Staging a play set in the 1950s that’s about a film set in the 1920s In 1951, as the classic movie musical An American in Paris was being released, director Stanley Donen and star Gene Kelly came together for a new film, now frequently named as the greatest movie musical of all time: Singin’ […]
One way to get over the end of summer is to find your way back to the theater. Here are four area shows at companies beyond the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ lineup. Feeding Beatrice Aurora Fox Arts Center A young Black couple has moved into their dream home, but there’s an unwelcome […]
Nearly 60 years ago, The Who released its fourth studio album – and blew up the entire concept of an album with the first commercially successful rock opera, a song cycle tracing the life and experiences of the “deaf, dumb and blind kid” Tommy, who goes from tortured childhood to becoming a godlike figure – […]
Long before Twilight, Divergent, and The Hunger Games, a teenage girl in Tulsa, Oklahoma invented the young adult genre. Susie Hinton was 16 when she wrote The Outsiders, which she sold to Viking Press under the name S.E. Hinton, so she wouldn’t be dismissed as just another girl. “There was only a handful of books […]
Bringing Beetlejuice to the stage was never going to be a simple task. Fans of Tim Burton’s 1988 comedy-horror film are legion, and devoted to the work of the visionary artist and director. So when director Alex Timbers assembled his design team for the Broadway musical, he brought in some heavy hitters, including six-time […]
DCPA Education offers in-school workshops that hone students’ approach to the Bard It was morning on April 24, and the Denver Performing Arts Complex was packed with witches, queens, kings, maids topped with wreaths of flowers, capes and pantaloons. The students from my school, Polaris Elementary? Well, instead of Elizabethan costumes, our fourth and […]
It was the summer of 1959. West Side Story was the biggest hit on Broadway and filming on the movie was just beginning. The neighborhood of San Juan Hill on the West Side of Manhattan was in the process of being demolished, so Director Robert Wise took advantage of the demolition to film scenes among half-destroyed buildings, using the rubble to suggest […]
POST- CIVIL WAR In 1865 Texas, chaos prevailed. The Civil War ended on April 9 of that year, but the news spread sporadically and in much of the state, enslaved Black people didn’t learn they were free until June 19, when Union Gen. Gordon Granger proclaimed it upon landing in Galveston. Although Black people were […]
To create the 1865 Texas of Terence Anthony’s Godspeed, the design team had several challenges to confront. The first was how to create the journey at the heart of the play when the theatre was in the round. “It was actually quite a big challenge in terms of the conceptual shift that everybody had to make, since the […]
Enrich your experience at the Denver Center Theatre Company’s world premiere production, Cowboys and East Indians, by Nina McConigley and Matthew Spangler. Share these pre- and post-show discussion questions with your group and enjoy the show. Pre-Show Questions How does the place or culture we grew up in inform the way we see […]