by Juliet.Wittman | Oct 12, 2022 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. Just over a year ago, the husband-wife duo of Stephen Weitz and Rebecca Remaly changed the name of their Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company to Butterfly Effect Theatre of Colorado after re-thinking the...
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 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 | 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...
by Juliet.Wittman | Jun 7, 2021 | Language and Life, Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword. No theater company in the country is quite like Buntport. This group of five local creatives — Brian Colonna, Hannah Duggan, Erin Rollman, Erik Edborg and SamAnTha Schmitz — stages entirely original productions. The...
by Juliet.Wittman | Apr 26, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
This article originally appeared in Westword under the title, “Intermission Is Over at BDT Stage.” On the day I spoke with artistic director Michael J. Duran to discuss the upcoming reopening of BDT Stage, Alicia Meyers, longtime...
by Juliet.Wittman | Mar 23, 2021 | Theatre, Westword
“This story is originally published by Westword as “Curtain Call: Reflections on Two Decades of Reviewing Denver Theater” Sometimes you find yourself sitting in a drafty, ramshackle room on a winter’s night, rain splattering the floor, an...
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