From Durango to Greeley, we run down all the great stuff going on around the state this summer — plus a conversation with Meow Wolf GM Brie Lipari and our Top 10 Colorado Headliners

Show Summary

In this episode of the OnStage Colorado podcast, hosts Alex Miller and Toni Tresca discuss recent theater experiences, local news, and provide a comprehensive guide to Colorado’s summer theater festivals. The episode features an interview with Brie Lipari from Meow Wolf Denver about their new interactive experience Phenomenomaly. We also share their weekly Colorado Headliners segment, highlighting upcoming shows across the state.

  1. Opening & Recent Theater Experiences (00:11 – 04:21)
  • Host introductions and weekend recap
  • Tony’s camping adventure that prevented theatre-going
  • Alex’s parking struggles at Meow Wolf due to stadium events
  1. Alex’s Theater Reviews (04:21 – 11:00)
  • “Something Rotten” at Stage Door Theater in Conifer – highly recommended
  • “The Book Handlers” at Buntport Theater – creative but hot venue
  • Discussion of theater comfort and venue challenges
  1. Colorado Theater News (11:00 – 19:54)
  • Ballyhoo – New performance space opening in Denver’s Highlands neighborhood
  • Bruce Seve Tribute – Remembering the DCPA Christmas Carol director (2005-2014)
  • Federal Theater Renovation – Historic venue being converted to 650-seat music venue
  • Windsor Community Playhouse – New season announcement
  • OpenStage Theatre – Leadership transition with new artistic director Jacob Offen
  1. Colorado Summer Theater Festivals Guide (21:05 – 30:54)
  • Creed Repertory Theatre – 60th anniversary season
  • Thingamajig Theatre Company (Pagosa Springs)
  • Little Theatre of the Rockies (Greeley) – 91st season
  • Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre (Grand Lake)
  • Colorado Shakespeare Festival (Boulder)
  • Theatre Aspen
  • Durango Playfest – New works festival
  • Central City Opera
  • Theatre Silco (Silverthorne)
  1. Meow Wolf Interview with Brie Lipari (33:19 – 49:43)
  • Introduction to “Phenomenomaly” – interactive experience through August 9th
  • Behind-the-scenes look at Meow Wolf operations
  • Discussion of the looping performance format and local artist collaboration
  • Maintenance and operational challenges of interactive art installations
  1. Colorado Headliners – Upcoming Shows (50:26 – 1:02:20)

 Closing & Website Updates (1:02:20 – 1:02:53)

Transcript

Created by AI weasels; forgive any f@$-ups.

Alex Miller (00:11)

All right, hello and welcome back to the OnStage Colorado podcast. I’m Alex Miller and I’m joined once again as usual by Tony Tresca. Hey, Tony.

Toni Tresca (00:21)

Hey Alex, it’s great to be with ya. How’s it goin’?

Alex Miller (00:24)

It’s going great. it’s lots going on here in ⁓ onstage Colorado World Headquarters down here in Highlands Ranch. Staff is bustling around. My editors are working on the podcast. The sound engineer is over there. It’s just a beehive of activity here.

Toni Tresca (00:29)

Definitely.

And all those different jobs, that’s just one person for the record, that’s you.

Alex Miller (00:45)

you

It could be, could be.

So, yeah, this week on the podcast, we’re going to be talking about what we’ve seen recently and some news from around the state before cruising into our main topic, which is we’re going to talk about the state’s summer theater festivals. I’m going also share an interview that I did with the head honcho at Denver’s Meow Wolf Convergence Station, Brie Lepare. So she led the team creating the new phenomenomally interactive attraction running through August 9th and told me all about it, along with some other

Meow Wolf News, but you also did a story about this as well, right? In Westward.

Toni Tresca (01:22)

That’s right, yeah, I actually got to attend an early morning rehearsal with the cast and creative team ⁓ over at Meow Wolf who was putting this together, was that in of itself was pretty wacky. Just being in that kind of immersive larger than life space with all the lights on and nobody else in it was like a surreal trippy experience. And then we were just, I was with the stage managers slash director for the Denver production, Serene On Sight.

And they kind of took me around, talked me through their vision for the show and explained that it was a full cast of about 20 freelance clowns, dancers and puppeteers who have built this looping narrative that is performed inside Convergence Station itself.

Alex Miller (02:09)

Right. Yeah. we’ll get ⁓ Breeze kind of diving into sort of the back end to talk about how it came into being. But ⁓ I’m glad you did that one because sadly I was thwarted from going to this on Saturday. drove downtown and had our tickets and went into the… And there was the weekend was playing at Mile High Stadium and there was just like this mob of cars. It was a hundred billion degrees out.

there was absolutely no parking to be found at Meow Wolf and we just couldn’t handle like parking in some faraway lot and walking there. we were just gonna take a rain check and we’re gonna go back another time. Cause I had my granddaughter, one of my granddaughters with me and it was just like, it just wasn’t gonna work out. Cause that can be a real shit show down there around Meow Wolf.

Toni Tresca (02:58)

Yeah, if you’re if you’re going down in that area, which is it’s right near the Bronco Stadium in Power Field and a bunch of other like shops and things down there. Also not too not terribly far away from a bunch of residential activity, too. So it’s tough to find parking in that location. And even if you do, it’s pretty pricey. And I imagine you didn’t want to pay that premium price for a parking spot that’s far away from Yowl to only to walk over in that blistering heat.

Alex Miller (03:16)

Yeah.

Yeah, well, it is a little it’s sometimes kind of confusing even though I’ve been to Meow Wolf several times just getting to the entrance they have like one sign ⁓ out there and then you’re just kind of like just this this it’s just labyrinth and there is a there’s a there’s a private parking lot right next to Meow Wolf where we went and it was fifty dollars to park and so we were like okay I’ll pass on that ⁓ but but yeah think Meow Wolf if you possibly you can work with the city of Denver maybe put up a couple more signs just a

Toni Tresca (03:48)

Whoa.

Alex Miller (03:57)

point people towards it. But nothing against Meow Wolf. going to talk about the whole cool stuff they have going on there in a little bit. But yeah, sometimes getting to anything in Denver at certain times can just be so irritating and annoying. just sometimes I’m just like, fuck it. It’s not the first time I’ve turned around. It’s something just like it’s just not going to happen.

But I did get out to see a couple of things. But first I want to ask, so you were dry this weekend. You did not see a single play and you have a good explanation. So let’s hear it.

Toni Tresca (04:21)

Totally.

That’s right. ⁓ That’s because this weekend, Tony went into the wild. I went on a camping trip for a birthday party with some friends to Radium Hot Springs, ⁓ which is basically out in the middle of nowhere. It’s about an hour outside of Silverthorn, near Kremling area, which is similar area to where we were just last weekend when we took the drive to Steamboat Springs.

Alex Miller (04:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

Toni Tresca (04:59)

for the Colorado New Play Festival. But this was not a lovely tourist area. It was a remote, ⁓ remote campsite with no running water, no electricity. And I was prepared for all of that, but what I was not prepared for was that it was essentially in the middle of this wind tunnel, because it was right between two massive mountains. So when we got there, we were faced with like 40 plus mile an hour wind that just basically prevented us from

Alex Miller (05:20)

Uh-huh. ⁓

Toni Tresca (05:29)

putting up a campsite, much less like walking around or doing anything. And so it was just us, all of us, all of us kind of sadly drinking beer behind a car that we had angled off to block some of the wind while we waited for it to be ready. Thank God it did eventually die down and our Saturday was nowhere near as bad. But Friday and Sunday morning when we woke up, winds were a-blowin’. So if you’re looking…

Alex Miller (05:55)

Uh-huh.

Toni Tresca (05:57)

If you’re going camping anytime soon, ⁓ check the wind speeds before you actually book the site. It’s not something I thought about, but I assure you, I will be looking at that in the future.

Alex Miller (06:00)

Sound advice. Yeah.

huh, that’s great. Yeah, definitely great advice. Wow, so you got to go to Kremlin twice in like the space of one week, huh? Or go through Kremlin.

Toni Tresca (06:20)

That’s right, it’s not quite in Kremlin, it’s just a little south of it, so I didn’t get to go to that coffee shop that we stopped at on our way through. Didn’t quite make it in there, but yeah, I mean, it’s a lovely part of the state, very scenic. It’s quite interesting that in this like 90 degree plus heat that we were experiencing, there were still mountains that had snow on them right in the distance. It really reminds you of ⁓ how vast our state is.

Alex Miller (06:43)

Right?

Yeah, yeah. So, all right, well, I got out to, I drove up to Conifer, which is really not a bad drive from where I am. I think it only took me about 45 minutes from here on the southern side of Denver to get up to stage door theater in Conifer to see a show that I’ve been wanting to see for a long, long time. And just one of those shows I just hadn’t ever gotten to, Something Rotten. And I gotta tell you, they did a freaking great job with this show. mean, Tanner Kelly, who’s the director of seeing some other shows that he’s done up there. ⁓

Toni Tresca (07:07)

Yes! ⁓

Alex Miller (07:17)

the choreographer, Heather Weston-Skow, put together just a really, really great show. ⁓ And they just had this cast that I was like, man, I didn’t even recognize most of them. So this guy, Jason Rex, that played Shakespeare was just, it couldn’t have been a better cast, as well as the two brothers, ⁓ Nick and Nigel Bottom, where Sean Davis and Andy Ray were great. ⁓ But yeah, just a really solid production. They’ve got another week.

of that, I think through Sunday, if you get a chance to get up there, I’d highly recommend that one. And the only thing was it was a little hot in there because it was a bazillion, even up in Conifer, it was warm in there, but it was like it was still it was cooling down quite a bit. So at halftime, we were able to go out and cool off. But they had a great house, had a good crowd. And then on Friday, I saw the book handlers at Buntport and it was really hot in there. They were actually handing out fans because it was like 100 degrees out. And

Toni Tresca (08:07)

Mm.

Yeah,

I imagine that warehouse that they’re in is not exactly built for the extreme heat.

Alex Miller (08:19)

Yeah, yeah, I’ve definitely been in some other hot shows there in the past. it really does affect your enjoyment of a show when you’re just kind of focused on like, my god, I’m so hot, I’m so hot, I wish I wasn’t so hot. And that’s not the theater’s fault, that’s their space. Book Canoes is a lot of fun. ⁓ Have you seen this one? I know you were going to.

Toni Tresca (08:43)

If not, I’m gonna be catching the book handlers this weekend.

Alex Miller (08:47)

Okay, right. So this is a reprise of, you know, they’ve done it back in 2018. And according to their site, they brought back from popular demand from the audience. It’s a really quirky show they really use. So Bunport is in this warehouse space, and they have this really capacity to just about any kind of set they want, they have all kinds of room and a great height as well. And they use that great height to set this one up. It’s got multiple levels on the stage. There’s a bathtub, there’s all kinds of like Rube Goldberg type

devices and the whole thing is based on this the premise of these people who are they work in this like little shop or I don’t know I guess I don’t know if you call it kind of a small factory where they distress books to give to that rich people have paid to have have them make it look like they’ve been well read so that when they’ve stocked their library they won’t just look like a bunch of new books that’s the idea yeah yeah yeah

Toni Tresca (09:40)

That’s a great premise. didn’t actually realize that was what the show was about. That’s funny.

Alex Miller (09:46)

⁓ And then, you know, it devolves into a whole lot of others, sort lot of metaphysical conversations. They’re just kind of like analyzing like phrases and things and ⁓ all this. So it’s kind of a ⁓ statement about like anti-intellectualism, but also kind of like the horrors of the day job, you know, they kind of, there’s one guy, you know, it like Eric Edborg kind of plays the boss and he says these same phrases that he repeats, like, you know, you know,

end of the day, it’s like, well, hard work is its own reward. And so they have these multiple exits and entrances as the workday ends and starts again. So ⁓ yeah, I felt like it started to wear a little thin, you know, towards the end. But it’s just such a nice job of establishing this world. And they really went all out with all the props and the set and everything and the great costumes. It’s in this sort of, I don’t know, sort of ⁓

There’s electricity, but they’re definitely in another age from yesteryear at some point. Anyway, ⁓ my reviews for both of shows are up on the site. What’s in the news this week,

Toni Tresca (11:00)

something pretty cool in the news. Ballyhoo, which is a new event, coffee, cocktail, and performance space in the Highlands neighborhood in Denver, is having its soft, soft opening today as we’re recording it. That’s Monday, June 23rd. This is an event space that’s being created by Julia Toby, who is a friend of the pod. We’ve had her on here before.

She’s also one of the producers for Give 5 Productions. And this is a really cool space that’s the former home of The Bridge Project, which is a nonprofit arts organization that they were doing really cool stuff in the neighborhood, but they just could not make the business model work. So they ended up having to sell the space last year. And Julia, who’s been looking for a home to produce theater and do these kinds of events in for seven years now.

heard about that, checked the space out, and when she saw it, she was like, this is the one. And so she’s been working ever since to get this space up off the ground. It’s taken a lot of time, sweat, and energy, but she’s finally here at this kind of softest opening in the space. It’s a BYOB ⁓ karaoke night being led by David Nels, who is her friend and local composer. So…

Alex Miller (12:19)

well.

Toni Tresca (12:23)

It’s pretty cool space. actually got a chance to tour it as it was under construction a few weeks ago. So I really got a sense of what it was going to look like in action.

Alex Miller (12:34)

That’s great. Well, yeah, I look forward to checking out some of the programming that Julie’s going to be doing there at Ballyhoo and wish her the best of luck with that enterprise. know it’s a big thing to jump into and ⁓ definitely props to anybody who can add some more performance space to the Denver scene.

Toni Tresca (12:53)

Totally, yeah, it’s a $300,000 lift. And if you’re interested in supporting this vision, which it’s the official opening for like the coffee shop and the cocktail part is still TBD since it she’s waiting on official permits to come through with the city. But if you’re interested in helping the get the finish of the venue across the finish line, you can check out it’s a website where it’s doing a public fundraiser.

to try to raise roughly $50,000 for those final build out costs. And so far it’s brought in about 21,000 with donations open through July 31st. So head on over to its website if you’re interested in learning a little bit more about its vision and donating to that fundraiser.

Alex Miller (13:37)

All right, great. What else?

Toni Tresca (13:41)

Well, in a little bit of sadder news, I wanna say, rest in peace to the theater artist, Bruce Seve, who staged the DCPA Theater Company’s production of A Christmas Carol from 2005 to 2014. Bruce died this week of cancer at 71. And he first came to work for the Denver Center Theater Company back in 1982, when artistic director at the time, Donovan Marley,

brought a bunch of people from the Pacific Conservatory performing arts in Santa Marie, California. ⁓ And he didn’t end up staying there forever.

And he was eventually brought back to help build the Colorado New Play Summit, which still reigns on to this day and is a really cool event. In addition, he directed a bunch of other plays during his time at the Denver Center, which he included in 2016. He’s remembered as being a really brilliant artist who was great to work with.

Alex Miller (14:16)

Okay.

Toni Tresca (14:40)

If you’re interested in learning a little bit more about his life and hearing from people who were close to him, I’d definitely recommend heading over to the Denver Gazette to check out John Moore’s excellent piece.

Alex Miller (14:51)

Yep, yep, yeah, Bruce Seve, definitely one of the legends of the Denver Center. He’ll be missed and has definitely gone too young. Well, another bit of news comes from the, on Federal Boulevard, which is not a place I often go, but I happened to be there on my ill-fated trip to Meow Wolf the other day and I saw this building, the Federal Theater, which I’d never noticed before, but since I knew this story had happened, I was looking around for it there it was. It definitely looked like this abandoned, know, graffiti,

Toni Tresca (15:11)

yeah!

Alex Miller (15:21)

extrune thing, but now it’s going to be renovated and filled with music. What more do know about this one?

Toni Tresca (15:28)

That’s right, yeah, it’s been empty for literally decades. It’s most known for being that old theater that you drive by and go, hey, whatever’s gonna happen to that place. ⁓ Now we know it’s been purchased by Scott Happel, Andrew Burkall, and Peter Orr, who also own the Oriental Theater and HQ over on South Broadway. They’ve taken over the lease and they hope to have the theater open as a 650-seat music venue by the end of September.

This team has a bit of experience doing this already. They’ve restored another old movie palace into a music venue already. That’s what they did with the Oriental. So they’re pretty much planning to kind of copy and paste that strategy to revitalize this theater that’s been dormant for so many years.

Alex Miller (16:15)

That’s great. Well, once again, always props to someone who’s adding performance space in the area, right?

Toni Tresca (16:23)

Absolutely, you know, a lot of times when we do these new sections, it’s like bummer news, theater needs more money or theaters out of space needs to find a new home. It’s nice when we actually have two items in the news bag this week that are new space coming to the area. I think that’s a sign maybe the art scene is slowly starting to recover. Things are starting to kind of build back a little bit. It just takes time. I know from talking with Julia, it’s a…

Alex Miller (16:33)

Yeah.

Toni Tresca (16:52)

If you’re, even if you are an event producer who has capital and wants to do the thing, just going through that city permitting process and making sure everything is up to code can just take a long time. So it takes a little bit to see the fruits of your, of your labor.

Alex Miller (17:09)

Right, right. Yeah, well, on that note, it’s always good to hear of a ⁓ community theater coming out with a new season announcement. So this comes from the Windsor Community Playhouse, which is just kind of like, ⁓ it’s just sort of ⁓ northeast of Loveland, ⁓ which I don’t think I’ve ever been in Windsor, but they’ve been out there, I think for a while. So they’re gonna be doing Over the River and Through the Woods, ⁓ starting off in September.

Toni Tresca (17:26)

Mm-hmm.

Alex Miller (17:36)

And then they are going to do, they have a Christmas, Christmas Eve at Evergreen Mall scheduled for early December. So family friendly thing. A spring lineup includes ⁓ buyer and seller. That’s C-E-L-L-A-R, March and April, which is a comedy about a young actor. ⁓ And they’ve got a couple of other things they haven’t put the dates out for South of Hope ⁓ and Brotherhood. So, so.

Keep an eye out for that for you folks in Northern Colorado that’s going on at Windsor.

Yeah, also in the northern part of Colorado, we just got this just came in. Did you see this press release, Tony?

Toni Tresca (18:16)

I’m just looking at it right now in real time as we speak. So these will be my real time reactions.

Alex Miller (18:20)

Yeah, well, yes,

yeah, we’ve been talking about Open Stage Theater, because they had little bit of a problem with one of their last shows, and we were wondering what was going on out there. Now they just announced a new artistic director, a leadership change. So, long time producing artistic director, Sydney Park Smith, steps down after six years, and over a decade with the company, and the board unanimously selected Jacob Offen.

as the new producing artistic director following a search. Apparently he’s already well known in the open stage community as a performer, and I contribute to both artistic and operational work. he’s going to be coming in, I think, in July. So ⁓ yeah, that’s, ⁓ I think, probably good news for them that they’ve got somebody to take the reins from ⁓ from Sydney Park Smith, where ⁓

She’s done a lot. expanded their community partnerships, launched some different types of programming and all that. But I don’t know all the story of what went on up there, but that’s the story now. So welcome, Jacob.

Toni Tresca (19:31)

Yeah, best of luck to Jacob as he looks to take over. It sounds like he’s going to be working pretty closely with Parker Park Smith during this period to kind of ensure that the handoff goes smoothly and that they’re in strategic alignment for the company’s future to quote the press release. best of luck to you, Jacob, and we’ll see what this means for OpenStage and its future.

Alex Miller (19:48)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex Miller (19:54)

Onstage Colorado is brought to you in part by Miners Alley Performing Center, whose production of Ring of Fire runs May 9th through June 29th. Ring of Fire is a high energy jukebox musical that brings the legendary songs of Johnny Cash on stage, weaving his iconic hits into a story of love, resilience, and the American spirit. Tickets at minersalley.com. supporting Onstage Colorado is Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater in Grand Lake. Their 2025 summer season runs from June 6th through September 5th and includes Disney’s Frozen,

guys and dolls, Footloose, and Nonsense. Find tickets at RockyMountainRep.com. Onstage Colorado is brought to you by Colorado Candlelight, featuring Anastasia through August 31st. This dazzling show transports its audience from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Tickets at ColoradoCandlelight.com. And we’re supported by Theodore Silko and Sylva Thorne, featuring Steele Magnolius, June 20th through July 13th.

It’s a classic heartwarming drama that’s also got lot of laughs as a hodgepodge of women form friendships as strong as steel which they are forced to lean on when tragedy strikes. Tickets at thesilco.org.

Alex Miller (21:05)

All right, well, moving on, our main topic today is theater festivals going on around Colorado this summer. So we covered some of this in our 2025 Look Ahead episode a few months back, but we figured it’s worth hitting these in a little bit more detail now that summer is upon us. So, Tony, you posted a complete guide to the season a few weeks ago on Westward, and I just did one for the Onstage Colorado site. So it’s kind of fresh in mind. So you want to kick us off from ⁓ in no particular order, but starting with… ⁓

our friends down south in Creed.

Toni Tresca (21:36)

Yeah, so Cree Repertory Theatre is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. It’s yeah, it’s an incredible festival that they’ve got down there and the town essentially revolves around the theatre in a really unique way. So I’ve heard from talking with artistic director Emily Van Fleet, who this is her first season over there and she’s throwing out all the stops. This season includes

Alex Miller (21:43)

Amazing.

Toni Tresca (22:03)

Xanadu, The 39 Steps, Silent Sky, The Fantasticks, ⁓ Improv Favorite Boomtown, some children’s programming, and a special 60th anniversary concert and gala. They’ve got shows that are running all the way through September 30th, so if you want to hit something really late in the season, this is your place. They’ll help you out with a show or two.

Alex Miller (22:27)

Yep. Yep. Also, ⁓ sort of down south in ⁓ in Pagosa Springs, Thingamajig Theatre Company has their rep season. They started at the end of May, so they’re doing something rotten through the end of August. And then they’re also doing a Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, The Wild Party, a Broadway gala on June 29. They’re doing a kids camp that the kids are doing James and the Giant Peach. So

I would love to get down there sometime. I’ve never been in Pagosa Springs. I’ve heard it’s just a lovely part of Colorado. but that’s going on at the thing about Jake.

Toni Tresca (23:01)

Any town that has the name Springs in it and a hot springs that I can dip into that’s a that’s a likely a place that I that I’d be interested in traveling to. next pick is it does not have Springs in the name, but I still think it’s a theater festival worth checking out. It’s the Little Theater of the Rockies, which is the oldest summer stock theater company west of the Mississippi entering its 91st season this year. ⁓

Alex Miller (23:04)

You’re down? Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Toni Tresca (23:30)

up in Greeley at the University of Northern Colorado. It’s got a couple of shows, including the musical title of show, which is a meta thing about the creation of musical theater, the heartfelt World War II correspondence, Dear Jack, Dear Louise, which is by Ken Ludwig, and then the ever-produced musical, the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Alex Miller (23:57)

Yeah, yeah, that’s always a lot of fun. ⁓ Another one that is always a good one to check out is the Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater. So Grand Lake, Colorado is a wonderful place to visit in the summer. In the winter, it’s filled with snowmobiles and that kind of thing. But in the summer, they’ve got this lake there and all kinds of stuff to do on the lake. And they’ve got this pretty, pretty impressive program. They also they really did cleaned up at the Henry Awards or

potentially they got a lot of nominations for this year’s Henry Awards for their program up there from last year. Yeah, so this season they’re doing Frozen, Guys and Dolls, Footloose and Nonsense, definitely some very familiar shows there. you know, for the the tourist crowd going through there and it features their full company and they have a 16-piece orchestra to bring those things to life.

Toni Tresca (24:29)

Yeah, they did.

Yeah, it’s a pretty spectacular program they’ve got down there that’s definitely very much focused on putting butts in seats and hey, there’s nothing wrong, nothing wrong with that. It’s always good to have a full house. Another cool festival that we’ve definitely talked about on this show before is the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. This is in Boulder. It’s been around since 1958. It is entering its 68th season.

Alex Miller (24:56)

Yeah.

Yep.

Toni Tresca (25:13)

this year and this is the second year in a row that it is entirely indoors because they’re doing renovations on the Mary Ripon Outdoor Theater. But just because it’s indoors does not mean that the shows are lacking in quality. They’ve got two full productions, The Tempest, which you can read my review on the Onstage Colorado site I thought was an absolute banger. And they’re about to open Richard the Second.

And they’ve got a sold out production of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, which is a morality play that’s a lot of fun. it’s cool that the original practices only has two performances and it’s done kind of in that Shakespeare style as it was. It’s cool that they’ve sold both of those out.

Alex Miller (25:59)

Yeah, yeah, I think they pretty much always do. So yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing, I’ve got tickets to see Richard the Second and I’m hoping to get out to see the Tempest too. ⁓ out ⁓ in the Western Slope area, Theater Aspen has got their summer program going June 12th through August 23rd. So they have this nice outdoor facility kind of tent situation, the Hearst Theater and.

Toni Tresca (26:09)

Nice.

Alex Miller (26:25)

know if you haven’t these these shows are there it’s Aspen and the shows are definitely a little on the spendier side so keep that in mind but Aspen is such a wonderful town to visit it’s so fun to walk around there so they’re doing Driving Miss Daisy and they’re doing Mamma Mia and Million Dollar Quartet so also also Button Cedars but yeah it’s a great place to go a great great place to go and for a summer little summer trip

Toni Tresca (26:51)

If all of these shows that sound familiar or they sound boring to you and you want something new, then consider heading on over to the Durango Playfest, which starts today as you’re listening to it. That’s Tuesday, June 24th and runs through Sunday, June 29th at the Durango Art Center. And this festival is now entering its seventh year and provides a creative incubator for new plays in the Scenic Four Corners region. This year’s selection includes works by Ian August.

married couple Lucy Wright and Williams Missouri Downs, Bill Capracine and Andrea Aptheker. So never actually been to this play festival, but I know it’s got a lot of cool talent involved. I know that a couple of folks from local theater company in Boulder are there right now. So I’m hoping, hope one day to maybe make it down there.

Alex Miller (27:42)

Me too, yeah. You know, I have never set foot in the town of Durango, which…

Toni Tresca (27:46)

Yeah, neither have

  1. Not yet.

Alex Miller (27:47)

I just

haven’t ever had an occasion to so a little closer to homes here in Denver Central City Opera has their ⁓ program starting up this weekend, June 28 and running through August 3 so ⁓ they are doing you know they have this beautiful classic opera house ⁓ and they’re doing the Barber of Seville, ⁓ a new opera called The Knock and a Broadway Broadway style romp in a kind of well-known title musical Once Upon a Mattress so whether you’re

into opera, a first timer, you want to check out… Is there Once Upon a Mattress, is that basically a straight musical? I mean, do you know anything about that?

Toni Tresca (28:26)

It is, yeah, they just, so that’s pretty much what Central City Opera kind of always does. They do one more traditional opera this year, that’s Barbara of Seville. They do something a little bit more experimental, not usually new necessarily, but they are doing a new work this year with The Knock, and then they always do a Broadway show, like Once Upon a Mattress. And so, yeah, this is pretty, this is a really cool theater. It’s a 550-seat opera house.

It’s got these really cool velvet seats. ⁓ It’s so gorgeous to look at and the seats feel good too, which is always a plus in my book since we’re gonna be sitting there and watching something. so, absolutely.

Alex Miller (28:58)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we’re see connoisseurs

The other thing

interesting about the Central City Opera House that they told me is that it’s not air conditioned, but it’s built out of this really heavy stone. So it stays pretty cool even on hotter days in the summer. It’s built by these Cornish miners back in the day. So there you go. Yeah.

Toni Tresca (29:27)

Whoa, I didn’t

know about that. Natural air conditioning via the rocks.

Alex Miller (29:32)

Yeah,

the rocks. So, well, the last one we wanted to mention is not exactly a festival, but they treat their summer lineup as like kind of the big part of their season. And this is Theater Silco in Silverthorne. So right now they just kicked off Steel Magnolias and it features a just banger cast of well-known Colorado actors, including Emma Messingen and Anterza Schwartz, Leslie O’Carroll and Maggie Tisdale. And of course, directed by Thunder River Theater Companies.

Missy Moore in her return to Summit County, which is where she grew up and went to school. And they’re also doing what the Constitution means to me, July 11 through August 3, and then a skip to Margaritaville in August.

Toni Tresca (30:14)

Yeah, Theatersilco does really excellent work and I know you and I have been talking about getting out to steal magnolia as we, after the, after recording this Alex, let’s sit down, get it on our calendar so we can get out there.

Alex Miller (30:26)

Yeah, interesting thing about Silco too is they do, they’re doing shows like every night pretty much except for Mondays. And they don’t really do like afternoon matinees. think all the shows are like seven or something like that just because as we’ve talked about before, mountain towns, you don’t wanna do a show in the middle of an ⁓ afternoon where people are either skiing or hiking or whatever else they’re doing up there. ⁓ yep.

Toni Tresca (30:32)

Yeah.

Yeah, they know their audience and they’re working around them, which is smart.

Alex Miller (30:54)

So ⁓ yeah, it’s interesting. A buddy of mine and we were having breakfast the other day and Margaritaville came on the radio and we both looked at each other like, my God, why is this song still being played? And we were talking about like this empire that Jimmy Buffett sort of built at it really surrounding this one song. There’s like, there’s restaurants, there’s, I think there’s like a theme park, there’s this musical.

Toni Tresca (31:20)

Yes.

Alex Miller (31:21)

Of course, he died a few years ago, but still the Lost Shaker of Salt lives on this summer in Silverthorn.

Toni Tresca (31:32)

Absolutely. Well, that is it for Colorado theater festivals. There are a couple that have already happened, which we obviously didn’t discuss. Looking at you, Fringe Festival and the Colorado New Play Festival. But these are all a bunch of great options if you’re looking to get your theater on in a bunch of cool scenic locations that also have other stuff to do. Don’t go anywhere though. We are going to throw it to Alex’s interview with Bree from Meow Wolf to talk about its upcoming programming.

Alex Miller (32:06)

Onstage Colorado is brought to you by the Aurora Fox, whose production of Little Miss Sunshine runs June 6th through 29th. A heartwarming and hilarious musical adaptation of the beloved Academy Award-winning film Little Miss Sunshine,

Onstage Colorado is brought to you by the Aurora Fox, whose production of Little Miss Sunshine runs June 6th through 29th. It’s a heartwarming and hilarious musical adaptation of the beloved Academy Award winning film. Little Miss Sunshine celebrates the power of love, determination, and the joy of following your dreams, no matter the obstacles. Tickets at aurorafoxartcenter.org. Also supporting Onstage Colorado is the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, presenting The Tempest, June 7th through August 10th, and Richard II, July 5th through August 10th.

Shows take place in the Roe Green Theater on the campus of the University of Colorado Boulder. Tickets at cupresents.org.

We’re also supported by the Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, whose new season starts in August and includes Cry It Out, Elizabeth the First in Her Own Words, The Thin Place, Every Brilliant Thing, Brooklyn Laundry and Mary Jane, as well as Mad Librarians for the kids. Get tickets at BETC.org.

Alex Miller (33:19)

All right, hey, we are here with Brie Lipari who’s the general manager and the director of public programming at Meow Wolf Denver. Hey, Brie, thanks for coming on the Onstage Colorado podcast.

Brie Lipari (33:30)

Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Alex Miller (33:33)

Yeah, yeah, it’s great to talk to you. And we’re here because we want to talk about this new thing that’s that it is just opening at Meow Wolf called Phenomenomaly. And so this is a ⁓ an interactive show that’s running through August 9. And I believe it’s also it’s kind of part of the general admission, is that correct?

Brie Lipari (33:51)

Yes, that’s correct. With no added cost, it’s just our normal ticket.

Alex Miller (33:57)

huh. Okay. Well, you know, before we jump into talking about Phenomenomaly, I just wanted to ask a little bit about you and, ⁓ you know, your role there at Meow Wolf. So have you been there since the beginning? How long you been at Meow Wolf Denver?

Brie Lipari (34:12)

Yeah. Good question. So I actually did start with Meow Wolf in June, 2021. And I was part of the opening of Convergence Station here in Denver. And then over the last couple of years, I’ve actually had a couple of different roles with Meow Wolf. I helped open two of our other locations. And then I recently came back here in February to take on the general manager position for Convergence Station. yeah.

Been with Meowth now four years.

Alex Miller (34:44)

Okay, great. Well, what a fun organization to be part of. I know that you’ve opened one in Las Vegas and another in Texas. Is that correct?

Brie Lipari (34:53)

Yeah, over the last two years, we actually opened two locations in Texas, one near Dallas and one right in the heart of Houston. So those are our newest exhibit, but we do have one in Vegas as well. That’s our Omega Mart.

Alex Miller (35:07)

Uh-huh. Okay. So every Meow Wolf has a different theme to it. So Denver is Convergence Station, which is kind of like this whole sort of, ⁓ I don’t know, leitmotif or theme of all these different ⁓ universes kind of colliding in one place. Is that correct?

Brie Lipari (35:26)

Yeah, Denver Convergence Station is actually the world’s first interdimensional transit station. ⁓ And yes, there are four converged worlds inside the building. But you’re right, all of our meow wolves have a different theme ⁓ kind of narrative going on, but they are all connected still.

Alex Miller (35:46)

Right, right. Yeah, it’s a ton of fun. If you haven’t been, definitely recommend you get out to, you know, Wolf and check it out. But now they’ve got something even to kind of icing on the cake, which is the phenomenomaly, which is fun to say. ⁓ It kind of reminds me of the, what’s the theater that you have in there called again?

Brie Lipari (36:05)

The Orpheum Theater? Or… ⁓ yes, our PerplexiPlex venue. we, Meowth loves to have some awesome names for people to pronounce.

Alex Miller (36:08)

No, the perplexiplex I was thinking of.

Yeah. Now,

will there be any action from phenomenomaly in the perplexiplex?

Brie Lipari (36:24)

⁓ No, actually that’s like the one location that ⁓ Phenomenomaly is not going to be taking place in throughout the rest of the exhibit.

Alex Miller (36:32)

Okay.

Okay, well good, then people aren’t going to be baffled by that tongue twister of saying paproxyplex and phenomenomaly at the same time. All well let’s dig in. What is phenomenomaly? ⁓ talk about a little bit how it came to be. I know you were the creator.

Brie Lipari (36:39)

Yeah.

Yeah, so I’m just one of this creative group that came together. Honestly, it came about very quickly. We started in January developing this kind of experience. like a quick summary of like what Phenomenomely is. ⁓ So like you said, it’s a new experience coming to our Denver location and it will be in Vegas, but let’s talk about Denver for now. It’s a seasonal

Alex Miller (37:13)

Mm-hmm.

Brie Lipari (37:15)

performance activation that really expands our storyline and narrative, like the Meow Wolf greater, larger narrative story. With new characters, new experiences, it’s going to actually run on a loop. So kind of like a sandbox style performance. ⁓ It’s a looping performance interactive between three and seven PM on select days. ⁓

And yeah, I guess to talk a little bit more about the inspiration behind where this came from, ⁓ we kind of based creating this new program production experience on inviting in past Meowl fans, current Meowl fans, and future fans to just experience something new within our exhibition. ⁓ And the creative directors, as they started developing the core creative

⁓ behind Phenomenomaly really, really emphasize like human connection. ⁓ The core concept of Phenomenomaly is really bringing people together to witness something mysterious and magical and emphasizing like transformatively like the power of shared experiences. just wanted to make sure that the participants that come to Phenomenomaly feel part of the show, not just, you know, like that’s that immersive piece and that interactive piece is like.

Everybody that’s going to come and experience it will ultimately be a part of it.

Alex Miller (38:46)

⁓ And is there, I know some people are like, yeah, give me that interactive immersive stuff. And some people are like, please, no, thank you. Can you kind of opt out and kind of shrink into the background if you want to?

Brie Lipari (38:54)

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely. So that’s great. I feel like about Meowth, it’s like you can be as involved or as little involved as you really want. up to the participant. But like in this, and then in Phenomenomaly, like to talk a little bit more about like the true like performance and production aspect, there’s a couple different groups that are involved. So there’s like our performance group is like a core group of ensemble performers that

Alex Miller (39:02)

you

Brie Lipari (39:28)

make up a couple different characters. There’s this group of five misfits that are actually coming to Convergence Station to witness this great spectacle moment. ⁓ And that goes back to the creative directors wanting… ⁓ The creative directors were thinking, what do people gather for? And they were like, ⁓ natural phenomenons, know, like the Northern Lights and the… Yeah, so that’s…

Alex Miller (39:54)

Right, right.

Brie Lipari (39:56)

kind of what Phenomenomaly is, it’s truly to witness a great migration of flicker worms, which are actually glowing luminescent beings that are gonna be actually produced. It’s a lantern parade to just like really dumb that down in one sense. And during the performance, like we will ask participants to join in on certain like dance elements and ⁓

Alex Miller (40:15)

⁓ huh.

Brie Lipari (40:24)

noise and singing with the group, but it’s up to everybody to really participate or not. We aren’t going to force anybody.

Alex Miller (40:32)

Uh huh. So kind of walk me through like, so I walk into conversion station. I’m there. I’ve got my ticket for Phenomenomaly. What happens when I walk in there? Am I, am I led by a guide or how does that work?

Brie Lipari (40:45)

Yeah, so we’ll welcome everybody in as normal. You’re coming into a normal transit station. And then the part of Phenomenomaly is like the first 40 minutes of the experience, like the overall hour and 20 minutes looping performance. The first 40 minutes of each performance time, which we’re going to do it three times every day that it’s ⁓ is honestly mostly about the characters and the creatures that are going to be walking around.

interacting with guests. So while you enter conversion station, you’re not going to immediately be like, this is phenomenomally. You have to kind of be wandering through the alien world and witness our misfits characters or witness the keepers, the ones that are actually trying to also see the migration. And then ultimately, after those first 40 minutes, you’ll end up in the spectacle moment. So like,

⁓ In one of our anchor spaces, one of our four worlds, Numenah is actually where ⁓ the migration will happen. And that’s when people will see phenomenomally all together in the culmination of the spectacle moment.

Alex Miller (42:05)

Okay, and like how many people are like going to be phenomenomaly at once? Like, is it going be like 20 people, 40 people, 100? Yeah, yeah.

Brie Lipari (42:14)

Yeah, you mean like how many guests will be there?

That’s gonna vary really on our ticket slots, know? So we have entrance every 20 minutes, but we’re hopeful to capture, mean, Newman has a huge space and ideally there’s gonna be over 100 people at a time witnessing phenomenomally ⁓ the spectacle performance acts.

Alex Miller (42:37)

Okay. ⁓

Which area in conversion station is numinous? trying to remember.

Brie Lipari (42:46)

Pneumonia is our giant forest, foresty area, the biggest room that we kind of have outside the perplexiplex.

Alex Miller (42:52)

Okay.

Okay, and so you’ve worked with local artists to create this. Can you talk a little bit about who those folks are?

Brie Lipari (43:04)

Yeah, definitely this wouldn’t be happening without all of our local performers and different acts that we have. So as I said, there’s like, there’s our core ensemble group, which is about 15 individuals local that are either dancers, puppeteers, clowns. And then we have our stage managers, stagehands and directors to make really 22 people in our core, like

Meow Wolf Ensemble Group and ⁓ each cast, like they’re making up like this misfit traveling group and they’re making up our ten keepers with all the new costuming that we have. And then we do have like in each show, which we’ve broken down each week, we’ll have a specialty performing act in the middle of Phenomenomaly. ⁓ we will have like a choir.

Alex Miller (43:35)

huh.

Brie Lipari (44:00)

one week, we’ll have a circus group one week, we have some contemporary and world dance teams coming in and then a brass band. seven, it’s going on for seven weeks. So we have seven different local groups coming in to perform.

Alex Miller (44:20)

Okay, great. So I wanted to ask, ⁓ you know, you think about a place like Meow Wolf, I guess in some ways, it’s a little bit like a museum where, you know, the exhibit stays more or less the same. And so some people like, you know, maybe locals, they’ve been to Meow Wolf once or twice, or maybe even three times. And is this kind of thing is a way to kind of, I don’t know, kind of mix things up and get it so that some people have been to Meow Wolf already, have something else to come back and check out that’s new?

Brie Lipari (44:49)

Yes, absolutely. this ⁓ is our first kind of foray really into a seasonal program to like, yes, encourage our repeat visitors to come back, but also it’s allowing us to flex more of our creative muscles, right? And bring back to like, honestly, where Meowliff started was a lot in performance and a lot in, ⁓ you know, music festivals and things like that where we…

We designed wild creatures and characters to show up and we’re finally bringing that back into our exhibits as opposed to being outside our four walls. yeah, this is hopefully ⁓ encouraging to all of our like super fans and also ⁓ those that might have visited once to come back and see something new in this space.

Alex Miller (45:38)

Right, yeah. Great, well, and I also want to ask, like, so some of the, you know, I don’t know, standing exhibits or whatever, is there a point where you start, like, ⁓ I don’t know, changing things up or is it always going to stay ⁓ pretty much the same?

Brie Lipari (45:57)

Yeah, that’s a good question. So we do have like an internal team that works with each individual site to identify like, okay, maybe this room has a little more wear and could be updated. know, so Convergence Station is actually going to celebrate their fourth year anniversary this September. And we’re starting to really, really dial in and think of what those rooms might be and where we want to potentially have new

Alex Miller (46:12)

Mm-hmm.

Brie Lipari (46:27)

new things installed. Similar to like the house of eternal return is our Santa Fe location, the very first Meow Wolf, and they’re going to be celebrating their 10-year anniversary next year and they have actually already changed out some rooms ⁓ and switched things up. we’re hitting that milestone I think ⁓ soon in Denver to have some new experiences for sure.

Alex Miller (46:53)

Right. I wanted to ask you one more thing about this kind of a pedestrian question about just like the operation itself, which I’ve just kind of been curious about. What does it take to keep things up there in terms of like, know, there’s a lot of things that people touch and I’m sure there’s dust and things. There’s probably a lot of cleaning that goes on. you talk about like just the just keeping Meow Wolf running? What’s that look like?

Brie Lipari (47:12)

yeah.

Yeah, we’ve got an amazing exhibition team. Like honestly, like, as you said, like Meowliff isn’t a normal museum or a normal art experience. We encourage people to touch everything. So every single day there’s multiple teams on the ground, Like from 6 a.m. till midnight, honestly, like fixing, fine tuning, updating technology to the restrooms, to ⁓ our HVAC unit.

We have like, yeah, I don’t even know how to get, how to like explain all of the hands that go into making the exhibit sustainable. ⁓ But we have it all internal staff. So we have our custodial team, our exhibit technology team that’s constantly updating our tech and experiences. And then we have an art and scenic team who are the ones that really go in there and like repaint the door handles or.

or the doors, or replace the vinyl that’s been ⁓ touched too many times. Or if you’ve been into the rat nest, they’ve rebuilt the rats that are in that little battle cage multiple times, just from the wear that we’ve had over the last four years. So yeah, it’s a lot. It’s a lot to keep up. ⁓ But the team is honestly like,

the heart of what makes Meowth really special in Denver and all of our sites, really.

Alex Miller (48:40)

Right. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s just a never ending battle to keep everything ship shape and clean and all that. yeah, when you go into me, I will if it’s it’s always everything is just kind of just so so congrats to you and the team on always, you know, having having it ready to go and for people to come in. And I know it’s become like kind of a real destination thing for tourists coming to Denver as well as the locals that check it out. It’s like, you know, you go to Denver. It’s like, it’s on the list of things to see, right?

Brie Lipari (48:43)

Yeah.

Yeah,

no, definitely. I think it is my favorite destination in Denver, but I might be biased.

Alex Miller (49:13)

Right, right. All right, well, Brie Lepirey, GM there at Meow Wolf Denver Convergence Station has this extra thing called Phenomenomaly going on through ⁓ August 9th in Denver. ⁓ thanks a lot for coming on and talking to us about it, Brie. Appreciate it.

Brie Lipari (49:31)

Yeah, thanks

for having me. This was great.

Alex Miller (49:36)

All right. Thanks again.

Ru (49:39)

Thanks Alex. Let me know if you have any questions or if you need any like additional.

Alex Miller (49:43)

All right, we’re back. Well, that was fun to hear about what’s going on at Meow Wolf. I think it’s interesting because, it is like I said, like I asked her in the interview, it’s like, you know, it is like a museum. It’s like, how many times can you go there? And you’ve got to freshen things up. And so I, you know, it was interesting to hear a little bit what she had to say about how they’re doing that. And also, the reason why they do have things going on in there. Of course, they’ve got the perplexi plex where they have, you know, I’ve seen a comedy show and they have concerts in there. Always something going on there at Meow Wolf. So

Toni Tresca (50:13)

yet.

Alex Miller (50:13)

All

right. All right. Well, now we’re to hit this week’s Colorado Headliners. So these are some of the upcoming shows we think you should know about. And in no particular order, Tony, what have you got to start?

Toni Tresca (50:26)

kicking us off with the fifth annual Boulder Comedy Festival. ⁓ This has been organized by Zoe Rogers, who’s been a comedian for 13 years. She’s a local, and she just kind of started this festival because she noticed that there was a lack of diversity in lineups around Colorado. She would notice that it was a bunch of like kind of straight white guys and then like one woman or like one black guy. And so she was like, what if we just had a show that was more representative of

Alex Miller (50:52)

Mm-hmm.

Toni Tresca (50:56)

everybody. And so that’s what she’s been doing in Boulder County for the past five years. She’s got everybody from nationally touring comics, from Comedy Central and Netflix to a bunch of cool local folks. ⁓ In total, this festival features 37 comics across four venues, including the Dairy Arts Center, Junkyard Social Club, the Lewisville Underground, and The End in Lafayette. ⁓

And there’s seven different events that you can choose from. Each has a distinct lineup of comics on it. So it’s a really cool festival if you’ve never been to it. And it’s a really cool way to kind of expose yourself to a bunch of different types of comedy because Zoe really does mean it’s diverse in the kind of content that’s being up there. So you really do not have two sets that are alike in any way back to back, which sometimes I went talking with Zoe, was like,

Yeah, I was just at ComedyWorks New Faces and the contest was, it was nine white guys and then one woman. And you were kind of like, yeah, I see, nine guys, there was one black guy. And I was like, yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty not diverse. And she was like, yeah, that’s pretty much exactly why we had to start this festival. And so, yeah, it’s a great event. Go down, support it. Even if you go for one day, you’ll have a good time, but.

Alex Miller (51:59)

Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh.

you

Toni Tresca (52:19)

I’ve gone to multiple shows and they really are different. Shows hit different based off of the time of day, ⁓ what the room is like and who’s in attendance.

Alex Miller (52:30)

Great, that sounds like lot of fun. Well, also in the Boulder area, I just wanted to remind people that Arts in the Open is going on until July 6th. They’re doing a show called Rumpelstiltskin and Other Tricksters. There wasn’t a lot of information about what the show actually is, something about terrible tricksters and the heroes who thwart them. But the main event or the main traction of Arts in the Open is that you’re going on a hike as part of the experience. And I still have not been, but I know you’ve been and you said it’s a lot of fun.

Toni Tresca (52:53)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it really is fun. It’s in Chautauqua Trail in Boulder. It’s a just under two mile hike. It is a little bit challenging because it is on a slight incline. So if you are somebody who needs kind of accessibilities to get around, this may not be the experience for you, as I noted in some of my reviews of the show. But if you can walk and you want to go on a hike and be outdoors in the Colorado nature while seeing a show.

There’s really not a better experience for you.

Alex Miller (53:31)

Yep. Sounds great.

Toni Tresca (53:34)

My next headliner is Young Frankenstein the musical that’s being produced by Breckenridge Backstage Theatre, June 25th through August 10th. This is from the team who brought you the producers written by Mel Brooks. This production is being directed and choreographed by Casey Hebel. And it’s just a lot of fun. This is, you know the story, it’s Frankenstein, but just a little bit different because it’s brought to you by this ⁓ master satirist.

Mel Brooks who is kind of skewering it. ⁓ I really like this show. It’s got a lot of really fun numbers, everything from like the Transylvania mania to putting on the wretz, which is from the original film. So.

Alex Miller (54:14)

Yep.

Yeah, it really is a great show. saw a Vintage’s production of it a couple of years ago, and it’s great. I’m sure that the crew up there at the backstage will do a great job with it. all right, my next one is back down here in the metro area in Parker at the Parker Pace Center, Rock of Ages. So this is opening this weekend, June 27 through July 20. I believe this is a very task production. Is that correct? Yep.

Toni Tresca (54:41)

That’s

right, yeah, it’s Veritas in conjunction with Parker Arts.

Alex Miller (54:44)

Yeah, so they very tested their ⁓ School Rock last summer. So they’re back again with a kind of a sort of similar vein, but this one is 80s stuff. So it’s Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, White Snakes. So this is one that my 80s loving wife, Jen, will like take her to it. She was on the big hair circuit back in the day with all the hair bands, loved it. And so this is ⁓ a story about the… ⁓

I guess our venue on Sunset Strip ⁓ that’s going out of business and some evil corporate interests are taking over some. I’ve never actually seen this one, so looking forward to it.

Toni Tresca (55:22)

Yeah, I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts on that. I’ve also not seen that one. I’ve only seen clips of the terrible Tom Cruise movie version.

Alex Miller (55:31)

Yeah, I’ve heard that was terrible.

Toni Tresca (55:33)

My next headliner is being done by Thunder River Theatre Company in Carbondale for three days only. It’s Lincoln Goes to Hollywood. This is brought to you straight from the Aspen Fringe Festival and is written by David Leadingham. It’s a hysterical historical comedy starring Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Brutus, and many more played by the writer and Lion Ham.

Alex Miller (56:03)

Wow. OK. That sounds titillating.

Toni Tresca (56:07)

Yeah, no more information is provided

about it, but knowing that this has come from the French Circuit, I imagine this is going to be a wild ride.

Alex Miller (56:18)

Yeah. All right, my next headliner also comes from Aspen. It’s Clue, a walking mystery. I guess it starts at the Wheeler Opera House. This runs June 20th. So it just started through July 12th. So it says, turn the streets of downtown Aspen into your personal game board in this award-winning immersive experience, making its Colorado debut. So of course, it’s based on the board game Clue. And it’s a live action whodunit where you solve puzzles and collect clues inside local business.

And yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I also maybe could hit some of the Aspen Theater stuff while you’re there checking out the clue thing in Aspen.

Toni Tresca (56:57)

Okay, that sounds really cool. That sounds really sick. Clue seems like the perfect thing to do like an immersive experience too, since it is already so kind of role play based. that’s a… Geez, now you’re making me question if I should drive to Aspen. ⁓ My next pick is in something totally different direction. It is a musical parody adaptation.

Alex Miller (57:00)

Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Toni Tresca (57:26)

of the torture porn film Saw. Yeah, it’s Saw the musical, it’s chronicling the events of the first film in which two people find each other ⁓ trapped in the bathroom together. ⁓ Will they follow the rules of Jigsaw as they discover each other’s secrets or will a love story emerge? Knowing that it’s a musical, I’m gonna think it’s probably the second option.

Alex Miller (57:29)

Wow.

You

Toni Tresca (57:53)

But I

have not seen this yet. It’s coming to the Dairy Art Center in Boulder. And this is actually the New York National Touring Cast who is coming ⁓ here. So I’ll be, I’m going to be hitting this for Boulder Weekly to review it on opening night. But, I am super excited. I’m like, didn’t, this is yet another, this is a musical that I don’t know how they’re going to adapt at all.

Alex Miller (58:02)

wow.

Toni Tresca (58:17)

but I am very, very curious. Unlike so many musical adaptations where I’m like, I’m not interested at all. I’m like, I do kind of want to see a singing jigsaw puzzle, a puppet.

Alex Miller (58:28)

Yeah, well, definitely the Venn diagram of Tony’s two favorite things, horror and musicals, is converging there with this one. So you definitely, I can see you enjoy that one. On a much more traditional side of things, Performance Now is doing the classic musical 42nd Street. So there’s some comfort food there for you. This is up now, it runs through June 29th. So you get one more weekend to check it out. So this follows the story of a gifted young performer on Dreams of Broadway stardom.

Toni Tresca (58:36)

That’s right.

Alex Miller (58:57)

who sort of stumbles into the lead role, I think, the musical during the Great Depression. So it’s great. It’s just one of those classics that has some songs that you’d recognize, like Shuffle Off to Buffalo, We’re in the Money, and the title song, 42nd Street.

Toni Tresca (59:16)

Cool. My final headliner is Richard II being done by the aforementioned Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder. This is the first chapter of Shakespeare’s four-part Game of Thrones. It follows Richard II, who ventures off to wage war to reclaim his stolen inheritance. He then gets embraced by an angry populace, who he co-ops their anger to go on a kind of a

a self-righteous ⁓ quest for power. ⁓ It’s being staged, according to the artistic director Tim Orr, as Veep meets Dr. Strangelove, which I’m very curious to see what that means in practice. It sounds like it’s going to be a slightly more satiric and farcical take on this history, which, you know, could work.

Alex Miller (59:57)

you

Yeah, I have to say that’s one of the histories that I have seen and it’s tough sledding. So I think anything you can do to kind of perk it up and, you know, bring it out of those real serious history themes is probably a good thing.

Toni Tresca (1:00:26)

Yeah, and I feel like a satire today about a greedy, self-obsessed person who uses a mass mob for their own personal benefits, it hits different. I feel like I can see where, I could see how one might be able to satirize that.

Alex Miller (1:00:33)

you

⁓ yeah.

Yeah, fortunately

that kind of thing doesn’t happen in our country, but I’m sure it does elsewhere. Yeah. All right, my last one is Yo Ho Hum. So this is going on at the Westcliff Center for the Performing Arts. So Westcliff is another one that’s ⁓ down south there somewhere. And that’s just this weekend, June 27th through 29th. So it’s a brand new comedy by Marcus Anthony.

Toni Tresca (1:00:46)

Right Alex, right.

Alex Miller (1:01:06)

It debuted at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival in 2024 and it tells the story of Steed Bonnet, a respectable 18th century gentleman turned pirate captain and his helpless first mate Tristram Shanty. So that’s about two and a half hour drive out there to Westcliff if you want to check that one out. that’s our headliners for the week.

Toni Tresca (1:01:28)

Cool. So Alex, what can people check out on onstagecolorado.com right now if they’re feeling a need to consume even more theater content.

Alex Miller (1:01:39)

Well, I just posted my reviews for Something Rotten at Stage Door and the book handles at Bunkport, which you just talked about. think Judith Sears, who’s our reviewer and one of our correspondents in the Colorado Springs, was getting down to Creed. So think she’ll have reviews of a couple of the shows from there, possibly the Fantasticks and the 39 Steps. And I know you’re going to be out at Candlelight to check out their new show, Anastasia, this weekend.

Albeit Rock of Ages, an overview of that. what’s going on on the site?

Toni Tresca (1:02:09)

So if you want to stay up to date on all of that plus more subscribe to the OnStage Colorado newsletter which comes out pretty much every Thursday.

Alex Miller (1:02:20)

Yeah, the theater blast. So ⁓ our next bonus episode next week, ⁓ usually we do a review of a show that we’ve both seen and I’m not sure if we have one this week. So we’ll figure out something for next week or we’ll take a miss, but we’ll be back on the whatever that first Tuesday in July is. I guess that’d be July 5th with our next full episode.

All right. Well, that’s all for this week. Thanks so much for listening. I’m Alex Miller.

Toni Tresca (1:02:49)

And I’m Tony Tresca and we’ll see you at the show.

Alex Miller (1:02:53)

Onstage Colorado is brought to you in part by Miners Alley Performing Center, whose production of Ring of Fire runs May 9th through June 29th. Ring of Fire is a high energy jukebox musical that brings the legendary songs of Johnny Cash on stage, weaving his iconic hits into a story of love, resilience, and the American spirit. Tickets at minersalley.com. supporting Onstage Colorado is Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater in Grand Lake. Their 2025 summer season runs from June 6th through September 5th and includes Disney’s Frozen,

guys and dolls, Footloose, and Nonsense. Find tickets at RockyMountainRep.com. Onstage Colorado is brought to you by Colorado Candlelight, featuring Anastasia through August 31st. This dazzling show transports its audience from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Tickets at ColoradoCandlelight.com. And we’re supported by Theodore Silko and Sylva Thorne, featuring Steele Magnolius, June 20th through July 13th.

It’s a classic heartwarming drama that’s also got lot of laughs as a hodgepodge of women form friendships as strong as steel which they are forced to lean on when tragedy strikes. Tickets at thesilco.org.

Editor & Publisher at  |  + posts

Alex Miller is editor and publisher of OnStage Colorado. He has a long background in journalism, including stints as the top editor at the Vail Daily, Summit Daily News, Summit Country Journal, Vail Trail and others. He’s also been an actor, director, playwright, artistic director and theatre board member and has been covering theatre in Colorado since 1995.

+ posts

A Colorado-based arts reporter originally from Mineola, Texas, who writes about the evolving world of theater and culture—with a focus on the financial realities of making art, emerging forms and leadership in the arts. He’s the Managing Editor of Bucket List Community Cafe, a contributor to Boulder Weekly, Denver Westword and co-host of the OnStage Colorado Podcast. He holds an MBA and an MA in Theatre & Performance Studies from CU Boulder, and his reporting and reviews combine business and artistic expertise.