Tips for arts orgs looking to get the word out – cheap! Plus, we meet the D-Town boys — Denver’s over-30 boy band
In this episode of the OnStage Colorado Podcast, hosts Toni Tresca and Alex Miller revamp a workshop they did last year on marketing for theatres. The two cover social media, earned media and owned media as well as tips for managing photos, building community support and a variety of other free or low-cost suggestions.
Later in the podcast, Alex has a fun conversation with Nick Rigg Johnson and Jake Bell — two of the five members of D-TOWN. Billed as “Denver’s over-30 boy band,” D-TOWN has a performance coming up March 6 at the People’s Building in Aurora.
Also reviewed are the week’s Top 10 (or so) Colorado Headliners — upcoming shows to keep an eye out for. This week’s list:
- Mean Girls, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Feb. 25-March 2
- Ride the Cyclone, Colorado Mesa University, Asteria Theatre, Grand Junction, Feb. 27-March 8
- Agent Romeo, Wonderboud, Denver, Feb. 27-March 9
- Chess, The People’s Building, Aurora, Feb. 28-9
- Here to Pee, Junkyard Social Club, Boulder, March 1
- The Tin Woman, Impossible Players, Pueblo, Feb. 29-March 14
- Becky’s New Car, Coal Creek Theater of Lousville, Feb. 28-March 15
- Colorado New Play Summit, Denver Center, March 1-2
- Bogfriends by Jose Sebastian Alberdi
- If God Were Blue by Carey Perloff
- Rust on Bone by Bianca Sams
- How to Conquer America: A Mostly True History of Yogurt by David Myers
Listen to the podcast
Transcript
Forgive any mistakes; it’s just a li’l old AI bot.
Alex Miller (00:14.4)
Are you all ready?
Toni Tresca (00:19.964)
I am ready.
Alex Miller (00:23.572)
Hello and welcome to the Onstage Colorado podcast. I’m Alex Miller.
Toni Tresca (00:28.684)
And I’m Tony Tresca. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the official podcast of OnStageColorado.com. We are so appreciative that you have joined us for the only weekly podcast dedicated to covering Colorado’s live performance scene. Alex and I are recording this on the morning of February 24th, and you’re listening to this on or after February 25th.
Alex Miller (00:55.018)
Yep, and you know what that means.
Toni Tresca (00:58.286)
Uhhhh
Alex Miller (00:58.966)
Nothing. Yes, there’s absolutely nothing special about February 25th, I guess. But I don’t know. It’s not actually true. I Googled this day in theater history and learned that on this day in 1973, a little night music premiered on Broadway. So there’s a deep cut. It’s also the birthday of Zippo Marx, a little theater tangential. And also on this day in 1956, poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes met for the first time. So think about that.
Toni Tresca (01:15.997)
there you go.
Toni Tresca (01:29.022)
Okay, well there you have it. We stand corrected. February 25th does matter in the historical landscape of things. So in this week’s episode, we are going to do a follow-up for our theater friends. This is after our segment last week in which we talked a little bit about how to make the theater experience better for patrons. And this week we are going to be giving our tips for Dark Monday. These are marketing tips for the folks in Admin.
Alex Miller (01:31.051)
Ha ha ha.
Alex Miller (01:35.977)
That’s right.
Toni Tresca (01:58.474)
on how to get the word out about your show and make the most of that day off.
Alex Miller (02:04.566)
Yeah, so this is based on a presentation we did last year for the Colorado Community Theater Coalition up in Evergreen. And we thought it’d be a good idea to share it here for a slightly wider audience, because I think we only had about 10 people with that one.
Toni Tresca (02:18.378)
It’s true. Yeah, it was a was a it was an early morning Sunday panel. So it’s a so I think a lot more folks were waiting for the award ceremony to show up. It sounded like it had maybe been a late night at the coalition. But in that we shared a lot of great tips on marketing on how to market your shows without spending a lot of money, which is kind of the key point for a lot of theater.
Alex Miller (02:22.974)
Yes.
Alex Miller (02:30.24)
Yeah. Yep.
Probably.
Toni Tresca (02:46.31)
troops, particularly those on the smaller side. So we are going to get into those tips in just a little bit. As well as later in the show, we are going to share Alex’s interview with the boys from D town. Can you tease that conversation, Alex?
Alex Miller (02:58.846)
Yeah. The boys from DTN. Yeah, this is a really fun conversation with Jake Bell and Mick Rick Johnson, two fantastic actors that are really well known on Colorado stages. So they and three other local actor singers, Randy Chalmers, Alejandro Ruedaldon and Marco Robinson formed this thing called, they called Denver’s number one over 30 boy band DTN. So they’ve got a show coming up at the people’s building. And it sounds like they’re just having a ton of fun with it. So definitely stick around for that later in the episode.
Toni Tresca (03:11.395)
Mm-hmm.
Toni Tresca (03:29.678)
That sounds like a really cool concept. I love a boy band I’m curious to see how they kind of string that together and looking forward to hearing your conversation later in the podcast But first out let’s dig in a little bit to what we saw we were both at the opening night of local theater companies Production of chasing breadcrumbs at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder. So maybe let’s start there
Alex Miller (03:55.22)
Yeah, yeah. So we’ll have a review of this on the site that we both kind of did together like we occasionally do. But this is a comedy premiere, well, premiere by Michelle Tyreen Johnson and directed by a of the pod, Betty Hart runs through March 9th at the Dairy Arts Center. And it’s a very racially tinge toned play about some rich white ladies who commission a playwright, give her a lot of money or offer her a lot of money to write a play based on a very
dicey piece of history that they’re trying to reclaim white women’s, you know, we’re not all, you know, terrible Karen racists and stuff. And so they wanted to write this play based on this woman, a white woman who was at marched with Dr. King. And I think the only evidence they have, yeah, the only evidence they have is this like picture with like, you know, a lots of teeny tiny faces in the crowd. so, yeah, so Christina Fontana plays the playwright is like, what?
Toni Tresca (04:42.616)
allegedly.
Alex Miller (04:55.21)
And of course they wave enough money at her and her brother, who she’s very close to and actually lives with, needs a kidney transplant so they could really use the money and so she kind of holds her nose and agrees to this thing.
Toni Tresca (05:09.068)
Yeah, and it leads to a lot of pretty funny exchanges within a theater setting as they’re kind of workshopping this play. And then there’s a scandal that happens right before opening that jeopardizes the entire production that is pretty funny to see played out. Perhaps some of the jokes go on for just a hair too long. There’s an extended riff about the sound of music that both you and I thought maybe
was done just one or two too many times. It’s an exchange the siblings do together, Serena and Kevin. Serena does it to mock, to like irritate Kevin, but it goes on a little bit too long. But other than that, the action as directed by Betty Hart is very skillfully done. It transitions from scene to scene pretty effectively.
Alex Miller (05:50.9)
Yeah.
Toni Tresca (06:02.76)
If the set is more bare bones, they bring on individual set pieces, so it kind of creates a flowing atmosphere. You never quite know where the play is going to take you next, which is kind of fun for a situational comedy like this.
Alex Miller (06:16.586)
Yeah, for sure. And great performances all around. Christina DeFontaine’s are great. Great. Noelia Antweiler, another friend of the pod, is sort of the evil, evil rich white lady who, who butts heads with, with Christina’s character in a big way. And then Heather Hughes as Debbie was, was very funny. And we also really liked Michaela Murray, who plays the playwrights agent, Gwen.
Toni Tresca (06:42.158)
Yeah, a of really excellent performances by folks who are gonna be familiar to anybody who’s been watching the Colorado Theater productions recently. And this production team is pretty much uniformly strong. There’s some really effective lighting design by Sean Mallory. The sound design by C.C. Smith is very effective. There’s some really cool song choices that play throughout those moments.
when actors are moving furniture on and off stage that’s very effective and have the audience kind of dancing along, at least on opening night. I saw many folks in the audience doing that, which was pretty fun.
Alex Miller (07:21.37)
Yeah, so fun show. So check that out if you get a chance in Boulder. I was out at Firehouse Theater Company on Friday night to see Blues for an Alabama Sky. So this is a 1995 play by Pearl Kleege Kleege directed by Adrian Martin Fullwood. And just, I really love this play. I wanted to take the cast home with me. They were also great.
Toni Tresca (07:45.87)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Miller (07:48.182)
Um, and, uh, not, everyone who I, I’m not familiar with a lot of the actors. Some of them are a little bit new to the stage. Some of them hadn’t really done big stuff, but, uh, really, uh, strong performances, uh, by, especially by Nadia, Nadia Jackson, who played the main character Angel. So she’s a, uh, this is 1930 in Harlem and it’s, you know, so that everybody’s falling on hard times with the depression and, uh, everybody’s drinking like fiends and, uh, and she, so she lives with her best friend Guy, who’s a, a
a gay fashion designer who’s got all of his issues with being a gay man in 1930s America. so they have this life where all things like homosexuality and flamboyant dressing and all that is all part of their background. And then into the mix comes this character Leland played by Joseph Michaels, who is this sort of real-
conservative guy from the South who’s got to stick up his ass and but who nonetheless has a relationship with with Angel and so yeah, really pretty funny but tragic in ways as well and Really nicely done there at firehouse early. I would definitely recommend getting out to that one
Toni Tresca (09:03.382)
Yeah, from reading your review, sounded like the interplay between all of those different characters and their clashing personalities really was a key part of what made the play work. if folks want to read more about it too, I’d definitely recommend them checking out your review that’s on the site right now.
Alex Miller (09:21.948)
Well, thank you. Yeah, so that one’s through March 9th at the John Hamm Theater in Denver. And then you saw the suffragettes murder at the Denver Center, which I haven’t seen yet.
Toni Tresca (09:30.338)
That’s right. This one’s also running through March 9th in the Denver area. This is by playwright Sandy Rustin, who we had on the podcast a few weeks ago. You caught up with her to get in her head a little bit about how she was thinking about this play before going into before it’s opening on February 14th. And I got to say, I was a little bit more mixed on this than I was when we saw it at the reading back in 2023. I remember when we saw it at the reading.
Alex Miller (09:56.917)
Mm-hmm.
Toni Tresca (10:00.858)
The play has a lot of really interesting commentary, biting commentary on racial tensions at the time. It’s 1857, so kind of a boiling point for racial tensions in America at that time. And so there’s a lot of really cutting lines about that as well as gender politics, because the whole thing is set at a Manhattan boarding house. They’re housing a secret meeting of suffragettes. However, that doesn’t get to happen because there is a supposed murder that takes place.
at this boarding house that a constable shows up for. However, as somebody who was sitting next to me ends up said, as soon as the show ended up, she’s like, that was neither a murder nor a mystery play. And I was not, and I felt lied to. And I was like, well, that’s certainly a correct reaction to it because the Rustin kind of subverts a lot of those narratives in the play. And I remember finding it pretty effectively played out.
in the reading because it was a lot more slowly paced. So you really got to kind of a lot of those biting lines really landed. And those kind of the twists in the plot that happened structurally were really kind of they they really were surprising and quite effective in this production directed by Margot Boroldon. Yeah, Margaret Boroldon, believe is how you pronounce her name. I may excuse me for if I may have mispronounced that.
Alex Miller (11:16.947)
Portal on.
Toni Tresca (11:26.254)
But it’s very, very fast. The whole thing clocks in at about an hour and 20 minutes. There’s no intermission. And a lot of those moments that really landed in the reading just kind of get blown past in this production. It just feels too frenetic almost for its own good. I wish there had been some more moments where he could breathe just a little bit. But there are some good moments here and there. Some funny performances. Gareth Sacks.
who plays Mr. Archibald, turns in a pretty funny performance, who we’re led to believe is the bumbling old man who is mute throughout the most of the play. He’s quite funny. So it’s not that there’s nothing good here. The scenic design is quite impressive. It’s in the space that’s usually in the round configuration. However, they’ve cut off a section of the theater to make it a more traditional proscenium type setting.
And that the house that this this boarding house that they’ve built is lavish and effective. There’s three rooms that are up on this massive second story that’s been created. it’s not that there’s nothing here. It’s just that the, I think in kind of the direction of the production kind of undermines some of the writing on almost.
Alex Miller (12:45.832)
huh, okay. Well, so that one is a world premiere, like you said, from the New Play Festival a couple years ago. So that one is up for a little bit longer. What about in the news, Tony? What’s going on out there in theater world?
Toni Tresca (13:01.314)
Yeah, so we both saw Chasing Breadcrumbs at a local theater company this weekend and we shared our thoughts on the show, but I wanted to take a second to shine some light on what’s happening behind the scenes. Actor James Brunt, who was playing the role of Kevin, was in a critical car accident on Wednesday night. He suffered some major injuries and he is on the road to recovery.
But the local in response did end up canceling the Thursday night preview production so that the team could take some time to rework the show and bring in actor Lavor Addison to play that role. And he went on as the role of Kevin with just a couple of rehearsals. And when we saw him on opening night, he did have a script in hand, but Lavor Addison is, I mean, he’s a professional. So he was.
just glancing at it every now and then. It was more of there just to help him. Because the script is, Chasing Breadcrumbs is very quick and has a lot of back and forth exchanges. And so he was more of just using that to check in. But I just wanted to take this time and say that I’m really grateful that James is alive. We’re keeping you on our thoughts and we hope that you get better soon, James. It’s a really tragic situation. We hope that you recover well.
Alex Miller (14:25.3)
Yeah, great actor and hopefully we will see him back on Colorado stages before too long.
Toni Tresca (14:35.82)
Yeah, and in other news, arts and culture reporter Eden Lane announced on February 19th that that Friday, February 21st, was going to be her last day at CPR. She said, and I quote, I’m proud of the work I’ve done, 270 plus features, creating a new weekly segment and more. Thank you for sharing your stories. And thank you for reporting on those stories, Eden. Her pieces.
Both the written ones online as well as the audio versions that are shared both on CPR as well as they’re linked to in the piece are the tremendous pieces of reporting.
Alex Miller (15:16.586)
Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna really miss you, Eden. know you’re listening since you’re a big friend of the pod. And wish you the best for whatever you’re doing next, which I don’t think she’s announced yet, but I imagine she’ll come out with that sometime pretty soon. Hopefully it’s something else having to do with arts journalism in some way.
Toni Tresca (15:22.05)
Mm-hmm.
Toni Tresca (15:35.724)
Yeah, totally. but whatever you’re doing, I hope you know that you’re gonna be, loved in the community and your stories and reporting will be missed, but hope you’re taking the time to focus on you and your family. And so just sending love from us here at On Stage to you, Eden.
Alex Miller (15:53.93)
Yep. Hey, I had a nice note from someone named RJ Fernandez in Denver who wrote, I am so glad I came across your podcast and website with your calendar of events. I’m a season ticket holder to many of the DCPA productions, including ballet, opera, musicals, theater, a season ticket holder at Candlelight and recently came across Wonderbound, which is terrific and things like that. you also, they mentioned vintage theater, but stopped going there because of the co-gender bathroom, LOL.
So we mentioned this on our podcast last week about the kind of the weird mixed gender bathroom at Vintage. And he says, this person said, I’m afraid of one of those that did not care for it. Wonderbound got it out, but Vintage did not. I hope they fix it, but I wanted to thank you for your podcast and the recent interview with Chris Coleman. Wow, terrific. looking forward to hearing more and looking forward to attending a show at Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater again this year.
Anyway, well, thanks, RJ. Really great to hear from you. You’re exactly the kind of person that we created On Stage Colorado for.
Toni Tresca (16:56.076)
Yeah, that’s I’m so glad to hear that you do find the podcast as well as the calendar helpful. And that is that’s interesting. We talked about that on the podcast. This is the exact list. This is the exact person that we said that we’ve both talked to in real life who find that those kind of the unisex bathrooms at Wonder Bound that feature the doors that go all the way up to the top and close completely and are really they really are do create a separate experience.
those kind of those do the unisex bathrooms right but if you just kind of slap on signs to gendered bathrooms that people are going to notice that and not every patron is going to be open to that experience so appreciate you sharing your honest feedback RJ great to hear from you hope you keep listening to the podcast and thanks for writing in
Alex Miller (17:29.962)
You
Alex Miller (17:37.238)
you
Alex Miller (17:44.406)
Yeah. Also a quick note from the Aurora Fox, they’re kicking off a new film series, March 1st called Fox Flicks. So there’s kind of an attempt to fill the gap left by the closure of some of the independent theaters in Denver. So these are $5 tickets shows and kind of a bunch of sort of old favorite movies. They’re starting with Labyrinth and The Neverending Story, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, The Goonies, E.T., Who Framed Roger Rabbit, that kind of thing, running all through
through next December. if you’re looking for something fun to do for a low cost and you’re in Aurora, check out Fox Flicks. Of course, the Fox was originally a movie theater, so it’s a little bit of a throwback, not just to some of those classic family-friendly films, but to the theater’s history. And when I did a little tour with artistic director, Rich Cowden, last year, he talked about this series coming up. And I think they were updating some of the equipment and the screen and things like that. I don’t think it had been used a lot.
Toni Tresca (18:41.838)
That’s right. I mean, this is an exciting series. Only five bucks to see who framed Roger Rabbit and stuff like that. I mean, that’s pretty good deal. And The Fox is a really cool setting for that. They’re kind of like you mentioned, it originally was a movie theater itself. So it’s cool to see it back in the community kind of in that setting. Even if it is, these are classics rather than new releases, but it’s still a cool way to get out to the theater.
Alex Miller (18:48.214)
Yeah
Alex Miller (19:10.294)
Yeah. And you know, there’s always a new group of people coming up that have not seen these, these old movies and it’s, oh, it’s always fun to get out and see something a lot, you know, in a theater instead of just watching it on, on your TV. So, all right, well let’s switch to our main topic, dark Monday marketing. So the whole idea here is so a lot of, you know, dark Monday is referred to because a lot of theaters are dark. They don’t have shows on Monday night. our idea was that, you know, take that opportunity if you’re not doing an industry night to, uh,
to focus a little bit more on your marketing. So, you we know a lot of small theaters have limited resources, but you know, every empty seat is a lost revenue and a lost opportunity to show people your stuff. So if you can maybe set aside, you know, maybe it’s not Monday, maybe it’s whatever time works for you, but setting aside some specific time to up your game, you you’re probably already doing something and you may or may not have a marketing person or a full-time marketing person, but you know, there’s always more to do.
I see just from where I sit, managing our calendar and seeing a lot of the material that gets sent to us, it’s all over the map. And a lot of ways, lot of improvements people could make do not really cost any more money or really much time. It’s just kind of being a little smarter with it.
Toni Tresca (20:27.948)
Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about these things because they think it’s going to be expensive or it’s going to be a big time suck. But I think just I think it’s not quite as scary as people often make it out to be marketing and know is just a way to get to know your audience better and make people aware of what of the great things that you’re already doing more effectively. And I think this is even all the more important in a post pandemic.
kind of landscape that we’re looking at in which there is like a universal kind of audience challenge that a lot of folks are facing. How do you get people to come back to your organization or continue to come back? this, you’re really effective on your marketing strategy and your outreach efforts in these ways that we’re about to talk about, that’s one way to help solve that kind of problem of audience reach and build up that kind of community building that you and connection that you hope to create.
Alex Miller (21:25.034)
Yeah. So Tony, you want to kick it off and talk about paid versus earned media?
Toni Tresca (21:32.044)
Yeah, so these are let’s just start off with some definitions right off the bat. So paid media, that’s the stuff that you that is the stuff that is going to cost a little bit of cheddar. So this is the stuff. These are the ads that you run on social media places or other sources. I’ve placed it where there are places where you have to pay for to be on the calendar. It’s stuff. It is stuff like that. That is paid media, whereas earned media is
That’s when you get somebody there who is going to write a review about your production. You get on a calendar somewhere like OnStage Colorado for free to post the sharing about your show. That is somebody doing a preview about your show. That’s getting on your local tourism boards, local blog or calendar or things like that. And both are important. You need to have kind of a healthy mix of both if you’re hoping to remain relevant.
in a audience member’s mind. A staggering statistic that was shared with me in one of my marketing classes is the old truth in the industry used to be that it took seven touch points to get in contact with an member or potential customer. And a touch point is that’s a social media post, that’s a flyer, that’s a billboard. All of those are different touch points that you can connect to.
But now, because of how short attention spans are and how much information people receive on a given day, it’s about 15 touch points to get an individual person to be aware of what you’re trying to do. So it might seem excessive, all of the different outreach posts that you’re doing and all of those things, but if you’re really thinking about how much competition there is in the marketplace, even just for entertainment, 15 touch points in all of this different work is important.
It’s critical. So I would say that
Alex Miller (23:26.346)
Yeah, there’s a vast ocean of stuff out there that you gotta punch through.
Toni Tresca (23:32.332)
Yeah. And I think earned media, if you’re going to try to focus your efforts on where to grow, that is, that matters more, particularly if you have a small budget and you can’t exactly increase your ad spend on social media platforms by like $5,000 or something. That’s going to, that might be a big stretch, but getting on your local tourism board or getting a review of your work or kind of a preview of your season, that might be a little bit more manageable.
Alex Miller (24:02.368)
Yeah, I should also mention a third type, is owned media. So this refers to things on your website. you know, a lot of, see a lot of theaters will start a blog and a lot of times it’s been abandoned and it’s sitting there with the last post is three years old or something like that. And so you don’t necessarily always have to, you have to really commit to it because you got to, got to keep fresh content on there. But owned media is things that you have on your website that you, that you control completely.
And they don’t necessarily have to be a blog. They could be videos. Some of this is also useful for social media, of course, so that anytime you have a piece of content, you can make work in different ways, the better. So if you’ve got a little social media video or something, a rehearsal video, make sure that’s on your website as well, because that’s so when people are going to buy tickets, that’s where you want to show them that stuff so they can learn more. People always want to know about the show.
Toni Tresca (24:59.374)
That’s a great point. If you do those kind of blog posts on your site internally, that helps with your SEO, your search engine optimization appearance, you can boost traffic to your site around different shows or ongoing activities or outreach efforts that your theater is currently doing if you can’t get coverage from traditional outlets especially.
Alex Miller (25:23.36)
Yeah, yeah, and there’s other things that, you know, some theaters are better at others at adding things like, you know, having a list of the actors that are in the show with their photos and their bios on there. You know, if you’ve got your program ready, you put the PDF on there, people will look at that. And then another part of the media thing is building relationships with media for those earned components. So Tony, any suggestions for theaters on the dwindling number of
theater media out there, how to establish those relationships.
Toni Tresca (25:59.22)
I would just definitely make sure that you, if you haven’t connected with the, it’s not an extensive list. If you haven’t put together a list of all of the remaining arts folks, that includes the people who are covering maybe you on a more local level, those newspapers, as well as the folks who do more of a statewide approach. I was just about to say Eden Lane at CPR, but she’s no longer there, so whomever CPR.
Alex Miller (26:28.576)
Mm-hmm.
Toni Tresca (26:28.92)
hires as their arts person. Make sure that you’re on the page of the Gazette for over at John Moore. And I think the best way to kind of build up those relationships is make sure that they have information about, we have information about you early. Make sure that you kind of provide, you say that you’re open to talking more, you provide images if possible, which we’ll get into a little bit more later in our conversation.
And just kind of make sure, and if you’re comfortable, of share your contact information, your deeper contact information so that we can reach out. I think that goes a long way. If you see us at shows, introduce yourself. It’s always great to to know you in person. Those kind of relationships and those little things go a long way.
Alex Miller (27:21.716)
Yeah. And I would say also outside, you know, people that are writing about arts. mean, you know, you’ve got a local, you might have a local radio that could give you a shout out, a local, local newspaper, invite them to your show. you know, they may not know of a proscenium from Polonius, but, you know, if they go in and say, Hey, this was a lot of fun or whatever, that’s, that’s, that’s good stuff. so, following from that are, is, I wanted to talk about calendar listings. So this is like the free gold mine. Most, I don’t know of anybody that charges for calendar listings. There might be some that
maybe charge for upgrades. don’t know. I mean, you can get it on like Westward for free, you, Tony? Uh-huh. Yeah. So this is like, I mean, this is job one. If you don’t have your, you know, make sure that you’ve got your, your, your theater listing out to local papers, arts websites, community calendars, you know, even the bigger players like Westward, Denverite, Denver Post. I don’t think the Denver Post does calendar listings, but, and of course the biggest calendar in Colorado is Onstage Colorado.
Toni Tresca (27:56.206)
That’s right, you can.
Alex Miller (28:20.438)
blow on our horn, but it’s just true. We have more theater events on our calendar than anybody else. And another one, of course, you might want to make sure you’re on the Colorado Theater Guild’s website, because they have a really robust calendar as well. And so it’s really important to get this right. So a perfect calendar listing has the complete information. It’s got a short description of the play that’s devoid of hyperbole.
just what is this thing about? If it won a Tony, yeah, throw that in, but for the most part, you wanna keep it fairly short and sweet. Make sure that you’ve listed the clear dates and times. And this may sound like basic stuff, but I spend so much time poking around trying to find the exact dates and times. Sometimes I even have to go as far as like going through the ticket purchase prices to figure out when the dates are. So it doesn’t need to be really clear upfront, not just in the stuff you send out to media for calendars, but also on your site.
So pricing, you know, it’s just tell people what the price range is. And then you need like a good visual element. So you’ve got your poster art, whatever it is. calendars are not looking for a poster with like, you know, a whole bunch of words on it. They’re looking for something crisp and clean with the name of the show, maybe the playwright’s name, maybe the dates, but not much else. So that’s just a real simple way to get your information out there and make sure you’ve…
you’ve done the homework to find out where all those calendars are and who the people are or the outlets so that you can just blast those out once you do the hard work of setting up that list. You know, you need to refresh it every once in a while, but that’s free.
Toni Tresca (29:56.17)
It’s true and just a quick tip make sure that the people you are emailing the correct people about this it’s often not going to be the same people who you are doing outreach for for preview coverage or reviews or being on their radio show that’s not usually the same person who manages the calendar so often so just check that on each outlets website here at on stage Colorado you can just use our general email to hit us up with assets and things but.
That’s not always true at a place like Westward where they have a separate person who manages their calendar rather than the people who do freelance reporting or even the editors of that place.
Alex Miller (30:34.42)
Yeah, yeah, most of the sites will have a form of some sort that you can just, know, you don’t necessarily need to email it. And also one other pet peeve of mine, it’s like, and this isn’t really a problem for me, it’s people wasting their time sending in information that’s already on our site. So we do a lot of proactive searching for calendar listings. So there’s a good chance that your show is already in there. So before you send it in, just check.
Toni Tresca (30:40.654)
That’s right.
Toni Tresca (31:02.446)
Yep, and I’m just kind of building off of what you said. So you mentioned that when you send in a calendar stuff, you should send in a good photo element. Usually if the show poster is best for a calendar posting, but that’s not the only kind of photo that you should be capturing and sharing with media people when you’re trying to promote your show. So let’s talk visual content strategy.
There’s really three waves of photos. First is that kind of show photo slash any of that initial promo art that you’re using. This is done usually months in advance of the show actually happening. You wanna get, as soon as you know that your show is happening, you wanna get calendar information out to all of these relevant sources that we were just talking about. That as soon as you can have a show poster mocked up.
That is great. Start sharing that so that you can get on calendars early. The second wave. yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Alex Miller (31:59.542)
And I would also real quick, Tony, I would just say also, you you may not have a graphic artist on staff, but you know, there’s great programs online, like Canva is well worth $120 a year for building stuff like that. And go ahead and look at, look at, see what the Ovaada Center, the Denver Center, the bigger theaters are doing. What are their poster art? What does their art look like? And just, you know, steal those ideas and just do something similar.
Toni Tresca (32:26.252)
And I wouldn’t, and you can use those services online, but I would also encourage you, don’t be afraid to approach local artists, bid around for it. You’re gonna get better content. And you can, that’s also then, if you can get them invested in the show, the artwork that they’ve done, that’s gonna be another place that they’ll share your show and get out in front of potentially folks who may not be directly theater audiences. So I know that Family Theater Company has recently been employing.
a local disability graphic arts firm and they’ve found a lot of great success with that. So I really would encourage you, yeah, you can do it yourself or you can outsource it to a big corporate graphic design firm, but look local if you can. That’s another point to build those community relationships.
Alex Miller (33:15.924)
Yep, absolutely.
Toni Tresca (33:17.198)
So there are three, I mentioned there are three waves of photos. So the first is that show poster initial promo art, and that’s gonna happen months in advance of you actually getting into the rehearsal process. The next is rehearsal photos. So as soon as you enter the rehearsal process, you wanna make sure that you’ve got somebody in the room taking pictures. You wanna get some shots of the table read. If you can, that’s okay.
but really you wanna see some stuff where it’s got the actors up on their feet. If you can get them in front of a mocked up version of the set, that’s great. If you can get them just acting out some of the more dynamic scenes, that’s great. We’re not necessarily talking about staged kind of photos where everybody, all the cast is hugging together on the first day or anything. That’s not necessarily what we’re looking for. It’s like more dynamic shots that showcase the potential of what the show can be.
And this is helpful if you’re trying to get any preview coverage, as well as it also gives you some social media content to be able to post about where the show is at for people who are following you.
Alex Miller (34:25.344)
Yeah, yeah, if you could, if you can put a character too and something like the costume they were probably in and use a background of some sort, that’s great stuff. So, so yeah, those are, those are great to have. And so the third part is production photos. So this is the big, the big one.
Toni Tresca (34:43.778)
That’s right. you want to make sure you set aside some time to take to bring in some professional, ideally to take some really high quality production photos. But if you’re not doing it yourself, if you’re if you’re doing it yourself, you don’t have the budget to bring in a photographer. If you can try and try to shoot it with a cam, find somebody who can shoot with a camera, somebody in your community. But if not, your iPhone camera that you’ve got is pretty powerful at this point. So
Just make sure that you’re shooting it horizontally, because that’s where a lot of the outlets who are going to be using, that’s what the kind of shots that they pull from. And make sure that you’ve just got, you make sure it’s focused on there, if need be. But you want to make sure that’s done early, like before you open, if possible. you have, set aside some time when you’re doing dress rehearsals to take these images as well. So you can leave some time if you’re editing themselves or if you’re
Alex Miller (35:23.83)
Yeah.
Toni Tresca (35:40.802)
got a professional photographer, you leave them a day or so to edit the shots, and then you can get them in the hands of people who are going to be either reviewing or previewing the show.
Alex Miller (35:51.252)
Yep. Yep. And I would say if you have any money whatsoever, I mean, this is a really good use of your marketing budget is to pay a professional for these because the lighting can be really tricky. You really need a decent camera to get these. And we’re fortunate. We have a lot of really great theater photographers in Colorado. I could probably name a half a dozen in the Denver area right off the top of my head who always turn in great stuff. I think they are probably pretty reasonable.
their prices. So, so a couple of things that once you have those photos, especially if especially if you paid for them, man, you want to squeeze every bit of value out of those. And that means using them, getting them out, like Tony just said to absolutely to your press list to all the media, putting them on your website, using them for social media, and just anywhere you can think of. And of course, if you’ve got video as well, you know, you might as well grab some video from that dress rehearsal, and use that wherever you can.
And so there’s a few things to know about photos. So, I mean, I’m speaking from someone who’s been in the media industry for 30 plus years and I’ve dealt with a zillion photos. And there’s just some basic things to know. One is just know what size to send in. So you don’t need to send over this thing that’s like 10 megabytes. I mean, that’d be good for like a billboard. Most websites only need something that’s like, you know,
six inches wide or something like 1200 pixels tops and 72 DPI. And you can see those on any photo software. We’ll show you how to do those. For the most part, we’re talking about horizontal photos. There’s just not a lot of opportunity to send over verticals. You can still send some of those, but definitely make sure that the horizontals are most of them. Make sure, and this is a big one, is properly crediting the photo. Who took it?
the organization and also who’s in the photo because that’s information that I’m often having to search around for. And so if you look at say the Denver Center, every photo that they put on their press page for downloading, the file itself has the name of the actors identified and the photographer in the file name. And that’s where that should be. So that way they never get separated from each other. And so you always know that those
Alex Miller (38:13.322)
those credits are in the right place and that the actors are identified in the photo.
Toni Tresca (38:21.102)
Those are all really great tips because we cannot run photos as media outlets if we don’t have, at the bare minimum, the photographer’s name. It’s really frustrating when you don’t have the names of the people who are pictured as well because particularly if you’re doing a review, that makes it kind of tricky to place it. You’re like, who are these characters? Oftentimes, the editors of the…
piecing together the content, they may not have seen the shows. So it’s very, very helpful on that end to include all of the characters’ names and the actors’ names as well, in addition to the photography.
Alex Miller (39:02.442)
Yeah, certainly the photographers will be much less annoyed with you if you do that. And also include that information on social posts as well, especially on Facebook. There’s plenty of room for that to make sure that you’ve got the credit and the IDs in there. And one last thought on photos is if you don’t have one, use some sort of a website, whether it could be Dropbox, it could be just a Google Drive, anything. Don’t be wasting time.
sending photos around via email, especially if you’ve got these huge photos. And the other thing is, don’t send us a link to every single photo the photographer took. And sometimes I’ll get a link and it’s got like 100 photos on it. Send, you know, pick through the like the top five that you like, and put them in, you know, share that folder. And that way the photos that you like the most have the best chance of being the ones that are used.
Toni Tresca (39:56.27)
Great tip. We’re talking like we don’t need any more than eight to 10 photo options. So send us your best, send us the most dynamic, send the ones that capture the essence of the show, display moments you’re really proud of that kind of speak to the scale or tone of the production that people are about to witness. are the ones that we want to see in that package.
Alex Miller (40:21.332)
Yep. All right. Well, let’s, let’s move on to getting reviews and previews. This is the earned media part of the equation. So as, as you all know, the current state of theater criticism is pretty bad. There’s just not a lot of, you know, there’s, you know, on stage, Colorado, we do more reviews than anybody, but still, you know, there’s still some reviews happening at Westward. Sometimes those have Tony’s byline on them. And, you know, there’s, there’s,
Toni Tresca (40:36.458)
Yeah.
Alex Miller (40:51.03)
You know, Denver Post does occasional reviews much less now that especially now that Lisa Kennedy’s no longer with them So so make sure that you are getting out to the ones of us who are left Because and you know and that can like I said it can even include your local paper or somebody like that You know if they’ve got time and you know, and the other thing is people like getting invited to things You know, know if they can’t make it, you know, so make sure that you’re sending out an invite saying hey, you know The show’s coming up
And this isn’t just like sending out a press release. This is just like a literally an invitation or it can be part of a press release. Although I would argue that press releases aren’t as useful as people think they are. I think once you’ve got the calendar information sent out, there’s not a lot of use for press releases, but I mean, if you got one, sure send it over. So approaching your viewers and you want to interest them in the show. So you want to tell them what it’s about. Of course, maybe highlight, you’ve got like,
We’ve got a couple of great actors that people know, things like that. And I don’t know, what are some of the other things you like to see, Tony?
Toni Tresca (41:57.05)
I often tell people that if you’re going to get covered, the reason that you’ll get covered is often not because of the show itself. there’s a couple exceptions to that. If it is a world premiere or a new play, that is an exception. That’s news making in and of itself. But most of the time, editors are looking for stuff that’s news, that is newsworthy. What does that mean? Something significant that it’s
something significant that’s happening either in the local, state or national kind of landscape, some connection to that. how does your play that you’re doing, how does it speak to this moment that we’re in or how does it kind of amplify relevant voices in your community? So like as Alex was saying, if you’re featuring cool people, local people, acclaimed actors, if you’re a community theater and you’ve got a…
You’ve got the mayor or like a local lawyer or a dentist involved in your production. Make sure that information is in your press release and or your pitch to be reviewed. That’s relevant. That’s interesting. That’s newsworthy. That’s showing that you’re making relevant community connection. So I would say, yes, make sure that you include a detailed synopsis, but tell us why you’re doing this play and how you’re doing this play matters to the community.
Alex Miller (42:54.986)
Yeah.
Toni Tresca (43:21.346)
Think about that when you’re kind of putting together the pitch. And like Alex said, if you want people to come to review or even just get your company on their radar, make the ask explicit. Send over details about the show and invite, be like, we’ve got two tick, we can set aside two tickets for you. And just make sure, make that offer very explicit. You might feel a little bit crass, but…
It’s a really good way to get in front of people and make sure that they know that the offer is sincere and that this is on the table for them. So I would say that’s another good way to just build up relationships as well. That can be with corporate sponsors, foundations, as well as people in the press, make sure that those invites are clear and explicit.
Alex Miller (44:04.608)
Yeah, yeah, and keep in mind if you do get a story or a review written about your play, that’s gold for when you’re looking for grants and things like that. So you can get a lot and you can squeeze a lot of juice out of that kind of content.
Toni Tresca (44:18.41)
even if they’re not necessarily all positive, I would say, I would add. I would note that the Arvada Center is kind of the expert of clipping a review and pulling the one or two good lines out of a review. I’ve written a number of critical reviews of their productions for Boulder Weekly in the past, and I’ve seen that…
the one or two lines I’ve written that are kind of positive about the production plastered on their marketing materials. And that’s what you should be doing. That’s a that is a smart, savvy marketing director and marketing team right there. Even if there’s just the one line in there that you can pull out, you don’t need to link back to it necessarily. Pull out that one line, link back to the site or just link, say where it came from in that one short little line. You can you you can use this.
Alex Miller (44:57.291)
Yeah.
Alex Miller (45:01.877)
Yeah.
Toni Tresca (45:11.968)
Use it in different ways, even if it’s not all positive.
Alex Miller (45:13.462)
Yeah, yeah. And if you do get a negative review or even a partially negative review, don’t get all pissy about it and like say, know, send a nasty email to the reviewer or the editor. know, it’s, know, that’s part of the deal when you put stuff out in public, you know, and, you know, of course if the same reviewer comes in and just shreds your show every time, but that just doesn’t happen. So it really doesn’t, you know. I think most reviewers are going to look for
you know, they’re looking for the positive. So, and if they do, if you do have negative, you know, that’s something to learn from, even if you don’t agree with it. So, all right, well, let’s talk about some of this digital stuff.
Toni Tresca (47:28.134)
So when you’re thinking about what should be on your website, you want to make sure that you’ve got a really cool image of you on your website. Make sure ideally it’s current, something kind of flashy that demonstrates the scale and scope of what your organization is doing. Make sure it’s current. You don’t necessarily want it to just be a stagnant image of the venue or anything like that. And then make sure that pretty quickly, as people are scrolling on your home page,
People are able to find information about events and upcoming shows that you’re doing. People should not have to search too far to find that information on your homepage.
Alex Miller (48:10.356)
Yeah, and a great way to figure that out is ask a couple of friends or people on your board or whatever to look, give them five things to do on your site. okay, find, you know, what shows are coming up in the next year? Find how to get tickets to the show on this date. And so they’ll tell you like, man, was, it took me a while to dig through and you know, things like that, or it was great. So that’s a good way to kind of assess how well your site is working on the user experience side.
Toni Tresca (48:39.874)
And you want to make sure that if you’re selling tickets directly on your site, you’re not working with a partner organization, which I know many organizations do. But if you’re selling directly on your site or linking to that, you want to make sure that it takes as few clicks as possible to get to that ultimate purchase point. It takes people a lot of time and energy to get through multiple pages where they have to fill out multiple things of information. They might just give up. So that’s another thing to kind of think about when you’re optimizing your site.
Alex Miller (49:09.622)
Yep. Yeah. And if your site looks like it was made in 1995, I mean, it’s so easy to get a decent looking site. are themes. You can start on WordPress and add a theme, or you can use a simple builder like Wix or Squarespace or those types of things. there’s, and most theaters have, are looking pretty good. There’s a few out there I could think of that they could really use an update. So what about the social platform priorities?
Toni Tresca (49:37.454)
I would say for social platforms, it differs. Make sure that you have different content for different platforms. It’s as easy and convenient as it might seem to just share the same images or things across all of the different platforms. That can often lead to things getting a little bit funky, it feeling insincere on that type of side, or even with something like Instagram, if you try to include a link.
it just won’t work in that kind of caption area. So you have to really be thinking critically about how to use each one and which one is right for your theater. So if you’re trying to court a younger audience, you might want to be prioritizing social media accounts that have more of a video component, that we’re talking things like the newly back TikTok. We’re talking about the video section of Instagram. If you’re trying to cultivate more…
Alex Miller (50:26.793)
Yeah.
Toni Tresca (50:34.06)
of an older audience or do more community building or just sharing about your post, you might want to make sure that you’ve got stuff ready for Facebook and things like that. So I would say, and what are ways that you can do that on a budget? So we’ve already mentioned a couple of them. Make sure that you’ve got somebody in the room who is capturing content of the rehearsal process. That’s images of it itself. If you can get the actors invested in onboard and the production, I know that
something that I’ve seen that seems to be very effective for companies is doing a live kind of stream alongs, get ready with me’s on their socials. I just saw that Betsy Theater Company did this with their production of Hope and Gravity when they transferred over to the Nomad Playhouse in the Boulder area. They had one of their actresses kind of take people backstage and show people part of the process. That’s a really cool, easy thing.
that people are already getting ready backstage, they’re already doing that for the show. So if you can share that process with your patrons through your social, I think that’s a really cool way to get them invested in the work that you’re doing.
Alex Miller (51:44.394)
Yeah, and then make sure that all of your cast and crew are also sharing out on their socials as well. It’s just extend the love. So I would also mention, so sometimes this can seem a little overwhelming, all these different things, use a tool. So there’s HootSuite, I use Buffer, which allows me to post out to multiple social media sites at the same time. You can schedule them, it’s just really easy to use. Usually you can get away with just the free version.
thing. that’s a really good way to just make sure you’re doing it. And another little tip here is use artificial intelligence for social media posts if you’re stuck or whatever. So plop in, just add the description of the show, some of the character names or whatever it is, just plop it in, chat to EPS or Claude or whatever and ask us that they’re really good at doing that kind of stuff. And there’s no shame in it, I don’t think.
Toni Tresca (52:45.048)
Yeah, that seems like a pretty harmless way to use social media. Excuse me, to use AI to build social media, things like that. Yeah, that just will help with the kind of implementation process of this. So let’s talk a little bit finally about kind of community engagements and how to build that up through a successful word of mouth strategies. That’s still the number one way to get people invested in your show and to come to your show if they hear from somebody in real life.
Alex Miller (52:49.283)
AI, yeah.
Toni Tresca (53:14.658)
that your company is worth checking out, or they saw a recent show that you did, and they should go back themselves. So how can you make sure that people actually talk about the show? Not to keep going back to Betsy, but Mark Reagan is a great example of one effective way, a strategy to do this. He does a lot of the actual curtain speeches himself, and one of the big parts of it, he’s not necessarily…
talking extensively about the show that you’re about to see or about kind of the sponsors. He talks a lot about like, if you like this show, share it, tell people about it. Feel free to take photos of the place you’re in, share that, post about it. That’s the best way to get people to come to the show. don’t be afraid. If you are going to do a curtain speech, you’re going to ignore our advice and you’re going to do a curtain speech at your show anyway, that is a really good effective way to use your curtain speech.
Alex Miller (54:04.083)
Yeah.
Toni Tresca (54:10.058)
or make sure that information is available in your program. Make sure it’s posted everywhere that people can share and you want them to, if they liked it, tell their friends about it.
Alex Miller (54:20.874)
Yeah, absolutely. So what else? another good thing to do is like, you know, if you’ve got like a restaurant near your theater or a couple of them, you know, invite and give them a couple of free tickets and have them come in and ask them, hey, just an exchange, you know, if people ask about the theater or whatever, you know, just kind of get to know your neighbors, you know, throw them a couple of bones, you know, maybe you could even do partnerships with them where, you know, you’ve got a deal where you can get some percentage off the meal with a…
showing your tickets or something like that. I’m not sure how effective those are, but I think they could certainly be part of the whole menu of stuff that you want to do to engage community.
Toni Tresca (55:05.154)
Yeah, think that it’d be curious, we should maybe have folks at Miners Alley on, because I know that they do a lot of partnerships with their surrounding restaurants and businesses around them to kind of talk and see what the return on investment is from those relationships.
Alex Miller (55:22.646)
Yeah, yeah. And I would just say that when you’re looking for ideas, look to see what other theaters are doing. They will be happily, and they’ll probably be happy to tell you if you want to ask them how they manage it. So one other thing I wanted to mention is practical tips for implementation. So this is a little bit of the work you need to do upfront as putting the tools in place, whether it’s something like Hootsuite for social media, creating templates for your
Social posts, you know with the right hashtags and things on it building your media lists and making sure you update them regularly Looking at time management like who’s who’s gonna do this and how much time are they gonna spend on it? Definitely use those free tools and resources find find, you know things that work for you whether it’s just a simple photo tool or
know, Canva for graphics or any AI for creating social posts or things like that. So that’s a little bit of the work you need to do upfront. then, you know, and then, and then once you’ve got that in place, you should be able to kind of keep the, keep the thing rolling with, with, know, and make sure that there’s, you know, these things are all assigned to somebody. Maybe it’s, maybe it’s just one person, but you know, if you can spread it out a little, that’s, that’s better too.
Toni Tresca (56:40.11)
Yeah, so kind of wrapping this conversation up, think one of the big themes is don’t be so afraid of marketing that you just aren’t doing it. The big thing is consistency over perfection. You may not get it right the first time or even the first few times that you’re doing these strategies. And not all of them may be effective, but it’s better to be trying these things and figure that thing out.then not be doing any of these things at all.
Alex Miller (57:12.244)
So anyway, yeah, so that’s our utterly unsolicited advice for theaters out there, but we love you all and we want you to succeed and you want butts in seats and all that good stuff. And this is really, this is where it starts.
Toni Tresca (57:59.278)
Absolutely. All right, well now we are going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and when we return we will share our top 10 Colorado headliners as well as Alex’s interview with the D-Town guys.
Alex Miller (00:01.166)
It’s not like you guys aren’t used to starting a scene over, right? All right, we are here with Jake Bell and Nick Rigg. And do you go by Nick Rigg? Justin, is it? Or just Nick Rigg?
D-TOWN (00:03.96)
For sure.
D-TOWN (00:13.092)
nick rick johnson nick rick nick johnson’s my real name my wife’s name was rick and i took that because it’s a way cooler stage name than the million nick johnson’s out there
Alex Miller (00:21.614)
Right. Okay. Well, that makes sense. okay. So Nick Grigg, Nick Grigg Johnson and Jake Bell, we are here. So you guys are doing this thing called D-Town, which is, and you have three other guys in the Over 30 Boy Band. So can you tell us, and you’re going to be having a performance coming up in March that we’ll talk about in a sec, but tell me, how did this thing start and what’s it like?
D-TOWN (00:36.022)
Yeah.
D-TOWN (00:44.139)
Well, honestly, like when I was growing up, my parents used to really love watching that show, Making the Band, which was like a reality show, kind of the first of its kind, where they were trying to take, they were doing a nationwide search, trying to find like the next Backstreet Boys or the next N’Sync basically. And I just had this core memory of watching that every week with my parents. And one day this idea popped into my head for a full-fledged musical about a…
one hit wonder from the early 2000s that decides to get back together as a boy band and try to make a go of it again in the 30s. And over time, that idea just kind of evolved into what if I just took the making the band idea and got four other guys that are in their 30s and know full well that they’re not getting famous, but put them through the same rigorous boy band boot camp that they would have gone through had they been in their teen years.
Alex Miller (01:34.55)
huh.
D-TOWN (01:38.973)
What started out as a joke actually ended up being really great because I ended up linking up with my buddy Jake here. We did Escape to Margaritaville last summer, or was that two summers ago? Two summers ago now. And I started playing some boy band music in the dressing room and Jake started singing along and the idea just kind of snowballed from there. We tacked on Randy Chalmers, who’s an amazing talent around town who I’ve worked with several times, and Alejandro Roldan.
And finally, Marco Robinson joined in after our most recent production of Waitress at the Arvada Center. were working together and he showed a lot of interest in it. And so we wrote the script and have been working on it ever since.
Alex Miller (02:24.856)
Great. All right. So, yeah, I remember Marco, he was the, what was he, a dentist or doctor in waitress? Geochast, yeah. Right, right, right. Okay. And so, and then Jake, you’ve got recent experience in a boy band since you were in Jersey Boys at Town Hall, right?
D-TOWN (02:31.12)
He’s a gynecologist. Close. Other end. Other end. Yeah.
D-TOWN (02:44.308)
Little bit of a retro boy band, but yeah, so a little bit of experience. Yeah, it serves them well for sure.
Alex Miller (02:47.63)
Yeah, that was a hell of a show. So, well, before we get into a little bit about what you’re going to be doing, what is it about boy bands, you think? I mean, there’s also girl bands, you know, but it seems like boy bands are, I don’t know, what is the boy band? How do you even describe, what’s the difference between like a band with guys in it and a boy band?
D-TOWN (03:00.413)
No, for sure.
D-TOWN (03:07.689)
Well, you
D-TOWN (03:11.527)
There’s a good yes, that’s that is a very good question. Traditionally, boy bands don’t really play instruments and it’s a lot more dancing than it is instrument playing. I would also say that it’s typically anywhere from three to now with K-pop 12 guys that are able to get a harmonizing blend together. And yeah, I mean, there’s an old saying that
Alex Miller (03:20.279)
Right.
Alex Miller (03:27.106)
Ha
D-TOWN (03:36.39)
you know, as long as there are teenage girls, there will be, or as long as there are teenage girls, there will be boy bands. And I really think that that’s the case because yes, they fall out of style and fall out of favor with the, you know, with the music taste of the day from time to time, but they always seem to come back. Part of the reason why we started this up is because we saw the resurgence of groups like New Kids on the Block and…
Backstreet Boys are doing a new Vegas residency and O-Town, the aforementioned O-Town has been on tour for the last like three years non-stop and they are constantly playing to sold out crowds. Now those sold out crowds may be in 200 seat theaters or at the county fair these days, not stadiums like they used to be, but there is still that need and desire for nostalgia and the songs of our youth. And I think to tie us into it is that, I mean,
Alex Miller (04:18.35)
Right.
D-TOWN (04:31.973)
At least with talking with Nick and some of other guys what like draws us to that music is that I mean growing up I Of course like in sacred backstreet boys I was very little but it’s still my sister was a huge fan of them at the time and before I got my own music taste I listened to what she listened to and I feel like there’s a lot of people who found their way into listening to this music and like of course from like Typically from a boy bands perspective from a girl’s perspective, you know that you have these very
Alex Miller (04:49.826)
Yeah.
D-TOWN (05:00.078)
handsome looking boys singing these harmonies and these dancey music and these costumes or elaborate outfits and things like that. But still that music is catchy and it does still find a wide fan base. Though growing up you had to be a little bit quiet about expressing that love for it. Well that’s the thing. We like to say that if you were a young boy growing up at the height of the boy band fandom, you either
Alex Miller (05:07.213)
Right.
Alex Miller (05:19.584)
Yeah, Customers Boys hate boy bands, right?
D-TOWN (05:29.464)
loved them and got made fun of, hated them but still inadvertently knew all the words to the popular songs because they were everywhere, or you wanted to be just like them and that’s where we come in.
Alex Miller (05:40.526)
Okay, you know another thing about boy bands often often they you know, they’re cast You know, they may not even write their own material and so a lot of times there’s you know They cast them as characters and you know, when’s the bad boy once the I don’t know whatever Do you guys have any of those those kinds of identities?
D-TOWN (05:56.591)
We do! We kind of do. Now there’s ways that we have kind of just shoehorned folks into those archetypes that maybe don’t traditionally fit those roles, but that’s also, you know, because people keep asking us, you know, are you guys doing parody songs? Are they just covers? Do you do originals? And we are working on some original material, but, you know, this, especially this first show and this first kind of go around of shows that we’ve been doing has just been a celebration of the songs that we
Alex Miller (06:06.093)
huh.
D-TOWN (06:25.432)
grew up loving from these groups. And so, you know, we like to say that it is funny, it is a comedy, but not because we are, you know, winking at how, more because we’re winking at how silly it is that a bunch of guys in their 30s are starting a boy band when traditionally you’re supposed to be anywhere from 13 to 18 when you start a boy band. And it shows in the blood, sweat, and tears that we’ve been putting into our rehearsals in preparation for the.
Alex Miller (06:47.639)
Right, right.
D-TOWN (06:53.966)
for this first big show. Literal blood, sweat and were dancing yesterday and at the end of one song I looked at my hand and I was like, I am dripping blood right now. What happened? Yeah. We’re working hard. We’re working very hard, yes.
Alex Miller (07:07.663)
my goodness. All right. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the show. So you guys aren’t playing instruments, is that correct?
D-TOWN (07:14.697)
There will be a little bit of instrumentation here and there, but no, are, because we’re doing this all ourselves, we came into this with no money and we’re gonna come out of it with less money. could not, what we did was we created and borrowed backing tracks for the songs that we’re gonna be doing, but in the future we would love to try and eventually get even just a small four-piece band to back us up. That’s the plan in the future, but no.
What we’re gonna be doing is a lot of five-part harmony and a lot, a lot of dancing.
Alex Miller (07:49.23)
All right, well, and do you have a choreographer or are you just doing it yourself?
D-TOWN (07:53.015)
So that’s the thing, because we didn’t have any money and we know how hard it is, like as artists and as theater creators in this town, we know how hard it is to say yes to something that is not your project originally and also there’s no money involved. And for three guys in their 30s, did not, or for five guys in our 30s, we did not want to be the guys that were known to, you know.
beg their friends to come and help them out, knowing full well that, we’re not even getting paid. You’re definitely not getting paid. So yeah, we didn’t have a choreographer. We didn’t have a music director. We kind of just got in a room together at least once a week since October, basically, and have just been working tirelessly trying to find the right blend.
Alex Miller (08:20.705)
Yeah
Alex Miller (08:25.646)
Okay.
D-TOWN (08:41.749)
figuring out these songs ourselves, coming up with all the choreo ourselves, borrowing some choreo from the very iconic videos and stage performances. But yeah, but also trying to throw in some of our own flavor, which means doing less than those bands did. And I’ll say this because he won’t. Nick has become a, it’s his baby and it shows because he’s been really our head choreographer, our head writer, assigns the roles and know, we’re, and.
Alex Miller (08:49.761)
Sure.
D-TOWN (09:10.729)
we’re the better for it because we work really well together, but we also aren’t initiative takers, so we need someone to be like, hey, we’re doing this. I will say over the last couple of years, because I’ve been on a pretty good run of doing theater in this town, as has Jake and as has Marco and Randy and Alejandro, all of us. And it’s not that we’re all getting burnt out. was just, this was a…
kind of a side project that allowed us to do something ourselves without anybody else telling us what to do, where to go, what exactly to say. And that seemed really exciting at first until you realized there is no one who tells you how to do this. And that becomes an issue sometimes when you’re two weeks away from the show and all of a sudden you’re waking up in a cold sweat every single day.
because you have so much to do still. But it has been a wonderful learning experience and as much as Jake wants to put a lot of the accolades on me, these guys have been amazing at, we work really well together in that everybody can take a piece. know, like Marco has been really good at like getting our schedules together and making sure that we’re all gonna be there at certain times. Jake has been really great at helping me out as assistant choreographer and just all around champion of this project. I I you about it.
years ago before it was ever even a possibility. And he said, the day that you start working on it, I want to involved. we’ve got Alejandro who has secured our rehearsal spaces and Randy is just an all around, you tell him where to go and he will shine. Whatever you need him to do, he will do it for you. So we work really well together in that sense. And we’re having lots of fun. Do you want to emphasize that? We are having fun as much as…
Alex Miller (10:37.176)
That’s great.
D-TOWN (10:57.114)
As much as we are making it sound like it is a tiresome project, which it is, it’s also the most fun that I’ve ever had performing.
Alex Miller (11:04.11)
That’s great. Yeah. And of course, if you weren’t all getting along and having fun, what would be the point, especially if you’re not going to make any money?
D-TOWN (11:09.0)
Well, there obviously has to be a little bit of drama and you’ll see that in our show because part of our show is not only a live concert but also we are showing an exclusive behind the scenes look into what it takes to put this group together. it goes through us trying to get venues, goes through us trying to find a manager, it goes through us
actually putting the group together, choreography, everything that goes into it. And it is tiresome process, but we found a lot of comedy in that process as well.
Alex Miller (11:40.654)
That’s interesting. So it’s concert and it’s also kind of like a rock doc or something like that where you’re kind of at the time the scenes.
D-TOWN (11:44.517)
Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely like, you know, we going back to the making the band, we wanted to do our version of that basically.
Alex Miller (11:50.83)
I honestly say I’ve never seen Making the Band, but I get the idea. So, yeah, yeah. So I know this is this show coming up, it’ll be March 6th at the People’s Building and Aurora is going to be your first kind of headliner show, but you’ve done other, you’ve performed at other events. And can you tell me like what, where you’ve shown Detown before?
D-TOWN (11:55.117)
Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. Or like a spinal tap sort of sense. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
D-TOWN (12:13.786)
Well, the first time that we got on stage together was… Brighton on Broadway. Yeah, Brighton on Broadway for the Platte Valley Players. And they were having a fundraiser and asked us to come and perform a song there. And we really had no idea how it was going to be received. And to be honest, the theater crowd in Brighton probably isn’t the best crowd to debut a new boy band to. But the reception was amazing. And we got…
Alex Miller (12:37.963)
You
D-TOWN (12:41.272)
so many people who were excited to see what came next. That led to a night that was a fundraiser for, what was it for? Beehive Productions? Yes. Called What’s the Buzz? What’s the Buzz? Cabaret at the Improv. At the Denver Improv. And what was originally just going to be one song, performers kept dropping out. We ended up doing three numbers and it was almost like it was our show sponsored by Beehive Productions. They kept making that joke. And so
Alex Miller (13:08.974)
Yeah.
D-TOWN (13:10.723)
That is what really pushed us to want to do a full show that is just us for a full hour and a half, two hours, whatever it ends up being. to kind of piggyback off of that, I mean, from what he said about the reception, yeah, it was very surprising. Obviously, like we knew people would be pretty nostalgic for some of the songs, like, and people are really into it. But I remember after What’s the Buzz, you know, we’re wrapping up and this girl comes to me, I can’t remember her name, but she came up to me, she goes, hey,
I saw y’all at Brighton on Broadway and now I saw you here. It’s working. Whatever you’re doing is working. And I found that to be very touching but also very like, well, I think we got some. Yeah, yeah. Because for performers like ourselves, obviously you don’t know if something is working until you hear the crowd react. But for something as silly as this is and how off the wall of an idea this is,
Alex Miller (13:52.493)
Yeah.
D-TOWN (14:08.543)
Even when we’re up there, think all five of us are so self-deprecating that when we’re getting a standing ovation, we’re like, they’re just being nice. They’re just being nice. So to have people come up to you on the street or send you a message on social media and say, I really love what you guys are doing, can’t wait for the next show, it means a lot. But it also puts that much more pressure on us to want to do well for those people that have been following us since the beginning.
Alex Miller (14:33.934)
Yeah, that’s great. Wow. Well, so now let’s talk a little bit about the lineup. What’s the set list? What are some of the things people are gonna hear?
D-TOWN (14:41.091)
Well, you’re definitely gonna hear some of the hits for sure. Some of the ones that you still can’t escape to this day. Some songs that play in supermarkets all over the city, or all over the world really, to this day, even though they came out 25, 30 years ago. But we’re also gonna have a few, because we wanna do the hits from the big groups like Backstreet Boys and Nsync, and we have a lot of those. But we also have stuff from smaller groups that you may not have heard of, One Hit Wonders that you can’t.
even believe that you forgot that that song existed, but you loved it so much when it was popular for those three months. And even some of the more modern, you know, attempts at a boy bands like One Direction and kind of things like that to kind of get, because boy bands have gotten through multiple generations and we try to encapsulate at least a bit of all of them. Yeah, we grew up in the 90s and the 2000s listening to that style of boy band music, but it really the
Alex Miller (15:12.395)
Uh-huh.
D-TOWN (15:36.757)
Boy Band Factory, as it’s called, hasn’t really stopped. It’s been going since, you know, boys could harmonize and girls could scream, basically. so, and the music industry has taken note of that. So while groups like One Direction and like the Jonas Brothers don’t necessarily dance, they are still considered a boy band and we like to pay homage to them as well.
Alex Miller (15:59.63)
Okay. And in the lineup of the five guys, did you pick or select based on vocal ranges or things like that, or just kind of whoever was available?
D-TOWN (16:09.982)
Honestly, that is a yes and no answer that I have to give to you because yes, we were listening to people’s voices and thinking, you know, they would be a great addition to the group. But also, was just, can I imagine being on stage with these four other guys and having a great time, regardless of how we’re doing? And could I fail with these guys and still walk off stage feeling good about what we put together?
And the answer was yes, once we got this group together. think that, you know, none of us really want to toot our own horns, but like we all five of us have pretty great vocal ranges. the the times when our bass, who is Marco is singing lead, one of us has to take over singing bass and it’s never been an issue. So really, we when we pick a song, we listen to it a few times and then we just say, OK, who wants it? Yeah. And, you know,
Frankie Valli himself over here, Mr. Jake Bell is usually on top and Marco is usually on bottom and then me and Alejandro and Randy are, you know, trading parts for lead vocals and melody and things like that. But everyone gets a chance to shine in this show for sure.
Alex Miller (17:26.446)
Okay. And then last thing I to ask about, do you have any kind of a set, costumes or?
D-TOWN (17:32.722)
Well, we have some things planned for sure. Yes, we’re hoping that we can show off our boy band archetypes with some of the costumes that we’re putting together. The set is kind of an interesting answer because the night that we are performing is while the production of chess is still running at the People’s Building. So we are actually going to be performing our show on the chess set.
which will be very interesting, but you know, there’s worse places to dance than a checkerboard floor. Yeah.
Alex Miller (18:03.352)
Sure. All right. Well, anything else you wanted to mention about the detail and performance coming up before we sign off?
D-TOWN (18:11.41)
I do want to say if people are trying to really understand what I guess the vibe of the show is, imagine an insane concert, sprinkle a little bit of a play goes wrong and then a little dash of like full Monty. It’s really about five guys coming together and figuring out what it takes to put on a boy band concert. And I think that’s what really shines because obviously like I was just talking to him literally before this interview how it’s obviously about
guys struggling, the comedies, us figuring things out, but that’s really been what we’ve been doing this entire time. So there’s some genuineness of us just really just giving it our all and seeing it where it goes and some real fun moments have come about it. So I’m really excited for people to see that. Yeah, it’s not necessarily a parody show, it’s not necessarily a comedy show, it’s not even necessarily a full concert in itself. It’s more of a guinea pig experiment.
of sorts to see if this is a viable option for us in the future because so many people talk about how cool this idea is and this is our chance to show that hey, this idea that we’ve been talking about for years, we finally put it on its feet and we’re starting to sell some tickets and we have people interested in getting t-shirts from us and other kinds of merch. have production companies around the city asking us if we’d be willing to perform at pride events this summer. So it feels like we’re in a…
Alex Miller (19:34.006)
wow. could play, yeah, you could play Bat Mitzvahs and stuff like that and weddings.
D-TOWN (19:35.958)
Boy band. Yeah. Exactly. That’s our next one where we’re planning on going on a world tour someday, but only to other cities that start with D.
Alex Miller (19:47.598)
All right. Well, Nick Rick Johnson and Jake Bell with D-Town. the concert show, Extravaganza is going to be at the People’s Building on March 6th, 7.30 PM. And you can get tickets on the People’s Building website. Thanks so much for being on the Onstage Colorado podcast. It sounds like a blast. And yeah, I think a lot of people really enjoy it. I hope you sell it out.
D-TOWN (19:58.128)
Yeah.
D-TOWN (20:15.301)
Thanks so much Alex, that’s what we’re looking forward to. Check us out at at DtownBan on Instagram for more information and you can go to the link at our bio there to get tickets.
Alex Miller (20:18.102)
Ha ha ha.
Alex Miller (20:26.464)
Awesome. All right. Thanks again, guys.
D-TOWN (20:28.847)
Thanks so much.
Alex Miller (20:31.662)
All right, I’m just going to stop the recording. wanted to ask you a couple things.
Alex Miller (58:12.33)
Yeah. All right, we are back and ready to hit this week’s Colorado Headliner. 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 (58:25.09)
This week, I’m kicking us off with the touring production of Mean Girls coming to the Denver Center. This is opening, I guess today, as of when you’re listening to it, February 25th, and runs through the second of March. this musical is based on the 2004 film. It’s adapted by original writer Tina Fey and directed by Casey Nicholaw, who did the Book of Mormon, Aladdin, whole bunch of things.
Alex Miller (58:29.47)
Ooh.
Toni Tresca (58:54.562)
basically adapts the central plot of the movie, Beat for Beat, follows Katie Heron, who’s growing up on the, who she’s grown up on an African savanna, but now she is coming to high school in suburban Illinois. She is, she meets there a trio of mean girl, known as the Plastics, and she kind of gets recruited in that gang and changes her personality and goes on an adventure, a musical comedy adventure along the way.
I will be checking this one out to review it for Westward so you can read my review of Mean Girls very soon.
Alex Miller (59:26.047)
Yeah.
Alex Miller (59:32.532)
Yeah, I don’t know that I’m going to check that one out, but you let me know about it.
Toni Tresca (59:38.382)
Will do. Will this be another Back to the Future? Or will this be a slightly more positive musical theater going experience? I hope, like you said earlier, I always hope to be surprised and have a really impactful theatrical experience, but you never know.
Alex Miller (59:42.418)
Ha ha ha ha!
Alex Miller (59:59.604)
Yep. All right. My first headliner comes from the Impossible Players in Pueblo. They’re doing The Tin Woman, February 29th through March 14th. So this is a story of a woman who receives a heart transplant and eventually meets with the family of the donor. apparently it doesn’t go quite as she expects and she enters a downward spiral and unsure whether she truly deserves a second chance. That’s pretty interesting kind of storyline there. So Impossible Players through March 14th.
Toni Tresca (01:00:31.552)
In the Grand Junction area, the Colorado Mesa University Department of Theater Arts is doing Ride the Cyclone, February 27 through March 8. This is a musical that follows the lives of 16 choir students who die in a freak roller coaster accident. And when they’re stuck in limbo, a mechanical fortune teller invites them. Yeah, I know, sounds painful. But this mechanical fortune teller invites them each.
Alex Miller (01:00:51.028)
Yikes.
Alex Miller (01:00:54.71)
You
Toni Tresca (01:01:00.12)
to tell their story in song for a chance to return to life. So this sounds like a pretty, this sounds like a cool musical. I’ve not actually seen it myself, but I know it’s kind of all the rage on TikTok as of late. and if you can’t make the drive down to Grand Junction, I know that Vintage Theater is gonna be mounting the show in the Denver Metro area, May 2nd through June 8th. So you’ll have another chance.
Alex Miller (01:01:15.311)
huh, okay.
Toni Tresca (01:01:29.314)
to check out this kind of unconventional, quirky musical in the metro area soon.
Alex Miller (01:01:33.302)
Okay, yeah. All right, my next one is Becky’s New Car. This is at Coal Creek Theater of Louisville, February 28th through March 15th. This is a friend of the pod, Steven Dietz’s play. It’s about a woman stuck in middle age with, know, kind of stuck in a rut, nothing new is happening. And then one night, a socially inept and grief struck millionaire stumbles into the car dealership where Becky works and she’s kind of got a new life. So it says to the audience,
is offered the chance to ride shotgun in a way that most plays wouldn’t dare. that’s coming up at Cole Creek Theater of Louisville. That sounds pretty interesting.
Toni Tresca (01:02:12.472)
Yeah, Steven Dietz is a great playwright and a Colorado boy.
Alex Miller (01:02:16.82)
Yeah, prolific.
Toni Tresca (01:02:19.866)
My next headliner is by the aforementioned Wonderbound in Denver. They’re doing Agent Romeo, February 27th through March 9th. And in this piece, Garrett Armand, who is the artistic director, upends the Shakespearean classic in a modern star-crossed romance. So in this version, Romeo is an undercover FBI agent tasked with infiltrating the mob, and Juliet is the daughter of a mafia kingpin.
So it’s Romeo and Juliet, but meets the mob.
Alex Miller (01:02:50.141)
Interesting.
Alex Miller (01:02:55.08)
Okay, Wonderbound always does great stuff. You like dance. My next one is Up in Fort Collins at Babloot. It’s The Trip to Bountiful by Horton Foote. This one’s directed by Warren Sherrill. And it’s about an older woman who escapes her son’s Houston apartment to visit her hometown in Bountiful, Texas. Things have changed a whole lot and she has this sort of spiritual journey, exploring family tensions, aging, and our connection to home.
So that one’s, I think, a pretty well-known play that I’ve never seen. So it’d cool to get to that one. I think our reviewer, Leela, is going to beat that one.
Toni Tresca (01:03:36.206)
My next pick is chess at the People’s Building in Aurora. So this is a musical with a score by Abba about this chess game between the American Grandmaster and a Russian champion. And it’s a cult classic musical.
I’ve never seen it myself, but this rendition that’s going up in Aurora is going to feature the local symphony orchestra and is being produced by Bright Heart Stages, which specializes in producing underappreciated musicals. So if you’re looking for a musical about a game of chess that is a metaphor for romantic rivalries and the East-West political intrigue, this is the ABBA-infused show for you.
Alex Miller (01:04:22.966)
Okay. All right. Well, my last sort of, I’m sort of wrapping this one into my last two, guess, the Colorado New Play Summit at the Denver Center, March 1st through 2nd. So this is a chance to hear some brand new plays and staged readings. So, Bog Friends by Jose Sebastian Alberti, If God Were Blue by Kerry Perloff.
Rust on Bones by Bianca Sams and How to Conquer America, a Mostly True History of Yogurt by David Myers, who we love from last year’s 237 Virginia Avenue done by Local Theater. And so last week I had Chris Coleman from the Denver Center on to talk about all of these. So if you want to go back and listen to that and get filled in, but there’s information on the website as well. And definitely we always recommend people try and get out to some or all of the new play. It’s a lot of fun.
Toni Tresca (01:05:13.304)
Yep. If you and if you get out there, you’ll be able to see both Alex and I because we’re gonna we’ll be attending all four readings and we’ll talk a little bit about that on the podcast next week. They won’t be formal reviews. We can’t do that. But we can share a little bit about the experience.
Alex Miller (01:05:27.295)
Nope.
Alex Miller (01:05:31.903)
Yeah, for sure.
Toni Tresca (01:05:34.242)
So my final headliner for this week is Here to Pee at Junkyard Social Club in Boulder on March 1st. So this is a comedy show that is also a protest movement against the discriminatory anti-trans bathroom bills that have been passed around the country and kind of the reject, the turnaround that many organizations are feeling, the kind of dropping of the T, the trans people from their support.
Alex Miller (01:05:39.734)
You
Toni Tresca (01:06:03.118)
in many places. know that in my conversation with the organizer, Wren Dawn, he mentioned that he was just appalled to see that even in places like Stonewall, the billboards have been changed to remove trans people’s involvement in that effort now under the current administration. so by supporting this comedy tour that’s featuring mostly trans comics, they’re hoping to create a platform.
that’s going to connect communities through shared experiences and laughter. And all proceeds from this event are going to be going to local LGBTQ plus nonprofits who are battling against discriminatory ballot initiatives on the local levels in their communities.
Alex Miller (01:06:48.15)
worthy cause for sure.
Toni Tresca (01:06:51.158)
Yeah, absolutely. And when I in my conversation with Ren, it actually the idea for the tour came because he was harassed in a bathroom in Boulder, actually a place that’s kind of perceived as being more liberal and progressive. But he was harassed by a group of kind of fratty individuals who at the time he he was really afraid because he was like, no, they realize that I’m trans. But as he told me, he was like, No, I think that maybe they just wanted to do some gay bashing.
Alex Miller (01:07:02.198)
Ugh.
Toni Tresca (01:07:19.854)
And I was right there for them. And so he was like, I’m just here to pee, which is where the name for the tour came from.
Alex Miller (01:07:22.304)
Yeah.
Alex Miller (01:07:26.718)
Okay.
Alex Miller (01:07:30.8)
All right, well, that’s it for this week’s Headliners for the Week. Now stick around, I’m gonna do my interview with the boys from D-Town.
Toni Tresca (01:07:43.788)
What a fun conversation. That sounds like a show that is definitely gonna be worth checking out. A lot of fun.
Alex Miller (01:07:51.208)
Yeah, yeah, I don’t know if I’m get to that one, but it sounds like they’re they’re not going anywhere. I think they’re gonna I think they’re gonna be growing in popularity. So also new on the site, lots of reviews. We have one from Clyburn Park in Arvada on Clover Road at Springs Ensemble Theater Company, my review of Blues for an Alabama Sky, you’ll have our joint review of Chasing Breadcrumbs and all kinds of other stuff.
Toni Tresca (01:07:55.811)
Mm-hmm.
Toni Tresca (01:08:17.058)
Yeah, and next week on the podcast, I’m not quite sure what our main topic will be, but I do know what our interview is gonna be. We’ve got one lined up with the folks from the Millibow Art Theater about its upcoming festival in March. So what can you tell us about that conversation, Alex?
Alex Miller (01:08:33.918)
Yeah, I spoke with, spoke with Millibault Art Theater co founder Brigitte Dupree about their upcoming play festival, The Lost Year. So this is all about plays that will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic start and explore how it affected people in Colorado. So unfortunately, her partner and co founder, also Jim Jackson was having a he was was a little under the weather so he couldn’t join the conversation but but she was great to talk to and we talked a little bit about this really, really unusual.
theater company that combines like circus with theater and all kinds of interesting stuff. And I know our reviewer in Colorado Springs, April Took loves to go to Matt. So this sounds like a really cool, cool thing coming up. So stick around, come back for that one.
Toni Tresca (01:09:20.142)
Yeah, I love checking out their website because I never know what I’m going to find when I venture there. So I’m definitely looking forward to hearing from her and getting inside her brain about how programming works at that kind of unconventional space. But if you want to stay up to date on what’s going on in theaters, comedy venues, opera houses, and dance spaces around the state, subscribe to the OnStage Colorado newsletter, which comes out every Thursday.
Alex Miller (01:09:23.958)
I know.
Alex Miller (01:09:35.766)
Yeah.
Toni Tresca (01:09:50.142)
And if you like what we’re doing here on the podcast, please consider leaving a review wherever you are listening now and tell other theater lovers about us in your life. As we talked about in this show, word of mouth is still the best advertising.
Alex Miller (01:10:04.8)
Yep. Help us help you. Thanks so much for listening. I’m Alex Miller.
Toni Tresca (01:10:07.342)
Hahaha!
Toni Tresca (01:10:11.286)
and I’m Tony Tresca and we’ll see you at the show.
Alex Miller (01:10:16.106)
No.
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