How to Build a Season to Remember

    Ever wonder how the heads of the Denver Center’s three branches — Broadway, the Theatre Company, and Off-Center — chart their seasons? When does Artistic Director Chris Coleman, start puzzling out the Theatre Company’s intricate season? What goes into the immersive offerings of Off-Center, helmed by Executive Director and Curator Charlie Miller? When […]

Julie Taymor: Queen of The Lion King

This article was originally published in Applause magazine for the national touring premiere of The Lion King in Denver in 2002. Almost from the moment Julie Taymor was born — in 1952, into a comfortable upper middle class Boston family — she was destined for a career in the theatre she could never have foreseen. […]

Beyond the Script: Denver Public Library’s Guide to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Thanks to the Denver Public Library, we’re delighted to provide these library resources to enhance your theatre experience of Denver Center Theatre Company’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. READ    Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr This excellent biography of Williams that was a best book of 2014 highlights his Southern […]

Loading in The Lion King

When the North American touring production of Disney’s The Lion King pulls into Denver’s Buell Theatre, an astonishing transformation begins. First, 17 semitrucks transport the puppets, set pieces, costumes, and other materials from city to city. Sixteen of the trucks are 53’ in length. Once unloaded, it takes four days of on-site technical preparation and […]

Daring Dance

By Valerie Gladstone Big corporations usually stay with the tried and true. Risk isn’t their game. But in 1997, in an inspired act of hiring, Disney asked the choreographer Garth Fagan to take on The Lion King. Until that point, Fagan had choreographed on two other theatre works, the Duke Ellington opera, Queenie Pie, in […]

The Big Reveal

DCTC’s 2025/26 Season Artwork Kyle Malone started with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts as a graphic designer in 1999 and became Design Director in 2018. As part of his role, he has been creating the artwork for the Denver Center Theatre Company for 12 seasons. He recently revealed the 2025/26 season artwork and […]

Take a Bite of Culture: Jewish Food in the Mile High City

When someone says they love Jewish food, where does your mind go? Bagels, matzah ball soup, lox – these are all part of Jewish cuisine, but a very specific one, channeled from Eastern Europe through New York City. Those dishes belong to the Ashkenazi Jewish culture; Jewish foods from North Africa, parts of the Middle […]

The Pulitzer Prize – Substance or Shadow?

I have never bought a book, read a poem or seen a play because it was by a Pulitzer winner. — Ben Brantley, Former Theatre Critic, The New York Times As a child of the 60s, I lived through the heyday of Award shows. Family and friends would gather as if for a holiday, dressed […]

15 Years Later, Off-Center is Still Serving Up Its Tasty Recipe

Fifteen years zips by in the most confounding ways. Ask any parent buying a dress and hiring a deejay for their daughter’s Quinceañera. Or ask Charlie Miller, the Executive Director and Curator of Off-Center — celebrating its 15th anniversary — who has been doing some marveling about how its early years feel like yesterday and […]

‘Displaced but Not Erased’

In 1969, as in so much of the country, residents of the largely Latino neighborhood of Auraria were in turmoil. Many young Latinos were being shipped off to Vietnam. Civil rights movements were in full swing, including the Chicano Movement led in Denver by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, founder of the Crusade for Justice. In 1969, […]