I delight in many types of theater. I’m always down for Shakespeare. I love a lighthearted comedy. I dig a musical. I’ll try just about anything. But it’s the weird stuff that really gets me going. Not just weird-for-weird’s-sake dada-style nonsense — I still want a well-crafted story. A new story, preferably, or one told […]
Read More[Review] Bloomsday (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company)
If you could travel back in time, what would you tell your younger self? And what would you hold back? In Stephen Dietz’s Bloomsday, playing now at Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (BETC), Cait and Robert are offered the opportunity to connect with their shared pasts and their unresolved what-might-have-beens. Dietz’s sense of time travel feels […]
Read More[Review] Everybody (The Catamounts)
Everybody by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a… hm. You see, it… huh. It’s a stumper, at least when it comes to describing it. It’s the kind of stumper you should see. Based on a 15-century morality play called Everyman, Everybody is a ponderous and philosophical exploration of life and death, posing chewy questions about what […]
Read More[Review] Tiny Beautiful Things (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company)
Hurray: the 2019-20 theater season has opened! My first opportunity this season came through Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (BETC)’s production of Tiny Beautiful Things, a one-act play based on a compilation of essays by author Cheryl Strayed, recounting her interactions with strangers through an advice column she penned. Strayed anonymously contributed to the column Dear […]
Read More[Review] The Wolves (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company)
I have been interested in theater since at least fourth grade, when I began participating in my school’s plays. I am certain that before Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company‘s production of The Wolves I have never seen a play about nine high school-aged women — girls whose lives and struggles might have, at one point, resembled […]
Read More[Review] Men on Boats (The Catamounts)
There is an old Slate article that I am particularly fond of: a mother is reading The Hobbit to her 5-year-old daughter, and the daughter gets it into her head that Bilbo Baggins is a girl. She won’t be dissuaded, and insists that her mom read the story “the right way.” The mother says the pronoun switch was […]
Read MoreRAUSCH (The Catamounts/Control Group Productions)
Early on in my time in Colorado, I was introduced to a fellow theatre critic/hobbyist who asked me what types of theatre I prefer. “The weird stuff,” I told her. “Contemporary, boundary-pushing, immersive, untested. The stuff that might not work.” She told me to keep an eye on the Boulder-based theatre group The Catamounts — […]
Read MoreNatural Shocks
On Saturday, Dan and made our way to Boulder to a theater that has quickly become one of my favorites: the Dairy Arts Center. (Read a great article involving the Boulder theatre scene and the Dairy Arts Center at American Theatre.) We were heading to Boulder for a reading of Lauren Gunderson‘s “Natural Shocks.” The […]
Read MoreThe Coles do Boulder
While our good friends the Coles were in town, we spent an evening painting the town of Boulder red. We spent most of our free time on Pearl Street, as one does. We visited favorite shops including the Boulder Book Store, Two Hands Paperie and Fjällräven. We found a new favorite shop as well, Spinster […]
Read MoreDumplings in Boulder
Merry Christmas, Boulder! Our friend Danny invited us to town for lunch at Zoe Ma Ma, a tiny restaurant full of “super yummy street food.” There are about 6 tables in the joint and the place was hopping. Danny moved to Colorado from Cincinnati about two weeks after we did — he understands our strange […]
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