Miners Alley Playhouse opens its new home Dec. 2; 2024 season announced

As anyone who’s enjoyed theatrical productions at Miners Alley Playhouse over the years will tell you, the shows are great, but the theater itself … not so much. MAP has made do over the years and put on many strong productions at its current location on the corner of 13th Street and Miners Alley in Golden. But with the worn-out seats, the cramped space in the house and backstage as well as those troublesome columns that obscured views from some parts of the audience, a new facility has been on the wish list for a long time.

Starting on December 2 this year, the MAP team will see that wish fulfilled when it opens the first phase of the Miners Alley Performing Arts Center. Located just steps away from the current theater in a former hardware store that’s been undergoing a massive renovation, the facility is like an aircraft carrier compared to the dinghy MAP’s been in. Ultimately it will be 30,000 square feet of usable space, with 15,000 in the first phase. That’s not to say the soon-to-be-old space was all bad. It was cozy, for sure, and the lobby featured a saloon that’s one of the better theater bars around — with cocktails and several beers on tap.

While MAP became a professional Equity theatre in 2019, it still retains much of its community feel. Since 2014, it’s been run by the husband-wife team of Len Matheo as artistic director and Lisa DeCaro as executive director. On any given night you’re likely to see one or both of them chatting up patrons before showtime, and the two have created a familial atmosphere that makes it a warm and welcoming space for anyone working there or seeing a show.

But for a professional theatre serving nearly 20,000 visitors a year, it was clearly time for an upgrade.

That’s coming in the form of a $15 million fundraising drive to create a 300-seat theatre within a building that will also have plenty of room for a much larger backstage with much bigger dressing rooms, an expanded education center for kids and adults, rehearsal space, artist housing, a scene shop and set design workshop and greatly upgraded lighting and sound equipment. And in addition to the main stage space, there will be a 60-70 seat black box theatre added in Phase 2.

On a mid-October Friday night just before MAP’s new production of The Cherry Orchard was about to open, Len gave me a tour of the almost-complete first phase. There was still plenty of dust and unfinished business, but he seemed pretty confident that it’d be ready in time for the grand opening with The Great American Trailer Park Christmas on Dec. 2.

Originally founded as The Morrison Theatre Company by Rick Bernstein and Paige Larson in 1993, the organization has continually evolved. In 2003, it moved to Golden and became the Miners Alley Playhouse. A decade later, Rick and Paige handed the reins over to Len and Lisa along with Brenda Worley Billings and Jim Billings. One more decade has the theatre poised for a new era of expanded programs and opportunity.

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The grand tour

The new MAPAC facility is, above all, absolutely enormous compared to almost any other theatre in the state. Len walked me through the front doors into the capacious lobby with plenty of room for taking care of patrons with a 10-foot long box office (and you don’t even have to wait on the stairs as you do in the current facility). One of the other big drawbacks to the present facility is its limited bathroom space. The new place has seven gender-neutral stalls with a common sink area. No more waiting in line longer than the guys, ladies!

Walking down a flight of stairs revealed an unfinished area that will be the education center.

“You can see how much space there is here,” Len says. “It’s going to have three classrooms, an open lobby area and a black-box theater here for the kids. Right now, we rent other spaces for these programs, so this will be huge.”

Less glamorous but still sexy as hell for any theatre company with limited space is the vast amount room for a full set shop, costume, set and props storage and even some areas they’re not sure what to do with yet.

Walking into the main performance space, Len points out that the first phase will start with 157 seats and later expand to 300. There’s even enough space to build traps into the floor for set pieces and actors to pop up — something very few theatres outside the Denver Center have in Colorado.

For actors, there’s a legit green room, ADA-accessible dressing rooms (including a shower) and bathrooms as well as a few small apartments for visiting artists.

“And with Phase 2, there will be another bar area, more dressing rooms, some offices — all that stuff,” Len says.

On the technical side, Len points out the swank new electrical panel, then introduces me to production manager Jonathan Scott-McKean, who’s been with the theatre since 2010 when it was still in Morrison. Len points to a pile of boxes he says represents about $300,000 worth of new lighting and sound equipment and asks Jon what he thinks of it.

“It is, quite literally, the best equipment you can buy today,” he says. “It’s all wireless LED lighting with very high lumen output and a fantastic color range.”

Switching to all LED, Jon adds, also cuts the power usage in half while doubling the brightness compared to halogen lights.

Like most other new tech, the all-digital system can be controlled from anywhere on a phone app.

“This is a dream project,” Jon says. “It’s all state-of-the-art and only a handful of people get to do it. There are more theaters closing than opening around the country now, and especially small theatres aren’t building new spaces.”

A whole experience

Len notes that Miners Alley, while super excited about the new space, hasn’t lost sight of the changing nature of theatre and entertainment in general.

“Everything in the theatre business got upended with COVID, and many got government funding to help them through but then they didn’t change anything,” he says. “That’s why a lot of theaters are closing, because they didn’t change their business models — like the old subscription approach.”

MAP’s focus, he says, is to go beyond just the shows and provide something bigger.

“We’re in the entertainment business and of course we want to do great work with great scripts, directors and actors. But at the same time, people need to feel like they’re having a real experience — a theatre experience.”

That means that, along with strong productions, MAPAC will function as a community arts hub that includes more than just what the theatre company does.

“This is a community project that has buy-in from the city of Golden, from community businesses and buy-in from the local residents,” Len says. “We want to make it a part of the community as opposed to the standalone place where theater often happens.”

That, he says, means keeping the doors open much longer than a few hours on weekends for shows.

“We can see kids from, say, Golden High School coming here to hang out in the lobby. There’s a coffee bar open, and they can do their homework here, you know what I mean? And we’ll have the space to do a lot more than what we’re doing now.”

Beyond theatre, he says, that can be live music, education programming, kids’ shows, music, improv and even other types of theatrical performances for adults.

“We want to open it up for an annual community theatre project,” he says. “A lot of people want to do theatre outside the professional productions we do, and it can be a real community building opportunity.”

Creating experiences in the off-season months like November or March present even more opportunity.

“We’ve been talking about doing a traditional summer stock program, or it could even be winter stock for Golden,” Jon says.

Len notes the popularity of destination theatre such as what Creede Repertory does.

“Why not on the Front Range? You come here, spend a weekend, see two or three shows and maybe improv in the evening — and the next morning at breakfast you see the guy who played Hamlet the night before because everyone lives here.”

Located as it is in a town-square-like area off Miners Alley, Len adds that the Foothills Arts Center is also going up nearby which will create an arts hub right in the center of Golden.

The road ahead

When the lights go up on The Great American Trailer Park Christmas December 2, it will mark the culmination of years of planning, construction and fundraising. But Len is quick to point out that it’s just the beginning, and that work will continue on Phase 2 in 2024 — with the whole thing expected to be complete by 2025/2026. There’s still plenty of fundraising to do, but already a little more than a third of the expected $15 million price tag has been secured. If you’ve ever wanted your name on a seat or a rehearsal space or whatever, there are quite a few naming opportunities up for grabs at the new facility. Indeed, the overall budget anticipates $7 million to come from naming alone.

“But once we reach that mark and own it outright, it’ll be less expensive to run than the older facility, which is fantastic,” Len says.

Shows for 2024 announced

A Christmas Story, which runs Nov. 24-Dec. 31, will be the final show at the existing Miners Alley Playhouse theatre in Golden. The first show in the new Miners Alley Performing Arts Center will be The Great American Trailer Park Musical, which runs Dec. 2-31.

Miners Alley recently announced its 2024 lineup of shows, which includes:

Misery | January 19-February 10, 2024
Adapted by William Goldman from the Stephen King novel
Directed by Warren Sherrill

Paul Sheldon is “rescued” from a horrible car crash by his number one fan, nurse Annie Wilkes. Annie takes the famous romance novelist prisoner and insists on treating him at her rural Colorado home. Then she reads his latest manuscript, and discovers he’s killed off her favorite character, Misery Chastain! When Annie forces Paul to do some major rewrites, Paul must write as though his life depends on it. Because it does. A chilling edge-of-your-seat thriller that balances dark comedy with psychodrama.

A Jukebox for the Algonquin | March 1 – April 7, 2024
Written by Paul Stroili
Directed by Len Matheo

The contemporary community room at the Placid Pines Senior Care Center could really use a jukebox. When it costs more than the center can raise, a small band of former Brooklyn and Bronx residents hatch a plot to prove that aging is not a New York state of mind. This funny, heartwarming story reminds us that age is just a number, as long as we have friends to connect with.

The Full Monty  April 26 – June 2nd, 2024
Book by Terrence McNally, score by David Yazbek
Based on the 1997 cult classic film of the same name
Directed by: Nick Sugar
Music Director: David Nehls

This ten-time Tony Award nominee musical mixes razor-sharp humor with toe-tapping pizzazz, for a must-see upbeat comedy! While spying on their wives at a “Girls’ Night Out,” a group of unemployed steelworkers from Buffalo sees how much they enjoy watching male strippers. The jealous guys come up with a bold, unclothed idea for making some quick cash. As they conquer their fears, self-consciousness, and prejudices, the men come to discover that they’re stronger together. With their new courage and convictions, can these lovable misfits really pull it off? Packed with honest affection, engaging melodies, and the most highly anticipated closing number ever!

School of Rock – The Musical | July 16-September 24, 2024
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater, and a book by Julian Fellowes
Based on the 2003 film
Directed by Warren Sherrill

Bringing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s award-winning smash hit musical from Broadway to Golden! Based on the hilarious hit movie, this musical follows Dewey Finn, a failed, wannabe rock star who decides to earn a few extra bucks by posing as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school. While teaching pint-sized prodigies, Dewey falls for the school’s beautiful, but uptight headmistress, helping her rediscover the wild child within. Watch as this sub turns a class of straight-A students into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping, mind-blowing rock band, sensationally performed live by the production’s young actors every night!

Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Elusive Ear | October 4 – November 10, 2024
Written by David Macgregor
Directed by Heather Beasley

The City: London. The year: 1888. The address: 221B Baker Street. As-yet-undiscovered artistic genius Vincent van Gogh presents Sherlock Holmes with a most unusual case. Holmes embarks on a rousing adventure, aided by his partner Dr. Watson and his paramour Irene Adler. The trio confronts the daughter of Professor Moriarty, with a witty helping hand from Oscar Wilde. How will the world’s greatest detective solve one of the most audacious crimes of the Victorian era?

Holiday Show TBD | November 29 – December 31, 2024
Written by David Macgregor
Directed by Heather Beasley