Podcast: Big fall theatre preview — with a side of ‘Spamalot’

Chapter Summary

00:00 — Intro Alex and Toni welcome listeners and lay out the episode: a look ahead to the fall theater season (roughly September–November, skipping holiday shows), plus Toni’s interview with Chris Collins-Pizzano, one of the lead actors in the touring production of Spamalot, now playing at the Denver Center’s Buell Theatre through August 23.

01:24 — Backstage at Spamalot Toni recaps opening night (August 11) and a backstage tour after the show, including a conversation about the load-in process — the crew arrived at 6 a.m. and never ran the full show start-to-finish until the actual performance that night. They discuss how touring productions hire local crew in each city.

04:19 — Recent Reviews: Eureka Day Comparing Springs Ensemble Theatre’s Colorado Springs production (at the 59er Speakeasy) to Curious Theatre’s staging from the previous year. Praise for Allie Burroughs’ performance as Susanna and the strength of the ensemble.

08:19 — Taco Town (Miners Alley Performing Arts Center) World premiere by Luke Sorge (author of National Bohemians). Strong first act, but the show shifts tone away from comedy in act two — a shared critique from reviewer Garth Gerston and the hosts.

10:12 — 504 (Phamaly Theater Company, world premiere) A musical about the 1977 Section 504 disability rights sit-in at a San Francisco federal building. Toni highlights the “All We Need to Do” number and notes the ending undersells the fact that Section 504 is still being challenged today in Alaska, Florida, and Texas.

13:48 — Comedy of Errors in a Vacant Ross Dress for Less Shakespeare in the Wild’s outdoor Centennial performance was relocated last-minute to an empty Ross store after weather. Toni describes the scene (folding chairs, charcuterie boards, a former display case as a merch table) and praises director Aaron Vega’s nine-person clown adaptation.

17:19 — tick, tick… BOOM! (Arts Hub / Shift-Lin Theatre Co-production) A larger-cast staging of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical, with mixed results on ensemble choreography upstaging the leads.

19:12 — More Reviews & Concerts Quick hits: Urinetown (Singular Sensation, a new company), As You Like It (StarBar Players), Savannah Sippin’ Society (Funky Little Theater Company, Palmer Lake), plus concert reviews of Jesse Wells and Mount Joy.

20:42 — Fall Theater Preview Begins The hosts introduce the main segment: notable non-holiday productions running across Colorado, September through mid-December.

21:51 — Boulder County / Northern Colorado

• The Producers — Jester’s Dinner Theater, Longmont (Sept 4–Nov 29)
• Les Misérables — Candlelight Dinner Theater, Johnstown (Sept 9–Nov 15)
• Firebringer — Indigo Theatre Company at the Lincoln Center, Fort Collins (Sept 10–11)
• No Contract — Modus Theater, Boulder (Sept 17–Oct 4), a world premiere by Kristen Wilson about her mother’s dementia
• The Play That Goes Wrong — Longmont Theatre Company (Sept 18–Oct 3), kicking off the company’s 70th season
• Drag Queen Magic, or the Torturous Purgatorial Experience of One Miss Let Us Celebrate — local theater company, Boulder (Oct 1–17)
• Good Night, Oscar — Miners Alley, Golden (Oct 2–Nov 8), starring David Nehls as Oscar Levant
• Spooky season triple play: Little Shop of Horrors (Arts Hub, Lafayette, Oct 9–25), Sweeney Todd (CU Boulder College of Music, Oct 23–25), The Rocky Horror Show (Longmont Theatre Company, Oct 23–31, including a Halloween-night performance)
• Doubt: A Parable — Coal Creek Theater, Louisville (Oct 30–Nov 14)
• Dracula (Steven Dietz adaptation) — Open Stage Theatre & Company, Fort Collins (Oct 31–Nov 28)
• The 150 Project — CU Boulder Department of Theatre & Dance, in partnership with Tectonic Theater Project (Nov 6–15), a devised piece built from student stories for Colorado’s sesquicentennial
• Dancing at Lughnasa — Bas Bleu, Fort Collins (Nov 13–Dec 6)
• Annie — The Spark, Boulder (Nov 20–Dec 6)
• Harvey — Upstart Crow Theatre Company at the Dairy, Boulder (Dec 3–13)
• The Fair Maid of the West — Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company at the Dairy (dates TBD in segment)

32:17 — Colorado Springs Area

• Come From Away — Fine Arts Center (Sept 10–Oct 4)
• Sweeney Todd — UCCS (Sept 10–Oct 4)
• Heroes of the Fourth Turning — Springs Ensemble Theatre (Nov 5–22)
• Sweeney!: The Demon Barber of Cripple Creek — Butte Theatre, Cripple Creek (Oct 2–Nov 1), a melodrama-style world premiere

34:35 — Denver Metro

• Topdog/Underdog — Curious Theatre Company, staged at Cleo Parker Robinson’s space while its home venue is renovated (opens in August, runs through most of September)
• Brindlewood — Third Side Theatre Company at the People’s Building, Aurora (Sept 3–13)
• Misery — Arvada Center (Sept 4–Oct 11), starring Jeffrey Roark and Jacquie Jo Billings, directed by Lynne Collins
• Gypsy — Performance Now Theatre Company, Lakewood Cultural Center (Sept 11–27)
• Destiny of Desire — DCPA Theatre Company (Sept 11–Oct 4), a regional premiere co-production with Center Theatre Group
• The Producers — Vintage Theatre, Aurora (Sept 12–Oct 11), the company’s 200th production
• Hold On to Your Butts — Garner Galleria, Denver Center (Sept 16–Oct 4)
• The Weir — Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, at both the Savoy in Denver and the Dairy in Boulder
• Machinal — Miscreant Theatre Collective, Aurora (Sept 24–Oct 3)
• The Hatmaker’s Wife — Firehouse Theater Company, Denver (Sept 26–Oct 25), Colorado premiere
• The Turn of the Screw — Elemental Theatre Company (formerly Wheat Ridge Theatre Company), Lakewood (Oct 1–11)
• The Vampire of Lafayette — Buntport Theater, Denver (Oct 2–24), a world premiere possibly inspired by a 1950s local urban legend
• Feeding Beatrice — Aurora Fox Arts Center (Oct 2–Nov 1), regional premiere directed by Betty Hart
• Tiny Beautiful Things — Phamaly Theatre Company, People’s Building, Aurora (Oct 8–18), staged with a single onstage actor as “Sugar” and over 100 disabled actors worldwide appearing on video as letter writers
• Sweeney Todd — Platte Valley Players, Armory Performing Arts Center, Brighton (Oct 9–18)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Vintage Theatre, Aurora (Oct 24–Nov 2), featuring four actors playing different aspects of Hyde
• Pericles — Phamaly Theatre Company, Lone Tree (Nov 5–8), an adaptation for audiences with cognitive disabilities co-created with Flute Theatre London using the Hunter Heartbeat Method
• Singin’ in the Rain (working title referenced as “What a Glorious Feeling”) — Garner Galleria, Denver Center (Nov 7, 2026–Apr 4, 2027)
• One of the Good Ones — Curious Theatre Company (Nov 14–Dec), regional premiere
• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat — Arvada Center (Nov 18–Jan 3)
• Big: The Musical — Town Hall Arts Center, Littleton (Nov 20–Dec 27)
• Chicken & Biscuits — Firehouse Theater Company, Denver (Nov 21–Dec 20), regional premiere

53:10 — Mountain Towns & Southern Colorado

• Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune — Crested Butte Mountain Theatre (early September)
• The Catastrophist — Theatre Aspen/Thin Air Theatre (Sept 15–27), a Lauren Gunderson play about a pandemic specialist
• Every Brilliant Thing — Thunder River Theatre Company, Carbondale (Sept 11–27)
• Beyond Reason — Thunder River Theatre Company, Carbondale (November), a comedy about mediums by Colorado playwright K.D. Carlson
• Never Can Say Goodbye — Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre, Grand Lake (Sept 4–Oct 3), season closer
• Cinderella (Rodgers & Hammerstein) — Aspen Community Theatre (Nov 13–22)
• Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors — Evergreen Players (October)
• Fools — Evergreen Players/Conifer venue, by Neil Simon (Oct 3–27)
• Moriarty, Fully Committed, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Working — Creede Repertory Theatre, running through September 19
• The Importance of Being Earnest — Merely Players, Durango (Sept 25–Oct 4)
• Les Misérables — Steel City Theatre, Pueblo (Oct 16–Nov 1)

58:44 — Interview: Chris Collins-Pizzano Toni’s conversation with the Spamalot touring cast member about playing multiple roles, keeping bits fresh on tour, his history with Denver (two runs of Forbidden Broadway), and his connection to Monty Python.

1:15:03 — Wrap-up on the Interview

1:15:25 — What’s New on OnStageColorado.com New and upcoming reviews: Comedy of Errors, Tenderly (Theatre Silco, starring Ann-Terza Schwartz as Rosemary Clooney), tick, tick… BOOM!, Murder for Two (American Crossroads Theatre), Topdog/Underdog, and The Grown-Ups (Absurd Rodeo Theatre).

1:17:02 — Concerts & Off-Stage Recommendations Dillon Amphitheater (Jesse Wells) and Mount Joy at Red Rocks. Alex mentions rewatching Monty Python and the Holy Grail and recommends Ride or Die on Prime Video.

1:19:01 — Filmed Stage Musicals at the Box Office Toni discusses the theatrical releases of the filmed Hadestown (original Broadway cast) and Six (original West End cast), their box-office numbers, and the ongoing industry debate over whether filmed versions help or hurt touring and Broadway/West End ticket sales — including reports that Wicked‘s Broadway sales dipped after the film releases.

1:22:12 — LCD Soundsystem at Red Rocks Toni’s review of the August 16 show, praising the live instrumentation, camera work, and production design.

1:24:31 — Outro Reminder to subscribe to the OnStage Colorado Weekly Blast newsletter, published every Thursday with reviews, news, and weekend calendar listings.

Transcript

Alex Miller: Hey, hello and welcome to the August 26th episode of the OnStage Colorado Podcast. I’m Alex Miller.

Toni Tresca: And I’m Toni Tresca. This month on the show we’re looking ahead to the fall theater season, and boy, there is a lot going on.

Alex Miller: There is indeed. Right now we’re in a bit of a lull between the summer season winding down and the fall shows gearing up. So we wanted to dive into that and look ahead — September, October, November — not including the holiday shows.

Toni Tresca: Yeah, I dipped a little into December, as long as the show didn’t include any holiday gesturing.

Alex Miller: Not that we have anything against holiday shows, but they’re kind of a given. They’re going to be there.

Toni Tresca: Also, that’s fodder for another podcast, Alex — we wouldn’t want to give away all our best material.

Alex Miller: That’s right. Later in this episode we’ll have an interview Toni did with Chris Collins-Pizzano, one of the lead actors in the touring production of Spamalot, now at the Denver Center’s Buell Theatre through August 23rd. Chris plays four significant parts in the show, so I’m curious to hear that conversation.

Toni Tresca: Yeah, we talk a lot about the mechanics of comedy and how he and the company keep it fresh. I also asked about his relationship with Monty Python and his time in Denver before — he was here with Forbidden Broadway twice, so folks in Denver may recognize him. This was actually my third time seeing him on stage.

Alex Miller: You definitely looked familiar. You and I were there on opening night, August 11th, and it was an awful lot of fun — a real musical theater extravaganza. It’s the kind of show where anything goes: tropes, clichés, dance numbers, very silly. And then you got a tour backstage after opening night — I was jealous. What was that about?

Toni Tresca: My roommate, who I brought to opening night, knew one of the stage managers, Tara Toler Payne. We went to the stage door at the back of the Buell and waited for her to let us in and take us up to do a backstage tour and learn about the load-in process. They got there at 6 a.m. that morning, started unloading trucks, and didn’t run the show in its entirety until you and I saw it at 7:30 that evening.

Alex Miller: And it was tight. I’m amazed they didn’t even get a tech rehearsal, or scene-to-scene run.

Toni Tresca: Here’s something else that might boggle the mind: in every city they visit, about half the backstage positions are local hires — they get a list of tasks, like pulling ropes on scenic elements or moving set pieces — and they’re doing it all for the very first time that same night we saw the show. It was seamless. No errors. It really gave me a new appreciation for what goes into bringing a touring production to life.

Alex Miller: I’ve done tours of the Denver Center theaters before, but never while a live show was running there. That was a really cool experience.

Toni Tresca: It was funny, too — seeing the actors who’d just been singing their hearts out in these period costumes, then finding them backstage in modern clothes, headphones on, listening to music, trying to get out of the theater after a long day.

Alex Miller: That’s great. All right, let’s talk about what we’ve seen lately. Spamalot being a big one — and you and I also drove down to Colorado Springs over the weekend to see Eureka Day, a comedy set at a private grammar school in Berkeley. We’d both seen it at Curious Theater a year or two ago — 2025, right?

Toni Tresca: Yeah, almost exactly a year ago, same time slot. Christy Montour-Larson directed that production — a much larger staging at the Acoma Street space that let the scenic designers go big and really build out the library setting where a lot of the meetings happen. This new one is at Springs Ensemble Theatre, which performs in the 59er Speakeasy in the back of a game store in Old Colorado City. The night we went, we had to walk through a bunch of people playing tabletop games — it was really bustling.

Alex Miller: Yeah, it was hopping. Great little space — you’re sitting at tables, there’s some light food, beer, and it’s a really comfy spot.

Toni Tresca: The playing space itself is tight and slightly elevated, which for this play makes you feel like you’re sitting in the council room, completing the library in a real sense. I think director Jodi Paproth does an excellent job with pacing and how she builds tension, particularly through the casting. It’s a five-person show, and all five actors were excellent — Allie Burroughs’ performance really popped. She plays Susanna, a parent skeptical of the vaccine mandates being discussed in the show, and she makes a meal of that role.

Alex Miller: She really does. We don’t normally comment on actors’ looks in reviews, but she has this open, honest face and these big glasses — she really looked the part of an earnest parent who’s also a huge pain in the ass, but with a legitimate story. She wasn’t typecast as the villain, the anti-vaxxer. The whole cast was strong, and it was theater at its most basic — the actors are just a few feet from you.

Toni Tresca: There were a couple of moments that pulled you out of it a bit — a couple of long transitions, particularly one lengthy one involving books near the end — but I think those only stuck out because the rest of the play was so tight.

Alex Miller: Definitely recommend getting down there if you can — it runs through August 30th at the 59er Speakeasy in Colorado Springs. The other show I saw recently was Taco Town, a world premiere at Miners Alley Performing Arts Center in Golden, by Luke Sorge, whose National Bohemians was a hit last year. Our reviewer Garth Gerston was a little tough on it because it’s a really funny play, but in the second act the script veers off track — and I agreed. It turns away from comedy right when people are enjoying the comedy.

Toni Tresca: Do you think further development could fix those issues?

Alex Miller: Probably, but he’s been working on this play for a decade, so I’m guessing he considers it done. That aside, I’m sure a lot of people will have a good time — Luke’s a great dialogue writer, and it’s a fun play to go check out. You were at 504, another world premiere, right? You had a lot of good things to say.

Toni Tresca: I did — I really enjoyed this show. It’s a musical riffing on history, set in 1977, when about 150 disabled activists occupied a San Francisco federal building for 26 days, protesting for enforcement of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The musical is essentially that: characters with different relationships to disability, cut off from the outside world, debating what disability means and what the best course of action is — including whether recovering addicts and alcoholics should be given the same rights as, say, a wheelchair user. It’s a live question in the play, especially as politicians get involved. The music mostly soars — witty, and it shifts styles depending on who’s singing. There’s a great patter song called “All We Need to Do,” where, because this protest was happening in cities nationwide but only San Francisco’s lasted, the song literally leaves blank space for each city that drops out, until half the song is silence. It’s powerful because it makes the movement audibly crumble around them. The second act gets away from that strength — it ends on a very happy note, with the characters literally saying “Did we win? Yes,” without questioning where things stand today. Alaska, Florida, and Texas are currently challenging Section 504, so I wish the ending had carried that same rigor through to the end.

Alex Miller: You’d said you thought this one could have life beyond Denver.

Toni Tresca: A thousand percent. It’s an important and, unfortunately, timely story — it’s not great that this is being actively challenged, because this is what gives disabled folks core rights, like the ability to receive care at home rather than being institutionalized. It’s wild that some states are attacking that. The more people who understand this fight, what was won, and what’s at stake, the better. There’s a little more work to do, but I think it has a real chance at a long life after Denver.

Alex Miller: We hear “unfortunately timely” a lot these days — relitigating battles of the past. Good on them for surfacing the issue. On the lighter side, I loved your review of Comedy of Errors from Shakespeare in the Wild. It was supposed to be outdoors in the park, and Jen and I were thinking about going, but there were amazing thunderstorms that night. You went to the alternate location — what happened?

Toni Tresca: I got an email shortly before showtime on opening night, Friday, August 14th, saying that instead of performing outdoors in Centennial park, Shakespeare in the Wild would be performing in a vacant Ross Dress for Less — which doesn’t sound like the most enticing space for Shakespeare. You’re literally between an active Staples and a Marshalls. I carried my folding chair in with everyone else, a little suspicious, but nobody let the change in location get them down — people brought little tables with makeshift charcuterie boards, cases of beer. It was probably the liveliest a Ross Dress for Less has ever been. It was an incredible evening. The production, directed by Aaron Vega, is a nine-person clown take on Shakespeare’s comedy of mistaken identity — two sets of identical twins sharing names, getting into absurd situations. The clown spin, with a Three Stooges sensibility and slapstick violence, really worked. There’s a great pantomime sequence early on about a shipwreck, using a ladder, fabric, and hand puppets. And there are tons of costume changes, since there are more characters than actors — Vega makes a lot of comic mileage out of that, especially in the final scene, where characters swap roles in view of the audience, including one actor literally talking to himself. I wish I could’ve seen it outdoors as intended, but the Ross location wasn’t a bad alternative — I really enjoyed my evening.

Alex Miller: Was there anything left in the store — steel clothing racks with old muumuus and pantsuits — or was it completely empty?

Toni Tresca: Pretty much empty. There was a former display case they used to set up merchandise, and the bathrooms were still active in the back, but otherwise it was cleared out.

Alex Miller: And tick, tick… BOOM!, the Rent-adjacent show — who put that on?

Toni Tresca: That was at the Arts Hub, a co-production between the Hub and Shift-Lin Theatre Company, a mostly Denver-based company that partners occasionally with this Lafayette-based group. It’s the prequel to Rent in many ways — Jonathan Larson’s musical about being an artist in New York turning 30 without a hit yet. It’s traditionally done with a small cast of three; this production has a larger ensemble, which can work — I’ve seen it work before, as I’ll write in my review soon on OnStage Colorado. There’s a bit of a mismatch with the choreography — the ensemble frequently upstages the actors, doing flash-mob-style choreography that literalizes the lyrics in a way I found strange. Some moments really worked, like a bustling diner scene and the musical-premiere scene, but others — like the opener, or the “Green Green Dress” song, meant to be an intimate duet — become full-production numbers in a way that sits uneasily with the source material.

Alex Miller: Also new on the site: your review of Urinetown from Singular Sensation — “the guy who didn’t like musicals,” from Maddie Browning — a new theater company that had a rough first show, according to Maddie. As You Like It, from StarBar Players in Colorado Springs, which our reviewer Judith Sears thought was a really great production. And Funky Little Theater Company did Savannah Sipping Society in Palmer Lake, which April Toia, our reviewer, thought was a fun Golden Girls-style comedy. On the music side, I was at the Dillon Amphitheater over the weekend and saw Jesse Wells — my review’s up on the site — second time I’ve seen him, a great musician with a lot to say about the state of the world. And Maddie was at Red Rocks last week to see Mount Joy, the indie folk band a lot of people are into these days. Plenty to check out at onstagecolorado.com.

Toni Tresca: Let’s turn now to our main topic — the Colorado Fall Theater Preview. As Alex mentioned, aside from summer stock and Shakespeare, the Front Range can feel quiet in summer, but that’s about to change.

Alex Miller: Yeah, fall is when a lot of companies hit their stride and start their season. So to kick off the onslaught of new shows, we’ve rounded up key productions happening across the state.

Toni Tresca: For this list we’re not naming every show a company is doing, just spotlighting particular productions running between September and December that we think should be on your radar — excluding holiday shows. None of those here.

Alex Miller: Let’s kick off with the northern part of the state, Boulder County.

Toni Tresca: A couple of dinner theater options right off the bat. First, Jester’s Dinner Theater in Longmont — even though people have talked for years about them going away, they’re still kicking. They’re producing The Producers, September 4th through November 29th, a nice long run, with or without dinner. And the other dinner theater option is Candlelight Dinner Theater up in Johnstown, staging Les Misérables, September 9th through November 15th — feels like a perfect pick for that company, a big exciting stage musical, and I’m curious how they’ll fill that stage with the barricade.

Alex Miller: Right in their wheelhouse, but a big, tricky show. You had a company I hadn’t heard of — Indigo Theatre Company in Fort Collins. Do you know them?

Toni Tresca: Not a ton — they’re a newer company in the area, performing at the Lincoln Center for two nights, September 10th and 11th, doing Firebringer, from Team StarKid, the same company behind The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, which we have a review of on the site. They’re known for comedy musicals they upload in full to YouTube, so you can watch Firebringer right now — or go to Fort Collins and see it live. It’s a prehistoric Neanderthal musical comedy about the discovery of fire.

Alex Miller: Reminds me of Quest for Fire, the ’80s film. Ever seen it?

Toni Tresca: No, similar plot I’d guess.

Alex Miller: More or less — they get the fire, then lose it, and have to go find more. Modus Theater in Boulder is doing something different from their usual programming — a two-person physical theater play called No Contract, by Kristen Wilson, about her mother’s dementia, running September 17th through October 4th. A stretch for them.

Toni Tresca: Kristen Wilson is Modus’s artistic leader — they mostly do political, improvisational work engaging the community, so this world premiere is a different thing for them, but from a very honest place. It’s about her mother, a prominent activist, grappling with whether dementia can ever hold anything positive — how you stay grounded through something so intense. Speaking from my own experience with relatives who’ve gone through it, it can be a lot. I’ll be checking this out on opening night, curious how they balance the comic and tragic elements.

Alex Miller: And on the other end of the spectrum — no pun intended — The Play That Goes Wrong at Longmont Theatre Company, one of my favorites, always so much fun. It’s nearly foolproof — even if you flub parts, it blends right in. Not that Longmont Theatre Company will, but — that’s September 18th through October 3rd. Do they still have their own facility?

Toni Tresca: They do — a big theater space right on Main Street downtown, probably a 300-seater, with an old-timey popcorn machine in the lobby.

Alex Miller: Which you’re all over.

Toni Tresca: This kicks off their 70th season. They have a whole new leadership team who’ve been doing a lot of community-engagement work to revitalize the company, which for a time was struggling to survive.

Alex Miller: Yeah, they were struggling.

Toni Tresca: Over in Boulder, Local Theater Company has another world premiere — lots of those this fall, and that trend will continue. They’re doing Drag Queen Magic, or the Torturous Purgatorial Experience of One Miss Let Us Celebrate, about a drag queen lip-syncing Lady Gaga who’s confronted by a strange woman and trapped in a Groundhog Day-like loop. Local did a workshop of it last year; I didn’t see it, but heard it’s hilarious. World premiere runs October 1st through the 17th.

Alex Miller: And over in Golden at Miners Alley, they’re doing Good Night, Oscar, October 2nd through November 8th, with Denver’s own award-winning David Nehls playing the legendary Oscar Levant. We usually just see David behind the keys — does he actually have speaking parts in this one?

Toni Tresca: Yes — he’s quite an actor himself. I believe he got his start as a touring actor in The Rocky Horror Show many years ago, and that’s where he met his writing partner for the Great American Trailer Park Musical. So he definitely has acting chops, and I’m looking forward to seeing him on stage in Golden.

Alex Miller: Not a world premiere, but a regional premiere.

Toni Tresca: That’s right. I’ll group the next three together since they’re all spooky-season programming in Boulder County: the Arts Hub in Lafayette is doing Little Shop of Horrors, October 9th through 25th; CU Boulder’s College of Music is doing Sweeney Todd, October 23rd through 25th; and Longmont Theatre Company is doing The Rocky Horror Show, October 23rd through 31st — with a performance on Halloween itself.

Alex Miller: Gotta be there for that. Coal Creek Theater of Louisville is doing Doubt: A Parable, always a popular drama, October 30th through November 14th — pretty heavy-duty, set at a Catholic school in the Bronx in the sixties, about a strict nun who suspects a priest of improper behavior with a student.

Toni Tresca: And if you want to keep the spooky season going through November, Open Stage Theatre & Company up in Fort Collins has you covered with Steven Dietz’s adaptation of Dracula, running October 31st through November 28th. I last saw this adaptation at Firehouse Theater Company a couple years ago — a lot of fun stuff for the Renfield character. I got an invitation to review this one up in Fort Collins, and I think I’ll take them up on it.

Alex Miller: CU Boulder’s Department of Theatre and Dance is doing The 150 Project, a new play rooted in student stories, November 6th through 15th — this is Colorado’s sesquicentennial, so there’s a lot of “150” programming around. Do you know more about this one?

Toni Tresca: The Department is partnering with Tectonic Theater Project — creators of The Laramie Project — using their signature devised-theater process to build this new work from student performers’ stories.

Alex Miller: And back up to Fort Collins, Bas Bleu is coming out of a quiet period with Dancing at Lughnasa, November 13th through December 6th. I’m familiar with this show but have never seen it — have you?

Toni Tresca: No, never.

Alex Miller: Maybe we’ll have to make the trek up. What else is in Boulder?

Toni Tresca: A couple more: The Spark in Boulder is doing Annie, November 20th through December 6th; Upstart Crow Theatre Company, also in Boulder, is doing Harvey — about a man who’s best friends with a giant rabbit — at the Dairy, December 3rd through 13th; and Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company is doing The Fair Maid of the West, also at the Dairy, an adaptation of Thomas Heywood’s Elizabethan drama following Bess, a rat-catcher and barmaid falsely accused of murder who goes on a wild adventure.

Alex Miller: Rat-catcher-slash-barmaid — a résumé item you don’t see often these days. All right, heading down I-25 to Colorado Springs: the Fine Arts Center is doing Come From Away, always popular there, September 10th through October 4th, and its counterpart, the Ent Center at UCCS, is doing Sweeney Todd over the same window.

Toni Tresca: We’ve already mentioned Sweeney Todd twice, and this will not be the last time.

Alex Miller: Springs Ensemble Theatre — same company we mentioned earlier — is doing Heroes of the Fourth Turning, also done at Curious Theater a couple years back. This Will Arbery play digs into the conservative movement and gets fairly political, November 5th through 22nd. We were talking about how Springs Ensemble is kind of the Curious of the Colorado Springs area — similar taste in material.

Toni Tresca: Definitely, and there’s a real need for it in that market — I don’t think any other company down there would touch a show like this, essentially a two-and-a-half-hour fireside conversation among conservatives working through all the hot-button issues.

Alex Miller: And speaking of Sweeney Todd — this isn’t Sweeney Todd, but the Butte Theatre, which mostly does melodramas, is premiering Sweeney!: The Demon Barber of Cripple Creek, October 2nd through November 1st. Sure to be a lot of fun given the silliness they do down there.

Toni Tresca: God, the Butte Theatre and their melodrama titles — we always say we need to get down there. Maybe this Sweeney adaptation, in their own town, is the excuse we need.

Alex Miller: Another road trip south. All right — Denver Metro, the big dog.

Toni Tresca: Kicking things off — technically cheating a little, since it opens in August, but runs through most of September — is Topdog/Underdog, the first show Curious Theatre Company is doing in collaboration with Cleo Parker Robinson while its home on Acoma gets renovated. It follows two brothers abandoned by their parents, each searching for purpose, as old resentments and rivalries resurface.

Alex Miller: That sounds intriguing, and it’ll be strange to see Curious in a space other than the Acoma — I’ve been going there since the ’90s when they opened that theater. In Aurora, Third Side Theatre Company is doing Brindlewood, September 3rd through 13th — a new musical woven with shadow and song, following a young girl who wanders too far from home into an ancient forest older than time.

Toni Tresca: Looking forward to this one — it’s got Faulty Optic-style puppetry from what I’ve seen on their social media, and Third Side really specializes in this handmade, down-to-earth style.

Alex Miller: Where’s it playing?

Toni Tresca: The People’s Building.

Alex Miller: And another big one — Arvada Center is doing Misery, September 4th through October 11th, with Jeffrey Roark and Jacquie Jo Billings, directed by artistic director Lynne Collins. Popular show, a two-hander, very creepy — pre-spooky season. I’ve never seen it staged despite how often it’s produced, so I’ll check this one out.

Toni Tresca: You missed the production at Miners Alley with Emma Messenger — she was fantastic. So sorry you missed that. This one will probably be great too, but that one is seared into my mind.

Alex Miller: Yep.

Toni Tresca: Over in Lakewood, Performance Now Theatre Company kicks off its season with Gypsy, September 11th through 27th — a musical about a stage mom and her two daughters on wildly divergent paths. You and I are checking this out at the Lakewood Cultural Center on opening night.

Alex Miller: I’m almost ashamed to admit I’ve never seen Gypsy.

Toni Tresca: Not surprised, given you’re not a Sondheim person — this is one of my favorites of his, maybe my favorite, though Merrily We Roll Along and Company switch back and forth for that spot too. You definitely know some of the music.

Alex Miller: Yeah.

Toni Tresca: DCPA Theatre Company has a cool-sounding regional premiere, Destiny of Desire, a telenovela play with music, September 11th through October 4th, a co-production with Center Theatre Group. Two baby girls, one born into wealth and one into poverty, are swapped at birth, leading to comic complications. It’s written by Karen Zacarías, whose Just Like Us I recently saw done by Su Teatro — really cool script. This one sounds like it leans hard into the telenovela conventions, so curious to see it at the Denver Center.

Alex Miller: Over in Aurora, if you missed The Producers at Jester’s, you get another shot at Vintage Theatre, September 12th through October 11th — the company’s 200th production. It almost seems like Vintage has done 2,000 shows given how prolific they are, but 200 is a big number.

Toni Tresca: Huge milestone, and the cast looks great. I’ll check it out on opening night — I’ve never seen the musical staged live before, only the (pretty bad) film adaptation, so hopefully this clears an easy bar.

Alex Miller: One theater at the Denver Center we always keep a close eye on, because their runs are so long, is the Garner Galleria — a rough show there means they’re stuck with it a while. They’re doing Hold On to Your Butts, September 16th through October 4th — a shorter run for them — a two-actor, shot-for-shot live parody of Jurassic Park. I’m a big Jurassic Park fan, so I’m keen to check it out.

Toni Tresca: Did you end up going to Jurassic Park in Concert at Red Rocks?

Alex Miller: No, I only saw The Princess Bride there this year.

Toni Tresca: Just curious — I knew you’d talked about going. I heard it sold out and was really cool.

Alex Miller: Makes sense.

Toni Tresca: Next up, another pick from Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, performed both at the Savoy in Denver and the Dairy in Boulder — The Weir, by Conor McPherson. A woman arrives at a remote Irish country pub where the men start telling ghost stories, and she reveals a startling story of her own. Very famous, well-regarded play — I’ve never seen it. Have you?

Alex Miller: No. I was talking to Mark Ragan at BETC about it a couple months ago — he said it’s a very different kind of show for them, all ghost stories.

Toni Tresca: It seems reminiscent — maybe not — of The Thin Place, which they did last season, in terms of people swapping stories that end up a little supernatural.

Alex Miller: Right. Miscreant Theatre Collective in Aurora is doing Machinal, September 24th to October 3rd. What do you know about this one?

Toni Tresca: It’s an older play — a 1928 piece based on the real-life case of Ruth Snyder — about a woman pressured into marriage and motherhood, a life she never controlled, and her battle out of it. A very surrealist, intense piece. I’ve only read it in a drama class, discussing this period and style of theater. Never seen it staged, so this will be a first for me.

Alex Miller: Cool. Over at Firehouse Theater Company, also in Denver, they’re doing the Colorado premiere of The Hatmaker’s Wife — about a young woman who moves in with her boyfriend expecting domestic bliss, but her strange new home has other plans, and soon the walls are talking. Inspired by Yiddish folklore, a tale about family, home, and how we treat the people we love. That’s up September 26th through October 25th.

Toni Tresca: So many titles ending in “wife” this year.

Alex Miller: Curious to see what that one’s about. Elemental Theatre Company in Lakewood — formerly Wheat Ridge Theatre Company — is doing The Turn of the Screw, October 1st to 11th, based on Henry James’s novella about a young governess caring for two children, with ghosts involved too. And I love this title — Buntport Theater in Denver has a world premiere, The Vampire of Lafayette, October 2nd through 24th. All their shows are basically world premieres unless they’re reboots. What do we know?

Toni Tresca: Just the title — but a little research shows there’s a 1950s Lafayette, Colorado urban legend about a vampire supposedly buried in the Lafayette Cemetery, and parents warning local kids that if they weren’t home by a certain time, the vampire would get them.

Alex Miller: Sounds fun.

Toni Tresca: My guess is they’re riffing on that — or inventing something entirely new. With Buntport, you never know. It’ll likely be zany either way.

Alex Miller: And more ghosts. What’s this one?

Toni Tresca: Over at the Aurora Fox Arts Center, Feeding Beatrice, October 2nd through November 1st — a regional premiere directed by friend of the podcast Betty Hart, centering a Black couple haunted by a white ghost in a gothic tale exploring race and class.

Alex Miller: Interesting. Aren’t most ghosts white?

Toni Tresca: [laughs] I suppose you’re right, Alex — the classic sheeted, diaphanous ghost.

Alex Miller: Right. Phamaly Theatre Company is doing Tiny Beautiful Things, another popular title, at the People’s Building in Aurora, October 8th through 18th.

Toni Tresca: They’ve got an interesting twist — normally it’s a one-person show as “Sugar,” the advice columnist, with a couple of actors playing the letter writers. Phamaly’s version has just one actor on stage as Sugar, while over a hundred disabled actors from around the world appear on video as the various letter writers. Not sure how that will play theatrically — could feel clunky transitioning between them, or it could be a great way to embody all these different voices from different places. We’ll see come October 8th.

Alex Miller: Want to tell us about the next Sweeney Todd installment?

Toni Tresca: We’ve got another one — Platte Valley Players, in Brighton, October 9th through 18th, at the Armory Performing Arts Center downtown. They always do sharp work — this is one of Kelly Van Oosbree’s companies. We saw a great Cabaret there, and Much Ado About Nothing recently — expecting another excellent Sweeney Todd.

Alex Miller: I’m sure it will be.

Toni Tresca: What do you think it is about Sweeney Todd hitting so hard this season? It’s playing all over.

Alex Miller: I really don’t know — probably a coincidence. Good spooky-season property, but there does seem to be an inordinate number of productions. Plenty of Sweeney to go around, though — you don’t have to travel far to see it.

Toni Tresca: I don’t know — I keep wondering if it’s about a man who feels upset and misled by the government, taking justice into his own hands, vigilante-style. That sentiment feels pretty popular right now.

Alex Miller: Back at Vintage Theatre in Aurora, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale, October 24th through November 2nd — right in the heart of spooky season.

Toni Tresca: This adaptation features four actors playing different aspects of Hyde’s personality — an interesting twist on that figure.

Alex Miller: I’ve never read the book or seen a film or play version, so I’ll go check that out.

Toni Tresca: I was actually in a comedy adaptation once — I played Dr. Jekyll’s mother in a farcical version. Never read the original story, though, so I don’t know that version well.

Alex Miller: Huh.

Toni Tresca: Phamaly Theatre Company has another fall show, this one a short run in Lone Tree, November 5th through 8th — remounting Pericles, an adaptation for people with cognitive disabilities, co-created with Flute Theatre London using the Hunter Heartbeat Method, a rhythmic storytelling approach geared toward audiences with cognitive disabilities.

Alex Miller: Sounds intriguing. And back at the Garner Galleria — the long-run show we mentioned earlier, but not a comedy this time.

Toni Tresca: No — they’re doing What a Glorious Feeling, November 7th, 2026 through April 4th, 2027, a play with music imagining what might have happened behind the scenes during the making of Singin’ in the Rain.

Alex Miller: I’ve always wondered what went on behind the scenes of Singin’ in the Rain. Sounds interesting.

Toni Tresca: I’ll have to actually watch Singin’ in the Rain — that’s one classic musical that’s escaped me.

Alex Miller: I’ve only seen the one clip of them singing in the rain. Curious Theatre Company is doing One of the Good Ones, November 14th into December — a regional premiere about a Latina woman who brings her unexpected, white-passing boyfriend home to meet her multigenerational Latino family in California. Sounds like a Curious kind of show.

Toni Tresca: If you want something lighter, the Arvada Center is doing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, November 18th through January 3rd — their holiday-adjacent show, but it’s not actually about any holiday, so it makes the list. Love this musical — I was just listening to it on the treadmill today. Great album to run to, with all those fast-paced, upbeat songs switching between characters.

Alex Miller: It’s a great musical, one you can revisit over and over. Speaking of Christmas-season shows that aren’t Christmas-themed — Town Hall Arts Center in Littleton is doing Big: The Musical, November 20th through December 27th, a stage adaptation of the 1988 Tom Hanks film about a boy who wishes himself into an adult body. I didn’t even know there was a stage adaptation.

Toni Tresca: Neither did I until researching this list — but I wonder what the style is. It’s a fun premise, seems very musicalizable.

Alex Miller: Sure.

Toni Tresca: Firehouse Theater Company in Denver is doing Chicken & Biscuits, November 21st through December 20th — a regional premiere full of Black joy, grief, and healing, following an extended family reunited at St. Luke’s Church, I believe for a patriarch’s funeral.

Alex Miller: Firehouse has been red hot, doing a lot of great work these last few years — that one’s worth checking out. All right, we’ll round things out with a swing through the mountain towns and southern Colorado. “Mountain towns” here is loose — could mean just outside Denver, or way down south — basically anything above about 6,000 feet. Crested Butte Mountain Theatre has been a little quiet lately but comes back with a banger — Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune — in early September. And Theatre Aspen is doing a Lauren Gunderson play called The Catastrophist, September 15th through 27th. Not sure what that one’s about — do you know?

Toni Tresca: Not really — let me Google it real quick… looks like it’s about a pandemic specialist, written during the height of COVID.

Alex Miller: Got it. And Thunder River Theatre Company in Carbondale is doing Every Brilliant Thing, September 11th through 27th. I was talking to Missy Moore, their artistic director, at Taco Town, and she’s really excited about their next show, Beyond Reason, in November — Colorado playwright K.D. Carlson’s comedy about mediums in the late 1800s. I told her I’d try to get up there for that one.

Toni Tresca: When she asks you to come up, you gotta do it — you’ve known her for years, basically your whole career, right?

Alex Miller: Yeah. Also, Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre is closing out its season with Never Can Say Goodbye, a ’70s musical revue, September 4th through October 3rd. They have a long season, but their other shows go dark before they finish out with this one in September.

Toni Tresca: A last hurrah before it gets tough to get around up there because of snow — it’s beautiful, but super remote.

Alex Miller: It’s a big snowmobile spot in the winter.

Toni Tresca: That makes a lot of sense. Aspen Community Theatre is doing Cinderella, November 13th through 22nd — do we know if that’s the musical adaptation or a straight play?

Alex Miller: It’s the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella.

Toni Tresca: And Evergreen Players are doing Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors in October — the title that was up at the Denver Center for months, now being done at the local level.

Alex Miller: Big hit. And in Conifer — which you could argue counts as a mountain town, being close to Denver but up in the hills — they’re doing Fools by Neil Simon, October 3rd through 27th. Their site also mentioned an original musical called Muse of Fire, but no timing info was listed, so we’ll hear more about that when we can. Swinging way south, Creede Repertory Theatre continues its season through September with Moriarty, Fully Committed, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Working, ending September 19th.

Toni Tresca: And Merely Players in Durango is doing The Importance of Being Earnest, this very classic, very funny Oscar Wilde piece, September 25th through October 4th.

Alex Miller: And one more Les Misérables, at Steel City Theatre in Pueblo, October 16th through November 1st — a pretty big swing for them.

Toni Tresca: I guess Pueblo and Johnstown are far enough apart that they weren’t worried about audience overlap.

Alex Miller: Probably not much of a Venn diagram between those two crowds. All right, that’s a lot of shows — not all of them, but a lot. Moving on, as promised, here’s Toni’s interview with Spamalot‘s Chris Collins-Pizzano, who plays a number of roles in the touring production now up at the Denver Center.

[Interview segment]

Alex Miller: All right, well, that was a lot of fun hearing his take on being on stage in that batshit collection of roles he’s got.

Toni Tresca: Absolutely. He was very generous with his time — really appreciate Chris coming on and chatting about landing this role. It was cool to hear that he was auditioning for the Spamalot tour while he was here in Denver doing Forbidden Broadway — a nice full-circle moment for him.

Alex Miller: Great. All right — reviews up on the site now or coming soon include Comedy of Errors, which we discussed, from Shakespeare in the Wild; Tenderly at Theatre Silco, which Kim Nicoletti just sent over — that’s Ann-Terza Schwartz in the role of Rosemary Clooney, who Kim said was fantastic. You mentioned tick, tick… BOOM! from Shift-Lin; Murder for Two is coming up at American Crossroads Theatre; Topdog/Underdog from Curious at Cleo Parker Robinson; The Grown-Ups from Absurd Rodeo Theatre; and more. There are two companies in there I don’t even recognize — American Crossroads Theatre and Absurd Rodeo Theatre. Do you know these?

Toni Tresca: I don’t know much about American Crossroads Theatre other than that they’re producing Murder for Two at the Dairy this month — I’ll know more after opening night this Thursday. They’re new; I couldn’t even find a website and had to reach out through the Dairy to contact them. Absurd Rodeo Theatre was started by two younger theater artists who’ve worked together around Fringe — this is a scripted production they’re doing in the backyard of a house, I believe in Northglenn.

Alex Miller: Cool. I also mentioned a couple of music reviews — Mount Joy and Jesse Wells. I hadn’t been up to Dillon Amphitheater since they did a lot of upgrades over the last decade — it’s a really cool facility, right on Lake Dillon, or Dillon Reservoir if you want to be accurate. It’s like a mini Red Rocks, maybe 3,000 seats tops, with a lawn section, so there’s really no bad seat. Highly recommend it if you can catch a show there, and Jesse Wells was a great artist to see. Off stage, I saw Courtney Barnett, the Australian indie rocker, on Friday at Mission Ballroom — she’d been on hiatus for a while, excited for that. Jen and I also rewatched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the original 1974 film, just to refresh our memory — it really holds up, we laughed all the way through. It’s funny how you feel like you’ve seen it, but you really haven’t, since it’s so embedded in the zeitgeist. And Jen and I have been enjoying Ride or Die on Prime, with Hannah Waddingham from Ted Lasso and — I’m blanking on her costar’s last name — Viola, playing her best friend who didn’t know she was secretly a hitwoman. Very silly, but a lot of fun — good recommendation if you’re looking for something on Prime.

Toni Tresca: I’ve heard good things — glad you and Jen are enjoying it. I wanted to talk briefly about a phenomenon at the box office: two filmed versions of stage musicals recently released in theaters — Hadestown, with the original Broadway cast, and Six, with the original West End cast. Both did a great job capturing the live experience — Hadestown more effectively than Six for a couple of reasons — and both performed well at the box office. Hadestown earned about $10 million in its opening weekend, surpassing Hamilton to become the highest-grossing opening weekend for any live stage capture, and has made over $20 million domestically to date. Six just opened this past weekend and earned about $3 million — not quite Hadestown‘s numbers, but there’s clearly demand for this kind of thing, and all the theater fans like me are showing up.

Alex Miller: That’s impressive. It’s not easy to film a live theater performance well — must take real effort.

Toni Tresca: It costs a couple million usually to do it right, so producers need to see returns like this to know it’s viable. The other thing financiers are watching is whether these filmed versions help or hurt the live touring and West End/Broadway runs — both Hadestown and Six are still touring and running internationally. I was listening to an argument on a podcast that Wicked‘s Broadway run is seeing its worst sales in years following the release of both film installments, suggesting the films may have hurt live ticket sales.

Alex Miller: People feeling like they’ve already seen it.

Toni Tresca: Maybe — time will tell whether that trend continues for Wicked, or affects Hadestown and Six similarly. But there are clearly more filmed stage productions on the way — several plays and musicals have announced they’re filming or assembling teams to do so. I think we’ll see more of this at the box office, and personally, I’m very much in favor.

Alex Miller: Cool. And you were jealous about a show at Red Rocks — what was that?

Toni Tresca: Last night I saw LCD Soundsystem at Red Rocks — caught the Sunday show, August 16th. It was a banger of a set — such a big band, spread across the full width of the stage with all their instrumentation. Really elaborately produced, with cool lighting effects flickering off the rocks, and at one point a massive disco ball came down and filled Red Rocks with a disco glow. Great show — went with friends, had a hell of a time.

Alex Miller: Such a great band. I had a hard time picturing what they’d be like live — sounds like they delivered.

Toni Tresca: I was a little nervous going in, honestly, because a lot of their sound seems like it could only be produced in a studio, with a lot of technical effects layered on. But they had all their live synthesizers and mixing equipment on stage, doing all that work in real time, with incredible camera work as part of the show — cutting between elements to show you the production happening live, which I thought was an incredible experience I wasn’t expecting. When they first brought out all these instruments, I turned to a friend and said, “I hope they actually use all of this and it’s not just for show” — and they really did, and then some. They kept bringing more out, and the lead singer had this funny running exchange with Pat, the drummer, about taking over his drum kit — “Is this yours? Isn’t this mine?” Very fun.

Alex Miller: All right — well, that’s it for this episode of the OnStage Colorado Podcast. If you want to stay up to date on what’s going on in theaters across the state, subscribe to our OnStage Colorado Weekly Blast newsletter, which comes out every Thursday with our reporting, including new reviews, news stories, and calendar listings for the upcoming weekend, so you can plan your theatrical outings.

Toni Tresca: That’s right. As always, thanks so much for listening.

Alex Miller: I’m Alex Miller.

Toni Tresca: And I’m Toni Tresca — we’ll see you at the show.