A look at the highs and lows of adaptations, plus interviews with Chuck Wilts from UNA Productions and Oskar Eustis from New York’s Public Theater

In this week’s episode of the OnStage Colorado Podcast, hosts Alex Miller and Toni Tresca run down what’s on stage around the state now and coming up in the next few weeks. Our main topic this week is adaptations — screen to stage or stage to screen. After seeing the production of Back to the Future: The Musical at the Denver Center recently, we were inspired to look back on adapations that worked and some … not so much.

Chuck Wilt

Oskar Eustis

Later in the episode, Alex has two separate interviews related to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Cabaret Club series. The first is with drag performer and choreographer Chuck Wilts, who will appear at the ENT Center over Valentine’s Day Weekend in a production called Infinity. The other Cabaret Club production, The Forgotten Arm, is already past, but it was a fascinating conversation with Oskar Eustis. In addition to directing this work in progress, Eustis has been the artistic director at New York’s Public Theater for 20 years, so he goes into some of that fascinating experience.

And we also review our weekly Top 10 Colorado Headliners — shows coming up we think you might want to check out. Here’s this week’s list:

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Recent Shows
06:37 Exploring ‘The Reservoir’ by Jake Brash
13:43 A Unique Take on ‘Jane Eyre’
20:47 Theater Events in Vail and Community Engagement
26:40 Discussion on ‘A Case for the Existence of God’
28:37 Main Topic: Adaptations Between Stage and Screen
29:00 Back to the Future: A Musical Disappointment
30:46 The Nature of Adaptations in Theater
33:44 Successful Stage-to-Screen Adaptations
36:06 The Flops: Failed Adaptations
38:28 Screen-to-Stage Adaptations: The Good and the Bad
43:34 Back to the Future: A Deeper Dive
45:02 Lessons from Adaptations: What Works and What Doesn’t
56:50 Interview with Chuck Wilt
1:06 Interview with Oskar Eustis

Listen to the podcast

Transcript

Beware AI snafus

Alex Miller (00:00)
Alright, well hello and welcome to the OnStage Colorado Podcast for January 28th. I’m Alex Miller.

Toni Tresca (00:06)
And I’m Tony Tresca.

Alex Miller (00:07)
And yeah, here we are. We’re gonna talk about theater. And we usually start off with what we saw, but first we’re gonna have a couple of things coming up. We will get to that in a minute, but it was a pretty busy week for both of us. I know I saw three shows. We were back to the future last, I guess, Wednesday at the Denver Center. And we both saw the Reservoir at the Denver Center Theater Company, which is a world premiere from the Colorado playwright, Jake Brash. Very exciting. And then I got out and saw…

Toni Tresca (00:26)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Miller (00:36)
Jane Eyre for the matinee on Sunday at Bunport and this is a Grapefruit Lab production that I know you’ve seen also so we can talk about all these things.

Toni Tresca (00:47)
That’s right. In addition to discussing what we’ve seen, as well as some news that’s been going on around the state, our main topic this week is focusing on musical adaptations to film and vice versa. We’re kind of, we were inspired or dare I say burned after seeing Back to the Future, which you’ll hear a little bit more about in just a second. And so we decided to dig into what makes a good adaptation and vice versa.

Alex Miller (01:08)
You

Yeah, yeah, there’s all kinds of ones that go, they go from film to stage or stage to film and some are good, some are not so good. And we’re gonna dive into that. So, but first let’s talk about some of these shows we saw. So why don’t we hold off on Back to the Future? We’re gonna talk to that one in our main topic. Yeah, but The Reservoir by Jake Brash was one that we’d seen and we’ve talked about this a number of times, but we actually did get and see it. saw it a couple of.

Toni Tresca (01:35)
That sounds good, Alex.

Alex Miller (01:45)
Years ago, we saw the reading of it at the Colorado New Play Summit at the Denver Center. We had Jake Brash, the playwright on the podcast last time. really, a really neat play, really well written. had, I think you and I both agreed that we didn’t think the main actor who was playing Josh, Philip Snyder, was, I don’t know, quite the right person for it in terms of his performance. We just kind of wanted more out of him. I think, yeah, think, would you agree to that?

Toni Tresca (02:14)
think that’s fair to say. Jake Brax has written a really challenging script. That character, particularly that lead role in the reservoir, because he is an addict who is going through the stages of recovery, and he is on stage the entire time. And not just on stage, he is kind of constantly switching between worlds. Sometimes he’s in his mind and just kind of talking out to the audience.

Sometimes he’s in like scenes with his grandparents, sometimes he’s in scenes in like a jazzercise class. So it’s really all around bouncing back and forth. And his performance was kind of just one note for me. It was all manic all the time. And as written, that is really not what the character is. He goes through some real high highs and some really low lows. And this actor, at least on opening night, just kind of…

defaulted into a really one note performance where he was just kind of, I just wanted him to breathe. I was like, please just take a breath. Like it’s too fast. It’s way too fast. You’re like, I’m missing, I’m missing words because you’re just like, the whole show. And I also don’t think he was assisted by some of the technical elements. As I mentioned, the show kind of bounces around locations and sometimes it’s in his side, head, and sometimes it’s in the real world and the lighting design.

Alex Miller (03:17)
Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Toni Tresca (03:40)
did basically nothing to help with those transitions. You’re just kind of like, he’s kind of having to turn out to the audience and he doesn’t always remember to do that. And so it made it really challenging to just kind of understand where he was in space because of the performance as well as the technical elements.

Alex Miller (04:00)
Yeah, I think, you know, he was balancing a tightrope and, you know, director Shelley Butler working with him there. I mean, I thought the way the play is written where you’ve got so much going on and interconnected and sort of overlapping, almost like a fugue state of stuff in the performances can really add to the sort of the turmoil that’s in his mind. But it just needs to needed to be a little cleaner, you know, for people to be able to follow it.

So, but we really loved all the other performances. the four grandparents were great and the mom and local fave Rodney Lozgano was, he had a swing role where he was doing a bunch of, and had a number of different roles, including Hugo, the bookstore guy. And he was great as he always is flowing in and out of those scenes.

Toni Tresca (04:51)
Absolutely. I really enjoyed Rodney’s work. He in particular is the guy who played the owner or the manager of the bookstore, which is it’s never explicitly named. But if you’ve lived in Denver, it’s tattered cover. That’s where they’re at. It looks exactly like that on stage. He was really good in that scene as I don’t as particularly dealing with some stuff that was hidden below the surface that I don’t want to spoil here. And the grandparents who are kind of functioning as the almost a Greek

Alex Miller (05:05)
huh.

Toni Tresca (05:20)
chorus, at times acting out some of the more abstract things that get mentioned like the river in the play and whatnot. They were all really effective. In particular, really loved Shrimpy and Bev. were the two that were formed.

Alex Miller (05:33)
Yep, Peter Van Wagner

and Laurie Wilner, yeah.

Toni Tresca (05:39)
That’s right. were married at one point, but they’re not anymore, and they’re both fiercely independent and whip smart, both of them. They know exactly how to deliver the zingers that Jake has crafted.

Alex Miller (05:55)
Yeah, but yeah, I would say overall great play, know, a strong production other than some of the some of the quibbles about that we were just talking about. It’s really neat the way he compared, you know, so the memory loss of being an alcoholic with some of the Alzheimer’s, you know, memory issues that his grandparents were dealing with. It’s very funny in a lot of parts, but also it’s very touching in places. So, yeah, it’s really and plus his first professionally produced work. So really exciting for for Jake Rash.

Toni Tresca (06:22)
Absolutely, yeah, it’s a big accomplishment to get one of your first plays produced at the Denver Center and not something that happens often, so that’s definitely worth celebrating.

Alex Miller (06:33)
Yep. And now for something completely different. Jane Eyre from Grapefruit Lab. So this was at Buntport Theater and Grapefruit Lab is a small theater company and this was Julia, I’m sorry, Rada? Julie Rada, yeah, is kind of leads this one up. So I didn’t, you know, this was such a, I kind of liked it. It was kind of, it was really weird, but it was also,

Toni Tresca (06:37)
Mm-hmm.

That’s right.

Alex Miller (06:59)
had some really interesting touches to it, like use of an overhead projector. It’s not just overages is kind of before your time, Tony, but you know, when I was in college or high school, you know, overhead projectors, but how you just you protect new things, not on. OK. OK, all right. OK, but it was yeah, it was was kind of a neat device and and it was it was a.

Toni Tresca (07:12)
Well now hold on Alex, I’m not THAT young. I was in school when they would have to do the overhead projectors.

Alex Miller (07:25)
good cast and they had a lot of fun up there and of course they had the musical accompaniment by T. Cub Guerrilla which music was really cool. The guy who was singing I think wrote a little lyrics is Damien Merkel I think and he had kind of a he reminded me a little bit of the guy from The National or Leonard Cohen kind of mixed in there kind of the deep voice kind of more talky than singy.

Toni Tresca (07:38)
That’s right.

Alex Miller (07:49)
But I don’t know, did you think of it? I kind of enjoyed it. At first I was like, my God, what is this? And then I kind of got into it.

Toni Tresca (07:56)
Yeah, this is pretty par for the course for Grapefruit Lab. This was actually the first show that the company ever staged back in 2018. So this is a remount of that work. They’ve done a significant amount of adaption to it and they not everybody from the original cast returns. And this is like you mentioned, it’s a kind of bonkers interpretation of Jane Eyre. It’s really bounce, it’s bouncing around through the elements.

Alex Miller (08:18)
You

Toni Tresca (08:26)
And it’s loosely kind of controlled by who starts the writer, which is visualized on stage via Julie Rada. She’s playing Currier Bell, which was the code name for the Bronte sister who wrote this, who actually wrote this book and how it got it published. I think the most effective part of the performance for me was actually seeing Jane Eyre begin to take ownership of the show as it went on.

Some of the earlier scenes where they’re doing these kind of unconventional retellings of the traditional Jane Eyre story were, they didn’t really, I could take them or leave them. The music was, I think, the star of those moments. But as the show went on, they did this really cool device where Jane Eyre, as she was becoming more empowered throughout the text, became literally empowered over like the projector, the

Alex Miller (09:00)
Mm-hmm.

Toni Tresca (09:14)
the narration that was going on, the things that were showing up on the screens and everything. And she literally took control of the story. And so I thought that that meta storytelling device was really inspired and incredibly effective. So it ended on a really strong note.

Alex Miller (09:30)
Yeah, yeah, I think it would have helped if I had read the book. I haven’t ever read Jane Eyre and it probably would have helped to maybe maybe even read the quick Cliff Notes or something beforehand because I was a little lost at first. but yeah, overall, really interesting, interesting show in a cool space. And yeah, I was there on the Metony on Sunday. It was just about full. there lots of people there.

Toni Tresca (09:52)
Yeah, they’ve been selling well. The reason that they decided to remount this is this was one of their most popular productions. And so if you’re hoping to see this one before it closes, I would definitely get on that because they’ve been selling quite well. in particular, also want to quickly before we move on, just I want to shout out the performance by Joan Brummer Holden. She was playing Rochester as well as a whole bunch of the other bit characters. It’s an incredibly physical part. She’s switching in and out of

Alex Miller (10:14)
Yeah.

Toni Tresca (10:22)
all these different characters and she was so funny. It was such a dynamic performance and so just wanted to give Joan her kudos. was really sharp.

Alex Miller (10:27)
Yeah.

Yeah. And one other thing I’d shout out was the, is the tech where they used, they used to, you know, they just had a cell phone and they were at one, a lot of times the Jane was talking into it when she was talking to Dear Reader and it would be projected up on the screen. But if you were kind of back to where she was, you could just kind of watch her doing it. And it was just, it was kind of an interesting multimedia approach there. So, so you went up to Vales to tell us about this, the magic of the word.

Toni Tresca (10:41)
Mm-hmm.

That’s right. So I went up to Vale for the Weekend with Will event that was hosted by, in partnership with the Vale Symposium and was organized by Jill Gordon, who is one of my former classmates at CU Boulder and we actually, who we had on the podcast for our first episode of the new year. And so we just dug into kind of the planning process of it and it was super fun to make the drive, the two hour drive to Vale. And luckily there was

and was no snow or anything. I had heard the day before I got there, a Coors Light beer truck had tipped over on the side of the road in Vale and completely shut down the mountain. So if I had been trying to come up a day earlier, I would not have been able to do it. But I was able to make it for two events there. The first was Shakespeare, The Magic of the Word, which was a two-man performance in which there was this, it was a Rhodes scholar and he was kind of breaking down.

Alex Miller (11:32)
Okay.

Bye bye.

Toni Tresca (11:57)
the language of William Shakespeare and kind of trying to make it a little bit more accessible and understandable to the contemporary audience and took some Q &A’s at the end. It was a pretty engaging panel. There was about 100 people who ended up showing up for this event on 6 p.m. on a Thursday night. I thought for a kind of a lecture about Shakespeare, that was a pretty good turnout.

Alex Miller (12:18)
There’s

start for theater up there in Eagle County, because they have any theater. Yeah.

Toni Tresca (12:22)
Literally, Alex. This event

just really does prove how hungry people are for any kind of theatrical programming whatsoever. And the second thing I went to was a panel discussion. It was at 11 a.m. at this church in Vail, and Jill had assembled a really interesting panel of two people from Chicago and then two individuals who were involved with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival to come and talk about why are we still talking about Shakespeare?

Alex Miller (12:27)
you

Toni Tresca (12:51)
And it was a really engaging panel. They talked about everything from applied Shakespeare, like Shakespeare being used in the prison systems, to kind of Shakespeare being done to build community via public library performances and kind of the power that Shakespeare has to speak to the complex human emotions. And it was a really engaging panel. Again, lots of, it was lots of really good questions at the end too. So.

I had a really good time that I had to miss the last event, unfortunately, which was a one woman performance called, I don’t remember what it was called, but because I did not see it, I because I had to make the drive back to to Denver to see the reservoir that’s that evening. But I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a very successful first time event. And I from talking with Jill, the organizer, she she was very proud of it. And it sounds like they’re going to be bringing it back for next year.

Alex Miller (13:30)
Okay.

Cool. All right, what else did you get out to?

Toni Tresca (13:48)
So the final thing that I saw this weekend was a show that I know you have already seen, but we did not, I don’t believe we talked about on the podcast because we were in the midst of the Oscars, which are our awards that are now posted to the site. if you, in case you missed that episode, you can always go back and listen to our podcast about it. But it was Curious Theater Company’s regional premiere of A Case for the Existence of God by Samuel D. Hunter.

Alex Miller (14:00)
Yeah.

Toni Tresca (14:17)
Which, before I even get to my thoughts on the play, I just have to say, terrible title. It has nothing to do with that at all. You mentioned to me offhandedly that you had listened to an interview with Samuel Hunter where he kind of broke down why he called it that. What was the reason?

Alex Miller (14:34)
It was like gobbledygook. didn’t, you know, for someone who’s as good with words as he is, he couldn’t really explain it. It sounds like, I don’t know, maybe it was the working title and they just forgot to change it or something. But yeah, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s really, I really liked it. It’s a, it’s a, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a, it’s a real story about two men kind of finding common ground. And they’re very different ones. A, you know, a gay black man who’s got a foster kid that he’s trying to hang on to. And the other one is a

is a kind of a more of a blue collar guy, white guy who’s trying to hang out and he’s getting divorced. And so I went through some of that child custody stuff myself a long time ago. And so I’m very sympathetic, you know, and it doesn’t really get really deep into it. the undercurrent is that, you know, guys always kind of have the short end of the stick when it comes to custody situations, oftentimes. And they were so they were dealing with that. you know, they were

It was a really tight script and it was really neat. The Brian Watson set was just this really, it was like this postage stamp size, like little shitty little office because the guys have mortgage broker surrounded by black. And it was really cool. was like they were in this cage almost, you know, in their tiny little world trying to work through all of these problems.

Toni Tresca (15:53)
Yeah, I agree. thought that the set the scenic design was very effective and pretty versatile too, because it needed to function as the office of this mortgage broker. And as well as the home a park and all these kind of different various locations. And so I thought it was pretty effective there. And I liked the script and I liked the and I liked the acting too, largely, but

Alex Miller (16:09)
Yeah, a few other places.

Toni Tresca (16:21)
I was a little bit, I just don’t know if I ever bought into the central premise of the play that these two men would ever become friends, since they spend, particularly since so much of the dialogue that we’re given is them kind of at each other’s throats for a majority of the play. And I just kind of left walking away with mixed messages on the kind of male friendship, which is, and kind of how we move forward from

Alex Miller (16:38)
You

Toni Tresca (16:50)
from that, which is kind of what the play was built as being about. It really was more of what you were saying, it was more about the kind of, what is it like going through custody battles as a man in society, whether that be a gay man or a straight man who’s going through a divorce. I thought those ideas were interesting, but I never bought their friendship. Did you?

Alex Miller (17:10)
huh.

I did, yeah. mean, and as I said in my review, was like, it kind of got down to where they were all each other had. You know, they were both sort of alone in the world and they kind of, even if they didn’t completely, you know, love each other’s biggest fan, they really, they kind of grasped onto each other and kind of rode through some rocky waters together. So I don’t know, I liked it quite a bit.

Toni Tresca (17:13)
Yes.

Yeah.

You know, that’s pretty interesting. You’ve given me something to chew on, Alex. I kind of like that idea. And that’s definitely driven home by the scenic design, which literally places them as the only two individuals in the world.

Alex Miller (17:40)
Okay.

Yes, exactly.

What did you think of the ending where suddenly they turn into two different characters? Did it take you a minute to figure out what the hell is going on?

Toni Tresca (17:58)
It did. And I know that I was not the only one because I witnessed a, I witnessed pretty much every group of, it was a lot of older people who was at my Sunday matinee. Every, like every old couple stopped at the box office and they were talking to the box office representative and they were like, what happened in that final scene? Who were those people? Like what was, what was going on? They never figured, they did not figure out that, they had a connection that they were.

Alex Miller (18:02)
You

You

they never figured it out? that’s too bad.

Toni Tresca (18:27)
connected to these two men in any way. were like, was that right? something, somebody literally asked, did something mess up at the end? Did they skip a scene or something? And Yvette, who is the box office person, she was really kind. She was like, no, they didn’t skip a scene. And then she kind of broke it down for them. So, you know, it wasn’t just us who were kind of a little bit, who thought that lacked clarity.

Alex Miller (18:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, that’s an issue. I actually felt like after maybe 30 seconds, I was like, oh, okay. And I was, you know, it was fine.

Toni Tresca (19:01)
I did too because there was a line that comes like, there’s a line that comes a little bit later where they kind of explicitly name who they are to each other by showing each other some pictures. And so I was like, well, if you really were paying attention to what came before, it is there, but you do have to have been paying attention.

Alex Miller (19:19)
Yeah, they might have had too many Harvey Wallbangers at intermission or something. Well, that didn’t have an intermission. So, all right, well, we had a couple of news things coming up. What’s the first thing that you wanted to talk about there?

Toni Tresca (19:23)
Maybe. Maybe.

Yeah, so on the news side, first off, just wanted to share the announcement that the Platte Valley Players have changed their name. They are now the Platte Valley Theater Arts. And this is to kind of reflect the high caliber of theatrical productions that this community theater troupe has been producing in Brighton for over 20 years. And you and I were just up there for cabaret and can attest to that. They’re really doing banger work up there.

Alex Miller (19:45)
All right.

Yeah, and I think when I was talking to Kelly Van Osprey, the art AD up there on the podcast a few weeks ago, she kind of said, and I agree with her, that Players kind of says community theater a little bit. Not that there’s anything wrong with community theater, but maybe a little bit more of an amateur name. I don’t know. So I think Platteville Theater Arts definitely reflects better what they’re doing. So what’s in a name? Who knows? But they have a cool season coming up. What do they have?

Toni Tresca (20:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so in March, they’re kicking it off with what they’re billed as a double dose of family friendly fun in which audiences get two great shows for the price of one and they’re doing Finding Nemo Kids in along with Susie Cole Jr. I’ve not ever seen Finding Nemo Kids. I imagine it’s pretty similar to the Pixar film, but Susie Cole is a fun one with all the Dr. Seuss characters thrown in a blender. Then in May.

Alex Miller (20:47)
Yep.

Sure. Yeah.

Toni Tresca (20:55)
they will be producing The Cottage by Sandy Rustin. This is a play that just had was just off Broadway and Sandy Rustin, if that name sounds familiar, she’s got a world premiere opening at the Denver Center in this in February, The Suffragettes Murder. That’s hers. So she’s a pretty prolific playwright. She’s also did the Clue adaptation on Broadway. And this is set in the English countryside in the 1920s and

It takes audiences on a whirlwind journey through love, betrayal, and secrets that unravel the tangled lives of its eccentric characters, revealing shocking truths, scandalous affairs that will keep you laughing from start to finish. So.

Alex Miller (21:35)
All right. Well,

Stage Door Up and Conifer is also doing that. The show starting in just a week or two, I think. And I’m also I’m talking to Sandy Rustin on Thursday. So for the podcast, we’ll have her on the pod to talk about suffragettes murder pretty soon.

Toni Tresca (21:50)
Excellent. So in July, Platte Valley Theater Arts is doing the Bridges of Madison County. So this is the romantic musical set in 1956 that follows a woman on an Iowa farm whose life is profoundly changed by a brief encounter with a National Geographic photographer. Then in August, they’re doing their annual one night only fundraiser, Brighton on Broadway.

And then rounding out the year in October is Frankenstein by Nick Dear that tells the story through the eyes of the creature.

Alex Miller (22:26)
All right. Cool. Another tiny little news item here and an email from the folks who run Feet Spot, which is some sort of a podcast, I think, aggregator of some sort. They let us know that we are in the top 90 Colorado podcasts. I had no idea there were that many podcasts in Colorado. I didn’t look through the whole list, but most of them. So we re-clocking at number 15. And I’m not sure how they determine the order, but most of the top 15 were either.

Toni Tresca (22:45)
Yeah.

Alex Miller (22:56)
sports, know, avalanche or ruckies or broncos. There’s some talk radio type stuff, things like that.

Toni Tresca (23:05)
Wow, so we’re in the big leagues now, Alex. And I guess any recognition is good, mostly. And speaking of recognition that I think most people would agree was pretty good, or at least it seems that way from the outpour that we’ve heard from the community. We’ve seen a lot of social media love for our recent Oscar Awards, which we hosted just last week.

Alex Miller (23:08)
Yes, that’s right.

Yep, sure.

Yeah.

Toni Tresca (23:33)
And we’ve really enjoyed seeing all the posts from theater companies, as well as all of the individuals we recognized. And it’s just been really encouraging to see so many folks embrace the awards and the name Aska’s, which you and I, know both love.

Alex Miller (23:45)
I

know it’s funny people like hey we got an Oscar. It’s like okay. It’s being it’s being you know it’s a thing now, so go us

Toni Tresca (23:54)
Absolutely.

if for some reason you did not receive your certificate, please reach out to us. We’ve emailed all of the theater companies that we had contact information for. But if for some reason you don’t have your award certificate, just that you can reach out at info at OnStage Colorado and we’ll get that to you.

Alex Miller (24:16)
Yep, yeah, I’ve got just a couple, couple left that I haven’t sent out just, but for the most part, I’ve sent them all out. So cool.

Toni Tresca (24:26)
And in our final news item, even though we are in the new year, some things never change. The DCPA’s parking garage is still the bane of our existence. Now, these fools over at the parking garage committee, they have jacked up the price from $15 up to $17. So, two more dollars you got to spend every time you park in the parking garage.

Alex Miller (24:30)
You

Ha ha ha.

That’s right. Although when I was there, Andy, my son and I, noticed that there were now some people on the different levels with those kind of like red flashlights, like waving you in one direction or another, which I absolutely did not need because you can kind of go either way. But that was what we got for our extra two bucks, I guess. know, but yeah, I mean, back in the 90s when I started attending shows, their parking was a nickel and they give you a bottle of cold sarsaparilla for free.

But but seriously, I do remember like eight bucks and it settled in at 10 It was 13 for a while went up to 15 then back to eight during the pandemic I was like, okay That’s a reasonable price and then it went zoom back up to 10 and then 15 and now 17 so they’re worse than Netflix in terms of just constantly just put one of the price and but at least Netflix is always adding new stuff the parking garage is the same and you know, They got rid of the booze with people and they’ve got these people these stupid machines that sometimes work and you have to sometimes scan your ticket to get out and

You

Toni Tresca (25:50)
I know and it’s all no, no, they don’t accept cash anymore. So it’s all credit card. I know that they were supposedly supposed to introduce a system that allowed you to pay in advance. So don’t even have to interface with that. Have not, that would be cool. Have not seen that yet. And so I don’t know, this is all just a big, it feels like a big kick in the teeth for people who are already spending a buttload of money to go see shows at the Denver Center to then be like, actually you need to pay $17 now.

Alex Miller (26:01)
That would be cool.

Toni Tresca (26:18)
park, to have the luxury of parking. before anybody, before the Denver Center Press people reach out to us angrily, we should clarify that Denver Center itself is not responsible for these poor decisions. It’s actually the city of Denver and the Denver City Art Complex. The DCPA is just where all of this chaos happens.

Alex Miller (26:40)
Yep. All right, well enough of that soapbox. Maybe we sound like a broken record, but I’m sure everybody wants to hate on that place. There’s not a really lot of great options around there and actually some of them nearby are even more expensive. So it is convenient. I’ll give it that. That’s about all I can say. So before we dive into our main topic, I just want to mention our interview guests this week that’ll come after the break. So both are associated with the University of Colorado.

Toni Tresca (26:54)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Miller (27:06)
Colorado Springs theater program. They have a cabaret series that they’re doing now. So I spoke with Chuck Wilt from Una Productions. they’re drag performer who’ll be there on Valentine’s Day weekend. So it’s a show called Infinity, an intercollective dance and drag variety show led by Chuck Wilt, who goes by his stage name, Fuchsia. Delivers a dazzling fusion of music, dance, and vibrant artistry. So it was fun to talk to him.

This is a little bit of a weird thing because the other person I talked to was associated with the show that was there last week. And this was, we talked about this Amy Mann album from 2005. This play is based on that called The Forgotten Arm. And so she was in town, this show was sold out. But I did, couldn’t turn down the chance to talk with the director of the show, Oscar Eustis, because in addition to directing this show, because he’s friends with Amy Mann, he’s a fascinating guy who’s been the artistic director of New York’s famed

public theater for 20 years, which a lot of people know from Joe’s Pub there. So even though this one’s passed, I’d still check it out and interesting conversations with these two theater artists.

Toni Tresca (28:07)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to listening to that one myself. That sounds like a really interesting conversation. Particularly hearing a little bit about the public theater and how it made that work for over 20 years.

Alex Miller (28:31)
Yep, yeah, really cool organization.

Toni Tresca (28:35)
Now, without further ado, onto our main to- no! I did it again! I know you hate- I forgot you hate that, Alex! I know you- I- Now, without any more gobbledygoop, onto our main topic. Stage to screen and screen to stage adaptations. We’re talkin’ the good, we’re talkin’ the bad, and we’re talkin’ the downright bizarre.

Alex Miller (28:47)
Yes.

Yeah, and we’re definitely gonna have some strong opinions, especially since both of us recently sat through the national touring production of Back to the Future, the musical of the DCPA and spoiler alert, we weren’t fans and Tony, you don’t write all that many reviews, but you wrote one in Westworth that just really kind of tore it a new one.

Toni Tresca (29:17)
I, yeah I did.

I was really proud of that review because I feel like I really just ripped into it from top to bottom and just kind of breaking down every moment that doesn’t work from the hokey choreography to the kind of broad charactery performances to the script that rips most, the only good moments from it are ripped directly from the movie and then filled with superpulous

Alex Miller (29:27)
Hahaha

Toni Tresca (29:45)
musical numbers that flesh out moments from the film that have no reason to be fleshed out. Like, nobody was asking to hear a whole song about Goldie’s decision to become mayor in the 50s or Marty McFly’s dad being a peeping tom in a tree. These are not moments that demand musicalization. And yet, the writers of this who are, in all fairness, they are, a lot of the people are from the original movie, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t sell out.

Alex Miller (29:56)
Yeah.

You

Toni Tresca (30:15)
and produce a cheap cash grab musical. And that’s unfortunately what came into Denver.

Alex Miller (30:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, if you get a chance, I would read Tony’s review in Westford. It’s really, he the knives out. But before we get into more specifics, we’ll establish some ground rules. So adaptations have been a huge part of theater and film for decades, but they’re not without controversy. So some people argue that adapting movies into musicals or vice versa is inherently a bad idea, but that may not always be the case, right,

Toni Tresca (30:46)
Yeah, I would say that if you are kind of against adaptations altogether, you probably hate almost everything that’s out there because it’s really, really rare to find a completely original musical or play that’s not based on something else, be that like a poem or a book or an album or a public figure of some kind. I mean, even Hamilton, which…

Alex Miller (31:08)
All Shakespeare, all Shakespeare.

Toni Tresca (31:10)
Absolutely,

and like Hamilton for instance, which feels groundbreaking, is based off Ron Chernot’s biography of Alexander Hamilton and obviously based off of real life history and I wouldn’t exactly call Hamilton as be- I wouldn’t exactly rake it over the coals for being an adaptation of something.

Alex Miller (31:28)
No, no. So adaptations are ingrained in the whole history of storytelling. And the key is whether the transition from one medium to another enhances the material all feels like what you were saying a cash grab. So if we start by defrauding our terms when we say stage to screen or screen to stage, what do we mean exactly?

Toni Tresca (31:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that’s a great, I think that’s the right place to start. So stage to screen is referring to plays or musicals that are then turned into films. And whereas screen to stage is the reverse. So those are movies or television shows that are then adapted into live theater. And for both, I think the big question is, does the adaptation honor the original while also standing on its own as a piece of art?

What’s it bringing to the table? What’s the new thing that it has to say about this text that is worth bringing it back to life? Like, think for, when I think about this, I think a great example is the recent revival of Some Like It Hot, which is obviously it’s based off of the film of the same name. But it’s also got, at core, it’s kind of a dated trope. It’s about these two men who are cross-dressing to get out of, to escape the mob.

Alex Miller (32:40)
Mm-hmm.

Toni Tresca (32:42)
And in this adaptation, they kind of use it to explore trans and non-binary identities. And so they’re making deliberate choices that make this adaptation new and their own, and really kind of set it apart from the original while also still honoring what made that story so special.

Alex Miller (33:01)
Yeah, so a good adaptation respects the source material, but might make some smart changes to suit the new medium. So that’s a good place to start.

Toni Tresca (33:12)
Yeah, it’s got to bring the emotional or narrative depth that the original might just not have had the time or space or it just might not have been the right time to really kind of dive into that. And then, of course, obviously, it needs to be entertaining. It’s not enough to just be interesting as a concept. It also still has to be engaging and, you know, fun.

Alex Miller (33:27)
yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, that might have been where Back to the Future kind of fell down. was only entertaining in the sense that there was some interesting tech. So how about some good examples of staged-to-screen adaptations? What are some of your faves?

Toni Tresca (33:44)
Mm-hmm.

So these are the ones that start on stage and then they’re adapted. And when I think of this, the one that immediately comes to mind first is Chicago. The film adaptation of this really smartly adapts the original source material, which is all based on these kind vaudeville sketches. And so what the film does so well is it really separates it. It creates these two really distinct worlds. There is the real world and then there’s the heightened vaudeville world that we see in the musical numbers.

that is not something that happens on stage. On stage, it’s all kind of in this Fosse, Vaudevillian style. And so the film makes that really smart intentional choice that I think really elevates the material in a way that feels fresh, but is still incredibly true to the spirit of the original. And then another one that I also think is pretty effective is Cabaret, which this is another kind of Fosse one, and it really defined what a movie musical could be in terms of the

closeness of the camera and kind of how edit how really sharp editing can really boost a musical number by placing cameras in in angles and positions that the eye would not be able to see on stage So I think both of those are those immediately come to mind for me. What about you?

Alex Miller (35:07)
Yeah, well, I did Dreamgirls to that list, know, the performances and cinematography there really elevated the material in a way that did feel fresh and true to the original. And then there’s Mamma Mia, like my wife’s favorite show. It’s pure fun. It really is a ton of fun. And sometimes that’s all you need.

Toni Tresca (35:27)
And then of course there’s West Side Story. I would argue both the 1961 as well as the 2021 versions. They really showcase how timeless the story and the music are with the choices they make in the adaptations. And then some other great ones that I’d throw out there include Rocky Horror, The Music Man, and then of course the recent adaptation of Wicked, which made the choice to

Alex Miller (35:53)
Yeah.

Toni Tresca (35:55)
split it into two parts and tell it in two separate chunks.

Alex Miller (35:59)
Yeah, for sure. Well, plenty of good stuff there, but let’s talk about some of the bad ones.

Toni Tresca (36:06)
All right, let’s do it. Cats. Do I need to even say any more? It was a nightmare. was a disaster filled with pointless CGI and they made a lot of tweaks to the quote unquote story of the original. And if really trying to look for story in cats, I think you’re doing it wrong.

Alex Miller (36:08)
yeah.

You

Toni Tresca (36:32)
Another one that I don’t think is very interesting is Les Mis, which is also, this is actually done by the same person. This is Tom Hooper who does both. And Les Mis is, a beloved musical and a lot of the score, lot of the performances are fine with the exception of the abysmal Russell Crowe who butchers Javert with some of the worst flat singing I’ve ever seen. And then Tom Hooper makes the really strange decision

Alex Miller (36:55)
you

Toni Tresca (37:02)
to shoot basically just the face, intense close-ups to kind of prove that they’re singing live. And it just comes off as really strange. like, there’s a lot of world that goes on in Les Mis. The point is that it’s all about the vastness of France, and yet we’re close up on this person’s face in a way that does not match the story that you’re telling.

Alex Miller (37:26)
Yeah, well, I’d throw rent into that category too. It lost a lot of the energy that made the stage version so iconic.

Toni Tresca (37:34)
Yeah, and some other ones I think that kind of also fell flat are Into the Woods, makes a lot of change. It’s a Disney adaptation of Sondheim’s work and it makes a lot of changes to kind of water down the grittiness of that version. I’d say that Joel Schumacher’s Phantom of the Opera laid a big egg. It has all the songs, but it’s just…

It’s really messy and a lot of the cinematography is shaky. Sweeney Todd by Tim Burton is one that just kind of gets lost in the madness. He kind of turns the story into Edward Scissorhands when that’s really not what it is. And then the recent Netflix’s version of The Prom, which although it had a bunch of celebrities, felt incredibly cheap in kind of the production value, which if you’re gonna do a movie, spend the money. That’s the whole point. You gotta do a lavish movie musical.

Alex Miller (38:19)
Mm-hmm.

Toni Tresca (38:28)
Anyway, now let’s flip the script and let’s talk a little bit about the screen to stage adaptations. And I think there are some really incredible ones on here. For me, I would say that The Producers is a big standout. This is adapted from Mel Brooks’s original film. He helped with the adaptation process. And I would say that he actually manages to make it even funnier than the film by kind of using the musical numbers to satirize the culture of Broadway.

Alex Miller (38:41)
yeah.

Toni Tresca (38:57)
which the original movie was about. And so I think that’s a really effective version, but I would point out the producers wasn’t able to make the translation back to film because the producers musical was adapted into a movie musical. And I would put that into the camp of bad adaptations because it was just rather than changing it to meet the medium of a movie, they just kind of shot it from one stagnant camera angle.

Alex Miller (39:11)
Ha ha ha.

Toni Tresca (39:25)
and it felt exactly like a musical, which is not how a movie musical is supposed to be. You’ve got to adapt it to the medium.

Alex Miller (39:27)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, some other ones I think were pretty good. Hairspray really came across well on the stage. It’s vibrant and energetic and really captures the heart of the original movie while adding some new stuff. Maybe I’ll also mention Kinky Boots and Waitress, which we just both loved at the Arvada Center this past year. So both translate those film narratives purely to the stage. And I’d say as a huge Monty Python fan, even

way back from when I was a kid, Spamalot really is great. It’s not a pure adaptation of the Holy Grail movie, because it throws in stuff from other films and even the Flying Circus series, but it’s pretty great. And bonus, the adaptation was done by Eric Idle, not by some committee of script writers. And we both read his diary of the process and he worked his ass off to make it right and redid and redid and threw out stuff left and right till they had something they thought really kicked ass and it did.

Toni Tresca (40:29)
Yeah, I definitely recommend reading the Spamalot Diaries. That successfully made the transition from movie to musical to book about said musical, which is very meta in terms of levels of adaptation.

Alex Miller (40:38)
Yep. Now they’re gonna make a music,

they’re gonna need to make a play that turns into a musical about the diary part. So, the Eric Idle story.

Toni Tresca (40:49)
That’s just adaptation-ception at that point, Alex. Adaptation on top of adaptation on adaptation. But some other good adaptations of film properties include Beetlejuice, which recently came through Denver, makes a lot of changes to the story. It recenters it to be about the relationship between Lydia and Beetlejuice, which the original film is really not about in any substantial way.

Alex Miller (40:52)
All right.

Yeah.

Toni Tresca (41:19)
Little Shop of Horrors, it was adapted from actually a, it was adapted from a film, black and white film that had no music originally. And it’s, it’s very campy, but it doesn’t really have a lot of the same kind of class critiques or kind of larger integration within the city that gets added in the musicalized version.

Alex Miller (41:20)
yeah.

Toni Tresca (41:41)
School of Rock is another incredible adaptation, has a lot of great musical numbers already in it, built into the movie that really sets it up for musicalization and seeing the kids rock out on stage is a really effective spectacle moment that doesn’t feel cheap. Same with like Moulin Rouge, very lavishly adapts the film and kind of captures that manic filmmaking style on stage really effectively. And of course we can’t forget about

Alex Miller (41:56)
Yeah.

Toni Tresca (42:09)
The mother of all adaptations, feels like, The Lion King, which is Disney’s spectacle led by Julie Taymor that transformed the animated film into a live theatrical spectacle with a bunch of really interesting puppets, but not a ton of changes to the original story. So was really more of just adapting how the story was told for the stage. But for every Lion King, there’s a Spider-Man turn off the dark.

Alex Miller (42:31)
Yeah, great job.

Which I very few people actually saw so we can just kind of assume that it was as bad as everybody said but apparently a textbook example of how not to adapt something. It was over ambitious with the staging, the story was a mess, there were all kinds of technical issues. I people were like getting hurt. It was deemed from the start. you know, before we talk about our latest one, I would just mention I actually saw this on Blue Sky, the whatever.

X type thing today. Someone said they’re making a musical version of The Lost Boys, which is kind of a sort of forgotten teen film about vampires from the 1980s. So we got that to look forward to.

Toni Tresca (43:20)
Yeah, ju- I, you know, come to think of it, I just- I saw that on Instagram today too. Yeah. I’ve never seen the Lost Boys, so that’s not one I have any nostalgia for, so I would just be entering it with fresh eyes, I guess.

Alex Miller (43:29)
Yeah.

Yep. I guess we’ll see. So back to the future of the musical.

Toni Tresca (43:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, as I already said, I really felt it just relied way too heavy on nostalgia without ever kind of justifying its existence as a stage production. But what did you think, Alex?

Alex Miller (43:50)
Yeah, mean, the special effects were impressive. The storytelling really felt hollow. And it really was a reminder that big visuals and you can spend all the money you want on stagecraft and tech, but it can’t replace emotional engagement. So I said in my review, they were so busy with those big musical numbers and the tech, they really kind of rushed past or even eliminated some of the scenes from the film that made us love or hate the characters. So it just didn’t have that, you know, the stakes for the characters just weren’t there.

Toni Tresca (44:19)
I throw in some other weak adaptations of film properties include Mean Girls, the Tom Hanks film Big, High Fidelity, The Fly, Frozen, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Pretty Women. These are all musicals that pretty much do exactly what we just said, where they kind of sacrifice those character building moments to add in songs in places that really didn’t need them.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in particular, think, is really disappointing too, because that is a movie musical that started, so you’d think it would be perfect, and yet they kind of overstuff it with things. have adults playing, the children in that version, and it just really falls flat. So what can we take away from all of this? Adaptations? yeah.

Alex Miller (44:50)
Yeah.

You

Well, just a quick quick aside,

I would just say Mean Girls is coming to the Denver Center if you want to go see one of these. think it’ll be coming next month or something. Yeah.

Toni Tresca (45:13)
Ugh,

that’s true. Maybe I have to go back with my knives out, Alex. Talk about Mean Girls again. I’m just not a fan of that. If I’m gonna do a teen flick that gets adapted into a musical, I’m going Heathers all the way. Heathers deepens, really deepens and focuses in on the kind of societal critiques about kind school shooter culture and like the male loneliness epidemic in a way that’s

Alex Miller (45:19)
Yeah.

Toni Tresca (45:40)
really fascinating and incredibly contemporary relevant, whereas Mean Girls kind of just strips away the plastics of having any personality and has all of these musical numbers that sound exactly the same. I’m going ahead. I pick Heathers all the way.

Alex Miller (45:53)
Mm-hmm.

Okay. All right. So whether it’s stage to screen or screen to stage, the best adaptations respect the audience’s love for the original while offering something new and the worst, they’re just trying to cash in.

Toni Tresca (46:09)
Well said, Alex. So to our listeners, we’d love to hear from you about this topic. Did we miss any of your favorite adaptations or do you disagree with any of our assessments? If so, let us know in the comments, on social media, or by sending us an email at info at onstagecolorado.com and we’ll share it on next week’s episode.

Alex Miller (46:29)
Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, don’t go anywhere. We’re going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and return to share our top 10 Colorado headliners as well as my interviews with Chuck Wilt and Oscar Eustis.

Alex Miller (46:42)
On Stage Colorado is brought to you by the Aurora Fox Arts Center presenting Gee’s Bend. The play tells the powerful story of a family of quilters from the isolated town of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, as they confront the struggles of segregation, household conflict, and the Southern Freedom Movement. The show runs from January 31st to February 23rd. Tickets at aurorafoxartscenter.org.

Onstage Colorado receives support from Candlelight presenting Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical Oklahoma, where a high spirited rivalry between local farmers and cowboys provides a colorful background for Curly, a charming cowboy and Lori, a feisty farm girl to play out their love story. Running January 23rd through March 30th in Johnstown. Tickets at ColoradoCandlelight.com. Support for Onstage Colorado comes from the Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, Betsy, whose production of Hope and Gravity plays at the Denver Savoy January 23rd.

through February 16th, and at Boulder’s Nomad Playhouse, February 21st through 23rd. This puzzle of a play touches on love, sex, and the tenderness that lies just beneath the surface of our interconnected relationships. Tickets at BETC.org. On Stage Colorado is brought to you by the Town Hall Arts Center, presenting Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Christopher Durang’s outrageous farce is a take on the works of Chekhov

That includes a fortune telling cleaning woman, an aspiring young actress, a farmhouse full of secrets, sibling rivalries, resentments, and trysts for a raucous comedy that plays January 17th through February 9th. Tickets at townhallartcenter.org.

Alex Miller (48:15)
All right, we are back and ready to hit this week’s Colorado Headliner. So these are some of the upcoming shows that we think you should know about and in no particular order. Tony, what have you got to start?

Toni Tresca (48:25)
Oklahoma is the place we’re gonna start the show. That’s my… Well, I’m sorry, Alex, I had to do it. That’s my first pick for Headliner this week. It’s being produced at Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Johnstown, and it had its opening last week on January 23rd, and it runs through March 30th. This is the Roger and Hammerstein musical. It’s their first collaboration.

Alex Miller (48:26)
no! Okay, my god. I’m throwing a red penalty flag at you. Okay.

Toni Tresca (48:54)
And it tells the story of the Western territory just at the turn of the 20th century, kind of focusing in on this rivalry that happens between the farmers and the cowboys, as well as this relationship between Curly and Lori that kind of plays out. It’s a classic musical. It’s got some really good songs. It’s got the dream ballet. This is quintessential musical theater. It’s not maybe my f-

personal favorite musical of all time, but it’s there is a lot in here to love and it yeah, so in candlelight from the photos I’ve seen as they look like they’re doing a really slickly produced version of this

Alex Miller (49:26)
Yeah.

It’s the kind of shadow candlelight just can usually knocks out of the park. So hopefully they’ve tuned up their fish and chips and now you can go see that. So my first one is at the Ent Center in Colorado Springs. It’s the Heart Cellars. So this is runs January 30th through February 16th. And it’s, it’s a, it sounds like really interesting story. It’s Thanksgiving dinner in 1970s America when immigrants, a couple of immigrants from the Philippines and Korea.

Toni Tresca (49:43)
Bye bye.

Alex Miller (50:05)
strike up a conversation over matching coats and there’s a suspiciously frozen turkey in the oven and they bond over disco and Disneyland and so it’s a Colorado premiere of a poignant charming new play from Lloyd Sue, directed by Jenna Mall-Rays, who we’ve talked about recently and explores the longing that connects across barriers and against all odds.

Toni Tresca (50:27)
Cool. My next headliner is over at Miners Alley Performing Arts Center in Golden. And it is the morning after grace. This regional premiere was first presented at the Purple Rose Theater, which also developed its play, A Jukebox for the Algonquin, which was staged last year and we loved, we gave it a couple of Oscars recently.

Alex Miller (50:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Toni Tresca (50:51)
And this show is a comedy by Cary Creme that explores the unexpected connections and second chances that people have. After flirting at a funeral, Abigail and Angus wake up the next morning under the same blanket. But when a neighbor suddenly knocks on the door, all bets are off for a peaceful retirement.

Alex Miller (51:10)
Okay. Yeah, I just got a reviewer Tammy Matthews just submitted a review of that one. She really liked it. And so we’ll have that up on the site soon. Next one is we’re still here. So I think we mentioned this during our 2025 look ahead, but it’s worth mentioning again, Empathy Jam Theater at Bold Dairy Center, January 24th through February 9th. And it’s kind of like a little bit of a social issues kind of play, whereas a copper mine that’s being

done on sacred indigenous river, there’s a rural town and two young leaders fighting to save their homes, becoming bitter political enemies. And it was created by a tribal elder from one of these tribes and playwright composer Cordelia Czar. So that sounds really cool.

Toni Tresca (51:58)
I know they’ve been working on this for a little while. I spoke with them a year or two ago when they were presenting the first workshop of it at the dairy. And so it’s really exciting that they took some time, they reworked it, and now they’re back with their world premiere.

Alex Miller (52:01)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Toni Tresca (52:16)
My next headliner is a one-day event happening at Meow Wolf in Denver on January 28th. So that is today when you’re listening to this and it is Rainbow Cult Presents The Wizard of Oz. So this is an immersive film tribute to the classic 1939 film. It’s going to be featuring performances by Denver Draglet, Legends, Zara Misdemeanor and America Jackson.

And the event organizers say that you’ll be whisked away to the Emerald City and experience all of the wit and charm and technicolor of the original, the enhanced by Meow Wolf’s 360 digital projections. And it’s all hosted by CU Denver film professor, Andy Scahill. But I would warn you, it is happening today and there are low tickets. So if you want to attend this show, I would act immediately.

Alex Miller (53:07)
Act now. That sounds really cool. My next one’s Gee’s Bend at the Aurora Fox. This is January 31, so opens this week through February 23. Donnie Betts directs this Elizabeth Gregory Wilder historical play about the spirit of African American women in the deep south. It starts in 1939. goes, actually goes up through the civil rights movements. And there’s something about quilts that help them provide respite from the turmoil. So that’s at the Aurora Fox.

Toni Tresca (53:37)
you’re looking for something a little bit experimental, up at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, the Mariposa Collective is presenting Momentum. This production was created via funding from the 2024 New Music Grant for Live Musical Accompanyment and features a blend of dance, aerial, film, and puppetry, as well as new work from local dance and theater artists. And it’ll have some four Colorado musicians.

who have been commissioned to perform original live music during the performance. I’m not quite sure what the story is of Momentum or what the guiding principle is, aside from the single word Momentum, because they don’t list any other information on the website, but it sounds like a cool kind of devised piece that comes from this grant project.

Alex Miller (54:25)
Okay, yeah. My next one’s Hope and Gravity. This is Boulder Ensemble Theater Company. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. They did a reading of it last year at the Savoy. And it’s really, it’s a really funny, really clever play about nine people intersecting lives around this situation where there was an elevator accident. it’ll be, it’s just open. So it’s running through February 6th at the Savoy in Denver, and then it’ll be back. It’ll start up again February 25th.

first and through the 23rd at the Nomad Playhouse in Boulder. And one thing to mention about this run at the Savoy, it includes free drinks at the excellent bar there and dessert. So you get a little bonus there if you go see it at the Savoy.

Toni Tresca (55:10)
shit, that’s fancy.

Alex Miller (55:11)
courtesy of Mark Reagan, I’m sure.

Toni Tresca (55:14)
I’m sure, but that does sound pretty enticing. My final headliner for this week is a dance production being performed at the Ellie Calkins Opera House, and it is the regional premiere of Castanova. It’s gonna be featuring live music from the Colorado Ballet Orchestra,

Alex Miller (55:17)
Yeah.

Toni Tresca (55:33)
It follows a scandalous affair that’s around this fabled romance and it has a bunch of really cool choreography and this narrative that’s set all to the music of Carrie Musi. And one of the things that really interested me about this particular production is it actually comes with a content warning, warning that it might be too sexy for young viewers.

Keep the little ones away. This is not for them. This is a sexy, daring, in-your-face version of Castanova.

Alex Miller (56:05)
All right, cool. All right, well, my last one is just a quick shout out to Junkyard Social in Boulder. They’re doing their monthly Women’s Open Mic February 2nd. it’s a women’s comedy open mic night that hits once a month, just like everyone’s favorite ant flow as it says there. So I’m sure that one’s just a blast to go to at Junkyard Social. Plus that’s a place, fun place to go to anyway, right?

Toni Tresca (56:32)
Absolutely. All right, so that is this week’s Headliners. Now we are going to throw it to Alex’s interview with Chuck Wild and Oscar Eustis.

Alex Miller (56:43)
All right, yeah, it’s actually two separate interviews and standby, cue them up here.

Alex Miller (56:49)
Well, we’re here with Chuck Wilt with UNA. So this is a dance production company that kind of specializes in drag. And you’re going to be here in Colorado Springs, here in Colorado around Valentine’s Day at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs Int Center for a show, a cabaret show called Infinity. So I wanted to…

hear about that here in just a little bit. But I want to ask you about UNA and this this company that you started, guess originally it was started in New York City.

Chuck (57:22)
Yeah, and actually it’s called Uno Productions, Uno like mine. Yeah, I started it in New York. I was living in New York for about 10 years. I grew up in San Francisco and then I decided to move back kind of shortly before the pandemic, end of 2019. So I’ve been back in San Francisco, kind of, there was a period of feeling like I restarted the company out here.

Alex Miller (57:25)
Okay. Okay.

Uh-huh.

Chuck (57:51)
And it’s definitely started to evolve a little bit more rapidly since I’ve been back, which has been really exciting.

Alex Miller (57:59)
Uh-huh. Great. like how many, how many performers or crew do you have associated with or not?

Chuck (58:06)
So our last production, there were 12 performers in our show. I generally like to make really big ensemble work. And that show had a split cast of half of them being contemporary dancers and half of them being drag performers. Yeah, but for the performance in Colorado Springs, I’ll be just bringing three other performers and I’ll be performing as well.

Alex Miller (58:36)
Okay, great. And so what kind of spaces do you usually perform in?

Chuck (58:41)
It’s mostly been for theater spaces, know, black box theaters, as well as other types of theaters. I generally make work for proscenium stage. Yeah.

Alex Miller (58:58)
Okay, well, I wanted to ask you, how did you get started in this kind of performance?

Chuck (59:05)
So I have a background in dance since a pretty young age. I started training in ballet and then modern techniques and then went to NYU Tisch and got my BFA in dance. And pretty soon after that, I started making work, formed a company and the work has definitely evolved. I consider it contemporary dance. over the last, I don’t know, maybe since

2018 or so, I’ve been collaborating with drag performers. I worked with a drag performer for a number of years who brought drag into the work, but also was a live musician for our shows, playing the cello and the piano, as well as singing every once in a while. And after that point, I started bringing drag a little bit deeper into the fold of the work.

And a couple of years ago now, I started doing drag as well. And that has become a huge part of my practice these days is I consider myself much more of a drag performer than I do a choreographer. Yeah.

Alex Miller (1:00:20)
huh. So,

well, tell me, what is it about drag that’s so different, interesting, and fun than other types of dance or performance?

Chuck (1:00:31)
Yeah, I’m speaking from more of a personal place as a queer person. It feels very tied to the fabric of the lineage of being queer. It also feels very liberatory. It feels like it very much connects me into my body, how I feel really expressive in myself. And then there’s this side of it for me that’s

about tying in a lot of different art forms that I connect to and have connected to at various points in my life, like visual art, design, costume design, performance. So it all kind of comes into play into one fun kind of package. And I think it also connects people to their joy.

a little bit more quickly than dance can sometimes. I we innately think of, well, I think people have many different connotations with drag performance, but I think one of them is about like the lightheartedness that it can bring. So that sort of works in your favor. It’s sort of like a whole different set of rules that are at play with a drag show.

that I have found have just…

it’s felt a lot more easy to connect with people. Whereas dance, think sometimes there’s this like haze between what you’re seeing, what the message you’re trying to get across and what people are actually receiving. Yeah, so I think drag breaks through that in a really fun way.

Alex Miller (1:02:31)
Yeah, that’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I was thinking about like what’s interesting that like women dressing as men isn’t nearly as fun as the other way around. wonder why would you say that is other than the obvious?

Chuck (1:02:46)
Here’s where I might disagree with you. I am a part of a drag house that’s almost half, I would say, drag kings. And I mean, I think people often have that opinion or thought of like, there’s a lot of spectacle. There’s a lot. There’s sometimes a more exaggerated transformation.

Alex Miller (1:02:49)
Okay, good.

Okay.

Chuck (1:03:17)
at play depending on the person or body that’s in drag. yeah, I am much more from the lineage and like practice of like, this is about transforming ourselves in whatever ways that we want to. And my drag actually is not always tied to looking like a quote unquote woman.

Alex Miller (1:03:45)
huh.

Chuck (1:03:46)
I very much play with like being a creature, being a villain, being an alien, having some components of femininity, having some components of masculinity and sort of throwing it in a big blender. Yeah.

Alex Miller (1:04:06)
Okay, got it.

All right, well speaking of aliens, this infinity is described as an intergalactic dance and drag variety show from Oona. So can you tell folks a little bit about what they might be experiencing if they come to the show in February?

Chuck (1:04:23)
Yeah, I these days I’m very much fascinated with like extraordinary and alien outer space kind of feels like a really exciting way to explore that in performance and the last show that I built was about that exactly. It was a group of humans and a group of aliens and the aliens are abducting the humans and it was a great

time and what we’re bringing to you guys is I’m kind of playing with this idea of like mashing up some work and some drag numbers that I’ve made before and presenting them alongside some newer work that I’m developing and my idea is like to

Alex Miller (1:04:53)
Ha ha ha!

Chuck (1:05:19)
kind of bring us into outer space and see what are some of these, where do some of these alien figures come from? So that’s what we’re gonna be bringing through some dancing, through some drag and a little bit of live music.

Alex Miller (1:05:36)
Okay,

so are you rolling out the intergalactic costuming as well? Can we expect to see something along those lines?

Chuck (1:05:42)
Yeah,

I think definitely expect to see a little bit of extraterrestrial spacey costuming, but stay tuned. You have to come and see.

Alex Miller (1:05:53)
All

right. All right. Well, Chuck, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us on the OnStage Colorado podcast. The show is Infinity. It’ll be performing February 14th and 15th at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and center as part of the Cabaret series. thanks again and hope to see you out there.

Chuck (1:06:15)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you too.

Alex Miller (1:06:16)
Have good day.

Alex Miller (1:06:21)
All right, well, we are here with Oscar Eustis from the Public Theater in New York. It’s great to meet you, Oscar. Yeah, thanks for coming on the Onstage Colorado podcast. And yeah, it’s just looking at your background. You’ve been at the Public since 2005. So this is what, 20 years? Wow. That’s amazing. You know, it’s a very storied theater and also has Joe’s Pub attached to it. And I wanted to ask you about that in just a little bit.

Oskar Eustis (1:06:22)
Right, well, we are here with Oscar Justus from the Public Theater in New York. It’s great to meet you, Oscar. Pleasure to meet you.

20 years. 20 years this month.

Alex Miller (1:06:51)
For now, wanted to ask about, so this production that’s gonna be here in Colorado Springs coming up on January 23rd and 24th at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Int Center. It’s sold out, but it’s a really interesting production. I wanted to ask you about this. So it’s based on an Amy Mann album and Amy’s gonna be here on stage. so it’s based on, I believe an album of hers from…

Oskar Eustis (1:07:05)
It’s based on an Amy Mann album and Amy’s coming here on stage. So it’s based on, I believe, album with her as

Trump. I guess the same year you started at the cover. How did you get involved with this album?

Alex Miller (1:07:18)
I guess the same year you started at the public in 2005. what was it? How did you get involved with this? What was it

that appeals to you about this play?

Oskar Eustis (1:07:31)
soon as it came out and it was all tied up for me with my memories and experiences of coming here to New York and I just loved it. And by sort of a complete coincidence about two years later I got a letter from somebody saying, hey would you ever be interested in doing a musical with Amy Mann? I hear that you know I know her and

she’s interested in working on a musical and I just thought, my god, this is fantastic. So I said, yes indeed. We met probably about 2007 or 2008 and we’ve been working on a musical ever since. This is not kidding. It has, you know, we’ve gotten somewhere, we’ve failed to get somewhere, we’ve had book writers, we’ve lost book writers. It’s been through more incarnations than a cat has lives.

Alex Miller (1:08:13)
Uh-huh.

Ha

ha ha.

Oskar Eustis (1:08:29)
Meanwhile,

Amy’s become one of my closest friends in the world. We’ve worked on three or four other projects at the same time. And then about two and a half years ago, there was a magical alliance between Amy and Jonathan Mark Sherman, who was a playwright and.

close friend of mine and also very intimate member of the public theater family. They just hit it off. Shurm had an incredible understanding of this world and we are now within inches of actually making this thing work. And it’s kind of extraordinary, you know, I gave it up for dead, I can’t tell you how often, but I think…

I think it’s something very special now. Now we don’t know. We’ve only heard it out loud in front of an audience once. And that was at Joe’s Pub about a year and a half ago. And I got COVID, so I had to watch it on Zoom. I couldn’t even watch it live. And this will be my first chance to be able to see it live. We’re very, you know, we’re working on the script diligently, working on the music diligently. I think we’re close, but…

Alex Miller (1:09:35)
man.

Oskar Eustis (1:09:49)
Colorado will tell us how close we are in about a week.

Alex Miller (1:09:53)
right. So, so this is the forgotten arm. So is the the play based on one particular song or the entire album?

Oskar Eustis (1:09:57)
You’ve got an arm, so is the play based on one particular song or the entire album?

that makes sense. And what Jonathan has done is construct a narrative that’s completely fictionalized, but nonetheless links the song together in a narrative and also is very much inspired by and responding to the underlying material of the album. Amy’s also written some new songs and rewritten the old songs. So…

fans of the album will I think appreciate and recognize most of the music, not all of it, but they’ll also be getting a narrative that was totally not present in the original album.

Alex Miller (1:11:09)
Okay. So what is the audience in Colorado Springs going to see? It’s a stage reading with music. And then the ultimate product would be more of a traditional music or what?

Oskar Eustis (1:11:11)
audience in Colorado Springs is going to see. It’s a stage reading with music.

We don’t know that, Alex. This is

what’s so interesting. What we’re going to see is going to look like a nightclub act, in a way. It’s only two actors, two actors who aren’t musicians. So it’s two actors in a band on stage. And right now the piece is conceived as having two actors in a band on stage. And it may…

actually its final form might be as minimal as what the audience is going to see. And we might make this a show that should have its ultimate life in Joe’s Pub, that should appear in a cabaret form, or not. We don’t know yet. That’s the beauty of this moment. We’re still trying to figure out it shouldn’t feel like a musical, as you think of traditional musicals, it wants to feel more like a

It wants to feel almost like a play coming out of a concert, a performance. I don’t quite know the words for it, but I know what the feel of it is, and I think the feel of it is pretty exciting. I hope you guys agree.

Alex Miller (1:12:34)
Okay.

That’s great. So as a director, know, a lot of times your hand did a script and you have a pretty good idea of what it is. And that’s not this kind of squishy thing you’ve got right now isn’t quite that. So how do you approach something like this reading, this stage reading coming up as a director?

Oskar Eustis (1:12:39)
Thanks

Well, listen, you just keep working on the piece and that means that during our week in Colorado Springs, will be a Shurm, Jonathan Mark Sherman, will be doing a lot of writing on the book or the libretto or the text. We know we’re missing one big scene that he’s been working on and we’ll see that scene for the first time, I think, the day we arrive in Colorado Springs.

but there’s also gonna be a myriad of other adjustments that will happen throughout. Amy’s gonna continue working on the music. There’s a couple of songs we still have questions about whether they’re the right songs. There’s a number of places throughout where I think the lyrics are gonna change. And all of it is, you know, experiential. Are we telling the story? Are we tracking both of the characters on the journey that feels truthful, feels correct?

and feels as powerful as it wants to be. Because this is a love story in which one of the characters survives and walks away and one them doesn’t. And that means we have to believe both stories. We have to believe that what kills one of the characters

actually would kill them. And we have to believe that the other characters’ choices to survive are choices that a person could actually make and that they would actually help them survive. Sounds like a simple thing to say, but the theater has to tell the truth. If the theater isn’t telling the truth, audiences sense it and they reject it. Unless the theater is selling them fantasies, which

you know, nobody wants the kind of fantasies this story is telling, so it’s gotta be truthful. And that’s both the demanding thing about theater and it’s the wonderful thing about it. So that’s what we’re trying to do, trying to tell a truthful fiction.

Alex Miller (1:14:51)
You

All right. Well, so for you as the artistic director at a big theater like The Public, how often do you actually get to direct things?

Oskar Eustis (1:15:12)
Well, this honestly is the first thing that I’m getting direct since COVID hit. And that’s why I’m cherishing it so much. And that’s basically because the institutional demands that struck the second the COVID crisis started have been so huge. The entire field is crisis. And I’ve had huge demands here at the public and frankly also in the field as a whole. I’m working.

you know, with the theater, I’m working with the theater field across the country to try and help solve the problem as best I can on a national level as well as on local level. So that’s had to be my focus for the last five years. So with great reluctance, I’ve had to give up the rehearsal room. And so in a way, you know, I’m sneaking off to Colorado Springs and playing hooky for a week and I couldn’t be happier.

Alex Miller (1:16:07)
you

Okay. When are you getting here, Oscar?

Oskar Eustis (1:16:14)
When are you getting here?

I’m this coming weekend, Saturday. I’m sorry to tell you that you’re coming here. I’m from Minnesota. Your Colorado cold doesn’t impress me. Sorry. If my spit doesn’t freeze in midair, it’s not cold.

Alex Miller (1:16:17)
Okay, I’m sorry to tell you that you’re coming at like the coldest week of the year apparently. Okay, nevermind then. It’s nothing, it’s nothing. All right.

All right, I just want to ask you one last thing. So Kevin Landis, who’s the director of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs Theater and Dance Program here, was a student of yours at Brown. So there’s that connection. And he created this cabaret club series based on Joe’s Pub. And I’ve heard of Joe’s Pub a number of times, but can you describe me what it is and how it sits within the public theater operation?

Oskar Eustis (1:16:44)
Yes he was.

Yeah, Joe’s Pub is a sort of brilliant creation, it’s an extension of the Public Theater’s mission. And it was founded under my predecessor, George C. Wolfen, who was sort of the great additional program that he created that added to the theater that Joe Papp built. We opened in 1954. And it’s in essence a nonprofit nightclub, which is sort of a glorious idea. So it’s a nightclub. You can get full meal service.

Alex Miller (1:17:23)
Yeah.

Oskar Eustis (1:17:27)
get full bar, you come and eat and drink and watch performances. The vast majority of music, but not all of them, we do theater in there. We do dance on this postage stamp size stage. We have a residency from one of the great flamenco companies in the world every year on stage. It’s thrilling to watch flamenco in this tiny little room with a tiny stage. And because it’s nonprofit,

which is of course the whole theater is non-profit. We’re not there to sell tickets or to make money. We’re there to support those artists the same way in the rest of the theater. We’re here to support playwrights and actors and directors, not for purposes of making money, but for purposes of expanding the wealth of culture for our society. So at Joe’s Pub, we’ll do 800 shows a year, two to three shows a night, every night, every night of the year.

and will range from artists who will have heard of. Adele did her first North American show there. Alicia Keys played the pub when she was beginning her career. I’ve seen Lou Reed and Pete Townsend play in the pub. I mean, said extraordinarily famous artists and artists that you’ve never heard of. And from literally almost every country in the world, we now do a festival every year called the Habibi Festival.

Alex Miller (1:18:42)
Top man.

Oskar Eustis (1:18:55)
which is a week long festival of Arab and Arab American music. And the delight of the place is that it’s a mix of stuff that you’re thrilled to get a chance to see in a tiny close up space, stuff you’ve never heard of, stuff that you can see comedy and international music and rock music. it’s wonderful because the ethos is about

supporting artists and introducing them to the audiences in New York City, not making money.

Alex Miller (1:19:29)
Wow, that’s fantastic. I want to come sometime. I lived in Manhattan for a while, a long time ago, but I didn’t make it to Jazz Pub somehow. Anyway, so Oscar Eustis, AD at the Public Theater in New York City, he’s going to be here in Colorado to direct the show. Unfortunately, like I said, it’s sold out, but hopefully maybe we’ll see the full production coming back through in who knows, a couple of years. All right, thanks for your time, Oscar. I really appreciate it.

Oskar Eustis (1:19:30)
fun. Please, please.

Anyways, so.

I would love that.

Thank you, it’s my pleasure.

Alex Miller (1:20:03)
All right.

Toni Tresca (1:20:03)
Wow.

Talk about a pair of cool interviews, Alex. Nice job.

Alex Miller (1:20:07)
Yeah,

yeah, it was fun talking to those guys. So anyway, coming up on the site, in addition to what we’ve already talked about, we’ll have reviews. Right now we do have a review of Mary Poppins over at the Pace Center, Ghost Quartet from the Catamounts, Sisters of Swing at Vintage, A Case of the Existence of God at Curious, Beauty Queen of Lienan, which is at, God, remind me where that’s at.

Toni Tresca (1:20:36)
That’s at the People’s Building by Invictus.

Alex Miller (1:20:38)
Right, right, right. And then back to the future of the musical that we talked about, The Reservoir, both of the Denver Center. We’ll have a bunch of fresh reviews coming soon. We’ll have one about She Kills Monsters at Vintage Theater. My review of Jane Eyre from Grapefruit Lab, Morning After Grace from Tammy Matthews from Minors Alley, Dear Evan Hansen production up at the Lincoln Center. So our reviewer, Leela Einhorn is going to be at that one. And then coming up this weekend, it’s very busy. I’ll be at

Gutenberg the musical finally. took a while to see this, it was such a long run. was like, okay, I’ll see it in January. So this one goes like all the way through May or something. Hope and Gravity we just talked about. Gee’s Bend, Oklahoma, the candlelight, the heart sellers at FAC and Casanova, think is Alice’s covering that one. So lots of stuff coming up.

Toni Tresca (1:21:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. And next week on the podcast, we’re going to have an interview from all the way down south with Zachary Chero with Merrily Players in Durango. And Zachary is actually the associate AD and the director of their upcoming production of Swing Stage.

Alex Miller (1:21:41)
Yeah, it was fun talking to him. I haven’t talked to anybody in Durango in a while, so stick around for that one.

Toni Tresca (1:21:47)
Lots of exciting stuff on the way. If you want to stay up to date on what’s going on in theaters and comedy venues across the state, subscribe to the OnStage Colorado newsletter, which comes out every Thursday and is basically your guide to what’s going on around the state in the performing arts. Plus, if you like what we’re doing here, please consider leaving a review wherever you are listening now and tell the other theater lovers in your life about us. It really just helps us get the word out about what we’re doing here at OnStage.

Alex Miller (1:22:17)
for sure. All right, well thanks so much for listening. I’m Alex Miller.

Toni Tresca (1:22:21)
and I’m Tony Tresca and we’ll see you at the show.