Two Cent Lion announces 2026 season under new artistic director

Olivia Buntaine helms season themed ‘Cataclysm’ with three productions exploring queer perspectives.

Two Cent Lion has announced its 2026 season lineup, welcoming back artist Olivia Buntaine as the company’s new artistic director. The season, themed “Cataclysm,” will feature three productions exploring queer identity and challenging oppressive structures through humor, horror and hope.

“I believe we are living in a societal moment in which queer art could save us,” Buntaine said in a statement. “In this season, and in the seasons that follow, I want us to tell stories that start with the self at odds with what is around us. When the center is not holding, we must look instead to the margins.”

Olivia Buntaine

The season opens February 6-15 with PUF: A Completely Factual and Objective History of the Publick Universal Friend, written and directed by Buntaine. Based on actual events, the production tells the story of a woman reborn as a genderless heavenly messenger during the American Revolution, preparing humanity for the end of the world. Performances will be at The People’s Building in Aurora.

In June, Two Cent Lion will remount summa dat BBC by Angel Garcia (June 19-28). The acclaimed Fringe show is described as a genre-bending solo performance blending drag spectacle, comedy and ritual into a critique of sex, racial politics and survival in the queer marketplace of desire.

The season concludes with Scouts by Ash Bell (Sept. 18-27), a haunting teen fever dream following five girls on a quest for revenge.

Drawing on bell hooks’ definition of “queer” as “the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live,” Buntaine said each play demands audiences look at oppressive structures head-on.

“These plays do not lose themselves in darkness, but nor do they look away from it,” she said. “Cataclysm is painful — but it is also surprising, and funny, and bright with the possibilities of a new world where we are free.”

Buntaine thanked outgoing leadership Izzy Chern, Kevin Douglas and Gracie Jacobson for building Two Cent Lion’s voice in Denver theater.

More information and tickets will be available at twocentlion.com.