For 10 days, the DCPA NewsCenter is offering not just 10 intriguing titles to watch on theatre stages throughout Colorado. This year we are expanding our preview by featuring 10 musicals AND 10 plays. Today is Day 9.

PLAY OF THE DAY: The Edge Theater Company’s A Delicate Balance

Featured actor in the video above: The inimitable Martha Harmon Pardee introduces Edward Albee in a way only she can. “It’s just another little peek at a highly functional, loving American family,” she says. 

• Oct. 6-Nov. 5
• 1560 Teller St., Lakewood
• 303-232-0363 or go to theedgetheater.com
•
Playwright: Edward Albee
• Director: Warren Sherrill

• The story: Set in the mid-1960s, Agnes and Tobias, a wealthy, middle-aged couple, are visited by their good friends and neighbors who bring an unclear threat with them to the already precarious household. Emotions are painfully stifled because the agenda is to keep up appearances to ward off the madness.

• But what is it about? In the current socio-political atmosphere, it is more important than ever to not be stale or mediocre. A Delicate Balance explores what happens when we choose to live a life of suppressed emotion and false happiness. A cosmetic wall of politeness can hide the terror of nothingness behind it. (Provided by The Edge Theater Company.)

Cast list:

• Agnes Martha Harmon Pardee
• Tobias: Kevin Hart
• Claire: Emma Messenger
• Julia: Maggy Stacy
• Edna: Abby Apple Boes
• Harry: Steve Emily

MUSICAL OF THE DAY: Midtown Arts Center’s Once

Featured in the video above: Actor, musician and co-Musical Director Barry DeBois. It’s different from other musicals because all of the actors on the stage are playing instruments. They are the orchestra.”

• Through  Nov. 11
• 3750 S. Mason St, Fort Collins
• Call 970-225-2555 or go to midtownartscenter.com
• Written by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová (music and lyrics); Enda Walsh (book)
• Director: Kurt Terrio
• Music Director: Barry DeBois and Kurt Terrio

• The story: Once features an impressive ensemble of actor/musicians who play their own instruments onstage, telling the moving tale of a contemporary Dublin street musician who is about to give up on his dream when a beautiful young Czech woman takes a sudden interest in his haunting love songs.

• But what is it about? Once is a celebration of life and love. It is a romance centering around two individuals who, while culturally different, find that love can blossom in different ways for each of them. It speaks to the power of music to bring divergent world views together. (Provided by the Midtown Arts Center.)

Cast list:
• Barry DeBois: Guy
• Elena Juliano: Girl
• John Jankow: Da
• John Seaberry: Bank Manager
• Charity Haskins: Reza
• Rebecca Monk: Baruska
• Carl Pariso: Eamon
• Dan Middleditch: Andrej
• Cody Craven: Svec
• Zoe Manloas: Ex-Girlfriend
• Nick Stokes: Billy
• Stella Seaman and Cassidy Terrio: Ivonka

More creatives:
• Stage Manager: Kyle Dill
• Choreographer: Michael Lasris
• Production Manager and Scenic Design: Mickey Burdick
• Lighting Design: Nicole Kramer
• Sound Design: Corey Hatch
• Costume design: Anthony Mattevi

The actor/musicians who make up the cast of Midtown Arts Center’s Colorado premiere staging of the Broadway musical ‘Once.’

More Colorado theatre coverage on the DCPA NewsCenter

Our complete 2017 Colorado Fall Theatre Preview:
• Day 1: Curious Theatre’s Appropriate and BDT Stage’s Rock of Ages
• Day 2: The Catamounts’ You on the Moors Now and Rocky Mountain Rep’s Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver
• Day 3: Creede Repertory Theatre’s General Store and Town Hall Arts Center’s In the Heights
• Day 4: Avenue Theater’s My Brilliant Divorce and the Arvada Center’s A Chorus Line
• Day 5: Bas Bleu’s Elephant’s Graveyard and Evergreen Chorale’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Day 6: Firehouse Theatre’s The Mystery of Love and Sex and the Aurora Fox’s ‘Company’
• Day 7: Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s The Revolutionists and Off-Center’s The Wild Party
• Day 8: Lake Dillon Theatre Company’s Pretty Fire and the Aurora Fox’s Hi-Hat Hattie
• Day 9: Edge Theatre Company’s A Delicate Balance and Midtown Arts Center’s Once.
• Day 10:  Local Theater Company’s The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthias and Thin Air Theatre Company’s The Toxic Avenger Musical

This 2017 Colorado fall preview is compiled by Denver Center for the Performing Arts Senior Arts Journalist John Moore as a service to the Colorado theatre community. Moore was named one of the 12 most influential theater critics in the U.S by American Theatre Magazine in 2011 and is the founder of The Denver Actors Fund.