Flavia Florezell, left, in a gender-bent production of the Hollywood satire ‘Speed-The-Plow’ at the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins.

Floria Florezell, an active member for the Colorado theatre community who performed on stages across Fort Collins and Denver for three decades, died on March 23 of breast cancer. She was 61.

Florezell most recently appeared in Reader’s Theatre productions of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Wonder of the World at the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins. Favorite roles included playing Regan in OpenStage’s King Lear, Karen in Germinal Stage-Denver’s Reverse Psychology and Bobby Gould in a gender-bent take on David Mamet’s Speed-The-Plow at Bas Bleu.

Writing for The Denver Post, critic Bob Bows called Florezell’s performance in Reverse Psychology “empowered, smart and sexy.” 

Speed-The-Plow is a meanspirited satire of Hollywood culture in which two privileged studio execs wager whether one can seduce the attractive female office temp. Only in this production, Florezell played one of the misanthropes, Bobby Gould.

“Flavia was one of those special souls on this planet who grabbed the world by the (throat) and constantly reminded me to live every day as if it were a precious gift – and to and enjoy and respect the hell out of it,” said Lisa Rosenhagen, her castmate in Speed-The-Plow. “I will miss her talent, her light and her guidance.”

At OpenStage, Florezell also appeared in Macbeth, Fuddy Meers and The Tempest. At Bas Bleu, her credits included in Tongue of a Bird, The Swan and The Scarlet Letter. She performed in Miners Alley Playhouse’s Prelude to a Kiss and in the Aurora Fox’s Mr. Marmalade.

“She was an integral part of our company for three decades, and an integral part of the theatre community all along the Front Range,” said OpenStage co-founder Denise Freestone. “She was always very dedicated, and worked extremely hard.” 

One of her most unique theatrical experiences was performing in The Festival of the Delphic Games presented by the Isadora Duncan International Institute in the ruins of the theatre of the ancient Greeks at Delphi.

Florezell was born Dec. 20, 1955, graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Theatre and lived in Boulder. She worked perhaps most closely with area Director Peter Anthony dating back to the 1970s. (They are pictured above.)

“Flavia brought everyone and everything in her life immense joy and passion and a deep spiritual understanding of what it is to be human,” Anthony said.

By day, she was the General Manager of FIG, short for the Fresh Ideas Group – a mission-driven marketing and P.R. firm. She previously worked for April Greiman Inc., and the award-winning Kim Baer Design studio in Los Angeles. In Colorado, she was also the Business Manager for Volan Design, Stratecom and SHiFT.

(Pictured above right: Flavia Florezell, center, with Casey Jones and Deborah Persoff in ‘Reverse Psychology’ for Germinal Stage-Denver.)

As an actor — and as a human  — Florezell was known for her upbeat, collaborative and ever-friendly nature. I found her to be uncommonly decent and always armed with a healthy sense of humor. My first encounter with Florezell was as a theatre critic watching her in a 2002 production of The Dead Monkey at Bas Bleu (pictured right). I gave the production just 1½ stars out of four, but Florezell was never unkind in response. On the contrary, she said the company enjoyed the pan so much they performed dramatic readings of the review for years.

On her company bio, Florezell revealed a few little-known facts about herself:

• Bet you didn’t know — I was cast in a couple of Rodney Yee Gaiam yoga videos a few years ago. The audition consisted of doing a downward facing dog. Easiest job I ever got.
• Biggest adventure this year was going to Flinders Island, Australia. You get on a tiny little plane in Melbourne and 45 minutes later you are in an incredibly wild and pristine environment.
• One of the best meals of my life was in Sydney at Tetsuya’s. French-Asian tasting menu and the most artistic meal I’ve ever had.

In tribute, her friend Robert Reid posted to Facebook the following poem written by Florezell herself: 

“The wind has caught my sailing ship
A’sailing out to sea,
My nets aglow with rainbows and starfish
Dancing free,
I ride a seahorse till the moon
Brings the tide in with a sight
The wind has caught my sailing ship,
Now with the wind go I.”

Lisa Rosenhagen, left, and Flavia Florezell in a gender-bent production of ‘Speed-The-Plow’ at the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins.

More Colorado theatre coverage on the DCPA NewsCenter