Entries by DCPA Press

The Making of an Animated Classic

In 1966, nine years after How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was published, Ted Geisel (more popularly known as Dr. Seuss) received a call from his old friend Chuck Jones, a successful animator who had created Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, the Roadrunner, and many others. The two had worked together during World War II while […]

Fun Facts & Trivia from Who-ville

  Since 1957, How the Grinch Stole Christmas has been a staple of the holiday season. Generations have grown up with the story of the curmudgeonly green creature who learns that “Maybe Christmas…doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!” Test your knowledge of the story with this trivia from Who-ville followed […]

Grinch Helps Rediscover the Magic of Christmas

Theodore Seuss Geisel began his career as a cartoonist in the 1920s after one of his fellow Oxford students noticed him spending more time doodling in class than taking notes. Not long after that, his work began appearing in magazines with the name “Dr. Theophrastus Seuss” next to them, which the cartoonist quickly shortened to […]

DCPA shifts approach to immersive programming

An Open Letter to Our Community Dear Friends, In 2010, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) embarked on a great experiment. Charlie Miller and Emily Tarquin co-founded Off-Center — a “test kitchen” for immersive theatre with a simple recipe — put the audience at the center of the story. As one of the […]

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 […]