Entries by Lisa Kennedy

Godspeed: A Western Rewritten

“I always loved westerns as a kid — the showdowns, the gunfights, all that,” playwright Terence Anthony said during a video conversation. His own contribution to the genre, Godspeed — a rousing saga about a formerly enslaved woman on a mission in post-Civil War Texas — is having its world premiere at the Denver Center […]

Finding the Heartbeat in The Notebook

Sentimentality is often scrutinized. Rightly so — let the teary among us admit. Yet, in the hands of people who appreciate its power but also believe it has integrity, the sentimental can be more than merely moving or easily nostalgic. Enter singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and writer Bekah Brunstetter, the tag team responsible for the musical […]

Filleting Questions from the Fishbowl

A large glass bowl with what could be mistaken for paper confetti sits atop a table where Charlie Miller, John Ekeberg and Chris Coleman have gathered in the Wolf Theatre in the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex. Not a stooge among them, the three gents of the Denver Center’s Off-Center, Broadway and Theatre Company divisions respectively […]

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 […]

A Blueprint for Happiness

With his wavy white hair, his dapper blue-gray suit and gold-rimmed eyeglasses, the nonagenarian did not look a day over 80. Standing at a podium at a 2019 Ted Talk, 99-year-old Eddie Jaku looked out at the audience before he began recounting his experiences of Kristallnacht and the five concentration camps he survived. “My dear […]

Tennessee Williams Looms Large with Cat by a Hot Tin Roof

Tennessee Williams might not be the biggest daddy in American theater — there is Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, August Wilson — but the Mississippi-born playwright comes awfully close. His early plays became a string of Broadway hits: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth, and Night […]