wittman | Nov 13, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. In Lawrence Osborne’s short story “Volcano,” a divorced woman searches for meaning and identity on a trip to Hawaii. Anthony Powell, director for Stories on Stage, describes it as “funny — a strange,...
by Juliet.Wittman | Oct 21, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. Ed Baierlein, who founded Germinal Stage Denver in 1973 and oversaw pretty much every decision at the theater, from play selection to casting, outreach to finances and staging to site selection, has closed the...
by Juliet.Wittman | Oct 21, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. Violent. Blood-dripping. Rage-filled. These are terms critics have used to describe the musical Lizzie, based on the story of infamous ax-wielding parent-killer Lizzie Borden. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune called it...
by Juliet.Wittman | Oct 8, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. The voice on the phone is unmistakable — gravelly, grounded, thoughtful, and perhaps just a touch menacing. I have reached Bill Hahn, one of Denver’s most compelling actors and a member of the three-person cast of The...
by Juliet.Wittman | Sep 24, 2021 | Theatre
This article originally appeared in Westword. Hundred Days, which receives its regional premiere at the Aurora Fox on Friday, September 17, and runs until October 10, is a vivid musical memoir by real-life couple Shaun and Abigail Bergson with Sarah Gancher about how...
by Juliet.Wittman | Sep 13, 2021 | Theatre
This article originally appeared in Westword. John Ashton is well known in the Denver theater world and has worn many hats: actor, director, playwright and impresario. He ran the cozy, late-lamented Avenue Theater for several years, and his play Murder Most Fowl was...
by Juliet.Wittman | Aug 23, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article was originally published in Westword. Five creatives have been surprising Denver with original plays and performances at Buntport Theater for over twenty years, and the four members who perform (the fifth, SamAnTha Schmitz, collaborates on all aspects but...
by Juliet.Wittman | Aug 10, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This post first appeared in Westword When passionate calls arose after the murder of George Floyd for all artists to play their role in the anti-racist struggle, Curious was ahead of the pack, having been focused since the beginning on issues of social justice...
by Juliet.Wittman | Jul 13, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. Len Matheo, artistic director at Miners Alley Playhouse, kept the creativity coming during the pandemic, producing events from kids’ shows to streaming dramas to musical cabarets. Pre-COVID, the company staged an...
by Juliet.Wittman | Jul 13, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
BETC Takes Flight With New Name, the Butterfly Effect, and JQA Aaron Posner’s JQA is a play about John Quincy Adams, generally regarded as an ineffectual president but a highly principled statesman. It has been hailed as brilliant by many critics who say the...
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