Suggested tracks for every taste

Denver Fringe is back June 3-7 with roughly 90 productions spread across 22-plus venues — a glorious, overwhelming sprawl of clowns, cabaret, world premieres, queer country, banana-wives and at least one lonesome cowboy worm. The festival’s chronic problem isn’t quality; it’s choice paralysis. Even the most committed theatre fans freeze up trying to build a coherent weekend out of so many options.

So we built one. Twelve, actually. Each track is a curated path through Fringe organized around a theme, audience or appetite — five or six shows that hang together with a clear throughline, with showtimes and venues that actually work as an itinerary. Some shows appear in multiple tracks because the strong work fits multiple frames. Pick a track, follow it, and you’ll see your festival.

One programming note before we dive in: this is built from the schedule as published. Times and venues can shift. Always confirm at denverfringe.org before you head out.

Track 1: First-time Fringe-r

The sampler. One of everything, designed to show someone what this festival even is.

Wednesday, June 3 — Speed Previews (opening night extravaganza; 7 p.m. at MCA Denver Holiday Theater, 2644 W 32nd Ave)

Thursday, June 4

5:30pm — The Wanderer’s Tale, Redline Contemporary Art Center
7:45pm — Lumonics Immersed, Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery

Friday, June 5

5:30pm — Just To Be Close To You, Savoy Denver
8pm — Born and Raised on a Submarine, RISE Comedy

Open with Speed Previews if you can swing it — it’s literally designed for first-timers, packing the entire Fringe lineup into one fast-paced night. Thursday pairs a choose-your-own-adventure concert with string quartet against an immersive light-and-sound experience that’s been running in Denver longer than most Fringe artists have been alive. Friday delivers an award-winning lounge act (Best in Fringe at both New Zealand and San Diego) and a musical-clown-storytelling hybrid back to back at venues five minutes apart. By Friday night, you’ll know what Fringe is.

Track 2: For people who aren’t quite sure about what Fringe is all about

Actual narrative theatre. Plays with plots. No clowning, no audience participation, no banana-wives.

Thursday, June 4

5pm — Empty Night, People’s Building Black Box
8:30pm — The Trivia Guy, Hideaway at RISE Comedy

Friday, June 5

5pm — If I Cleaned Everything, People’s Building Black Box
6:30pm — Agape, People’s Building Flex Theater

Sunday, June 7

5pm — Detente, People’s Building Black Box

The People’s Building in Aurora is the narrative-theatre center of this festival, which means this track requires the trek east. Thursday opens with a thief-and-tiger story in Aurora, then a 20-minute drive back to Five Points for The Trivia Guy, about an estranged father preparing a wedding toast. Friday is an Aurora doubleheader: two world premieres in adjacent rooms, 30 minutes apart. Sunday closes with the autobiographical one-woman Detente. Plots, characters, motivations — the works.

Track 3: Bring the kids (and actually enjoy it yourself)

KidsFringe and family-friendly with enough craft to keep adults engaged.

Friday, June 5

6:30pm — your Dream, the stars, Fort Greene Bar

Saturday, June 6

6:30pm — Strange Root, Cleo Center for the Healing Arts
9:30pm — The Majikal Ball, Savoy Denver (older kids; family-friendly per artists)

Sunday, June 7

3:30pm — The Adventures of Beastie, Hope Tank

Worth flagging up front: Fringe’s dedicated KidsFringe slate runs free shows for kids and families on June 6 and 7 — check denverfringe.org for that schedule, which is the real anchor for families with younger ones. The track above pulls together the family-adjacent work from the main grid: puppetry that sends your dream up to live among the stars, a historical contemporary circus exploring African American history, an immersive QTBIPOC ballroom experience the artists explicitly describe as family-friendly, and an interactive solo show about a creature on a quest. Preview Beastie if your kids are sensitive — the description mentions a “critical voice” that challenges joy and play.

Track 4: Date night

Cabaret, burlesque, sexy and intimate. Adult but not crass.

Thursday, June 4

5:30pm — Just To Be Close To You, Savoy Denver
8pm — The Britney In Me: A Britney Spears Burlesque Musical, Bug Theater

Saturday, June 6

7:30pm — Murder! Under the Spotlights, Cleo Historic Shorter AME
9pm — King Arthur and the Quest for the Whorey Grail, Cleo Historic Shorter AME

Thursday is the tonal arc: start with the swoony lounge act at Savoy, then drive north to the Bug for the Britney burlesque — intimate to outrageous, no filler in between. Saturday’s the showpiece, a doubleheader at Cleo Historic Shorter AME with zero transit: a 1947 noir murder mystery told through aerial dance and burlesque (the audience picks the killer), followed at the same venue by Arthurian drag and burlesque. Wear something good.

Track 5: Pride at Fringe

LGBTQ+ shows worth seeking out.

Thursday, June 4

5pm — King Louis XIV // Queen of Dance, People’s Building Flex
9pm — Ancestry Dot Comedy: A Standup Hour for Misfits, Ratio Beerworks

Friday, June 5

5pm — EmmyJean Jenkins’ Queer Country Cabaret, People’s Building Flex
6:30pm — Agape, People’s Building Flex
9:30pm — The Majikal Ball, Savoy Denver

Saturday, June 6

5:30pm — Scar Tissue: Bodies That Don’t Behave, Redline Contemporary Art Center

Thursday hooks with a drag-ballet world premiere in Aurora, then west to Ratio for a queer/classism/DNA-surprise standup hour. Friday is the centerpiece: a People’s Building marathon of three queer-centered shows — a true-story queer country cabaret about murder and romance, the housing-crisis drama Agape, and the QTBIPOC ballroom finale at Savoy to close the night. Saturday adds queer disability dance theatre at Redline. Round it out with Just Letting You Know (Hope Tank, Fri/Sat/Sun) if you want a sixth — a trans student comes out to their teacher, and the teacher has to face what being an ally means.

Track 6: Voices of color

BIPOC artists across genres.

Friday, June 5

6:30pm — Agape, People’s Building Flex
9pm — Strange Root, Cleo Center for the Healing Arts

Saturday, June 6

5pm — Black and Blue, Savoy Denver
8pm — FORIEGNER, Savoy Denver
9:30pm — The Majikal Ball, Savoy Denver

Saturday at the Savoy is the anchor evening of this track — three shows back to back in one venue, no transit. Start with Black and Blue, a solo work of shifting characters asking how a body moves, breathes and survives in this skin. Then FORIEGNER, Sohrab’s anti-comedy clown about an Iranian asylee hoping the performance gets him naturalized or deported. Close with The Majikal Ball — vogue, runway and QTBIPOC ballroom. Friday adds the housing-crisis world premiere in Aurora and the African American historical circus at Cleo. A Slow Burn, a South Asian movement symposium on memory and migration, is a strong sub if Thursday opens up.

Track 7: Weird in a good way

The genuinely Fringe-y stuff. The reason Fringe exists.

Thursday, June 4

6:30pm — CRABMAN, Bug Theater
8pm — Sing Your Inner Whale, Fort Greene Bar

Friday, June 5

7pm — GULP!, Hideaway at RISE Comedy
9pm — Fort Pillow, Truss House

Saturday, June 6

6:30pm — Mr. Ow, Learned Lemur
9pm — Fort Pillow, Truss House (if you missed Friday)

It’s day 1,000 of CRABMAN, the grand finale of a highly interactive solo clown immersive theatre show about shoving a crab up his ass every day. So, you know — that. Pair it Thursday with a vocal workshop where you sing to your inner whale, led by a vibefluencer named Charmine BounTay. Friday is a boy-meets-banana-wife clowning physical comedy followed by building an actual pillow fort with strangers. Saturday goes to the lonesome cowboy worm. Some of these shows are going to be unforgettable, some will be inscrutable, all will be Fringe in its purest form.

Track 8: World premieres

New work debuting here. News value, and a chance to see artists taking their biggest swings.

Thursday, June 4

8pm — Born and Raised on a Submarine, RISE Comedy
8:30pm — The Trivia Guy, Hideaway at RISE Comedy

Friday, June 5

5pm — Bumpsy, Dude IDK Studios
6:30pm — Agape, People’s Building Flex

Saturday, June 6

5pm — One of Us Becomes God, Hope Tank
6:30pm — It’s YOUR Wedding!, RISE Comedy

Thursday at RISE is convenient — two world premieres in the same building, half an hour apart: Strum Fleet’s musical telegraph story and a trivia champion secretly rehearsing a wedding toast for a son who won’t speak to him. Friday is Katie Bowman’s visceral survival guide for modern adulthood, then over to Aurora for the housing-crisis drama. Saturday: vote for the death cult’s god, then attend your own wedding. New work is the heart of Fringe. This is where to find it.

Track 9: Clown school

Physical theatre, clown, devised work. Where Fringe gets really good and really weird.

Friday, June 5

5pm — Bumpsy, Dude IDK Studios
7pm — GULP!, Hideaway at RISE Comedy
8:30pm — iDále!, Hideaway at RISE Comedy

Saturday, June 6

6:30pm — HYSTERICAL, Hideaway at RISE Comedy

Sunday, June 7

5pm — LoveFool, Learned Lemur

Friday is the clown crawl — Katie Bowman’s Bumpsy in north Denver, then a Hideaway at RISE doubleheader of banana-wife physical comedy and La Piñata clown chaos. Saturday returns to the Hideaway for HYSTERICAL, a clown thriller billed as “a (very gorgeous) woman has been performing this room for years to no one. Tonight you’re here.” Sunday wraps with Spunk’s first solo journey to fill the hole gaping in his chest. Five shows, four of them at one venue. This is the cleanest single-genre itinerary in the festival.

Track 10: Immersive and interactive

Shows where the audience is part of the work.

Saturday, June 6

12:45pm — Lumonics Immersed, Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery
6:30pm — Dance of a Thousand Faces, Truss House
8pm — One of Us Becomes God, Hope Tank
9pm — Fort Pillow, Truss House

Friday, June 5

7:30pm — Murder! Under the Spotlights, Cleo Historic Shorter AME
8pm — Don’t Kill Daisy, People’s Building Flex

Saturday is the showpiece — start with a Lumonics matinee, then back to back interactive work in the evening: dance and frolic in downtown Denver with a host who may have ulterior motives, vote in an election for god of the afterlife, and build a pillow fort with strangers. Friday picks between a noir murder mystery where the audience picks the killer or a desert-rave interactive romp where your one job is keeping Daisy alive. In every one of these, you’re not watching the show. You’re in it.

Track 11: Solo flights

The festival’s standup-comedy slate. Different from a regular comedy-club night — these are hour-long solo sets, often confessional or thematic, more Edinburgh than Comedy Works.

Thursday, June 4

7pm — Trad-Wife, Ratio Beerworks
8pm — American Hour Not Quite (Mark Masters Comedy), Ratio Beerworks
9pm — Ancestry Dot Comedy: A Standup Hour for Misfits, Ratio Beerworks

Saturday, June 6

3:30pm — The Enlightened Hot Mess, RISE Comedy
9:30pm — Teachers, Hideaway at RISE Comedy

Thursday at Ratio Beerworks features three back to back standup hours at one brewery from 7 to 10pm. Cat Alvarado on Redpill bros, trad-wives and purity culture; Mark Masters on aging into comedy; an Edinburgh-style hour about identity forged in gaslighting, queerness, classism and a DNA surprise. One venue, three drinks, three hours. Saturday adds a midlife-chaos hour and Asa’s teacher characters. Gollum Girl LIVE (Thu 8:30, Fri 6pm, Sun 3:30pm at the Learned Lemur) is a strong fourth-or-fifth slot — a multimedia monologue from a lifelong Lord of the Rings obsessive.

Track 12: In motion

Dance and physical work, contemporary through circus to dance-theatre hybrids.

Friday, June 5

6pm — Birth of Sound, Cleo Center for the Healing Arts
7:30pm — Between Breath and Sky, Cleo Center for the Healing Arts
9pm — Strange Root, Cleo Center for the Healing Arts

Saturday, June 6

5:30pm — Scar Tissue: Bodies That Don’t Behave, Redline Contemporary Art Center
9:30pm — The Majikal Ball, Savoy Denver

Friday at Cleo Center for the Healing Arts is the other strong anchor evening of the festival, alongside the Thursday Ratio standup triple — three movement and circus works in a row at one venue, building from Shiva’s damaru through dance and circus to African American historical circus. Saturday closes with queer disability dance theatre at Redline and the QTBIPOC ballroom finale at Savoy. A Slow Burn Thursday at 7pm at Redline and Monster Story (Fri 6pm or Sat 8pm at Cleo Historic Shorter AME) are both worth grabbing if Friday’s Cleo triple doesn’t fit your schedule.

A few practical notes

The festival splits roughly into two geographic centers. The dense RiNo and Five Points cluster — Savoy, Cleo, RISE, Bug, Truss House, Union Hall, Ratio, MATTER — supports tight evenings with little driving. The People’s Building in Aurora is its own island about 20 minutes east, with much of the narrative theatre and several Pride-track shows. Tracks that try to span both in one night get messy. Pick a center for the evening when you can.

Two single-venue anchor evenings stand out as the cleanest itineraries in the festival: the Thursday Ratio Beerworks standup triple at 7, 8 and 9pm, and the Friday Cleo Center movement triple at 6, 7:30 and 9pm. Both deliver three shows in three hours at one venue.

Saturday is the biggest day and supports doubleheaders or even triples in most tracks. Sunday wraps early — most venues are done by 8pm. Plan accordingly.

Tickets, full schedules and venue addresses are at denverfringe.org.