‘Testing 123’ aims to pick a winner for the troupe’s off-night programming

It’s not always easy for the adventurous team at Buntport Theater to figure out what people will like. As a troupe that writes and produces all of its own stuff without get too hung up on whether audiences will find it overly nutty, they nonetheless want to fill seats as much as the next company.

Most of Buntport’s shows are scripted pieces that run on a typical theatre schedule like Friday and Saturday nights. But they also like to collaborate with other local artists on off nights during the week. In the past that’s included a running sitcom, a “Great Debate” series, faux TED Talks and one-night-only shows on the third Thursday of the month.

Another program is “The Narrators” on the third Wednesday of the month. The live storytelling show and podcast is presented live, and you can hear previous episodes at TheNarrators.org.

This month, the Buntportians are looking for new, collaborative ideas for their off-night programming. To try out a few ideas, they’re doing what they call Testing 123 — three weekends of experimentation to see what might stick. Along with Buntport regulars Brian Colonna, Hannah Duggan, Erin Rollman, Erik Edborg and SamAnTha Schmitz (offstage/tech), they’ve invited some other players to join the fun.

“Along with our mainstage productions, we’re always looking for ways to work with other people,” says Colonna. “The nature of our regular shows means we don’t get to work with other artists, so this is a way to get others involved.”

The off-night shows, he says, typically need to be more lightweight production-wise. That, along with audience reaction, will inform which of the three tests might move forward.

“When we’re done, we’ll review it all, see which ones seemed to work with getting other folks involved and focus on what worked,” Colonna says. “Our audiences are used to things that are a little stranger so it’s a little hard to guess if they’ll come to these shows. But I’m sometimes surprised by the things people like.”

The Stolen Game Game Show Show

The first show was dubbed The Stolen Game Game Show Show. This one borrowed from a number of familiar formats like Family Feud and Trivial Pursuit, something a little newer riffing off the hit British show Taskmaster and Is It Cake? Rollman played the emcee, sporting an appalling gold blazer and tie and her signature jumbo specs. She did an excellent job moving things along while delivering plenty of her own zingers.

At the show I saw opening night, the home team comprised of Colonna and Duggan was up against a visiting team played by Evan Weissman and Libby Zambrano. Edborg played a sort-of Vanna White character, at one point showing up dressed in a giant gym sock to deliver a hug to one of the round’s winners.

Former Buntportian Weissman was teamed with Zambrano — part of the King Penny improv show — and they held their own against Colonna and Duggan. It was all very silly, a ton of laughs and just the kind of simple, goofy show I wish there were more of around town. Plus, we learned that Duggan, brilliant comedic actor though she is, isn’t particularly good at improv.

“She’s really bad at it,” laughs Colonna. “Something about doing improv on the spot like that just short-circuits her brain. It was actually really funny to watch.”

Erin Rollman in an ‘Is It Cake?’ segment | Buntport photo

The Enthusiasts

The weekend of June 21-22 will see something completely different when Buntport opens the stage to some special guests presenting side projects they’re working on.

On Friday night, Megan Sound, Andrew Orvedahl and a Buntporter will show what they’re up to and on Saturday it’s Adán de la Garza, Miriam Suzanne and another Buntporter.

“The idea behind The Enthusiasts is to share a side obsession of their creative work,” Colonna says. “And then it’ll be followed by a Q&A session.”

A mix of staged reading and slides and videos, The Enthusiasts will include something about archival text message and Google algorithms, for starters.

The Public Domain Review Live

Colonna says Buntport is a big fan of The Public Domain Review — a digital archive of “curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature on ideas” that are now in the public domain.

“We’ve created a few productions using some of the content from The Public Domain Review as jumping-off points for research,” he says. “We contacted the editor of it with the idea of highlighting a few stories and having guests riff on the subject. They really like when people use their site to make things.”

As part of the show, they’ll present something from the domain and have some experts associated with the theme of the presentation. One of them is about miniatures, which will logically feature guest Wendy Littlepage, Director of the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys. The other evening will feature Sadie Sherman from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

When the dust settles, look for a new mid-week live curiosity from Buntport in the near future.