The Catamounts and Hanzon Studios team for an unforgettable night under the stars

In perhaps its most ambitious production to date, The Catamounts teams with Hanzon Studios to create Impossible Things — an immersive outdoor experience that’s nothing short of a pure delight.

With a script by Colorado playwright Jessica Austgen, creative direction by visual artist and immersive installation guru Lonnie Hanzon (he of Camp Christmas fame), and a wealth of local acting talent, director Amanda Berg Wilson had plenty to work with to bring this one to fruition.

Impossible Things has a ton of moving parts, with the action staged at Marjorie Park in Greenwood Village adjacent to Fiddler’s Green. As part of its renovation in 2021, the Museum of Outdoor Arts (MOA) in Englewood was moved to the site, putting in place some of the puzzle pieces to make this show possible.

The piece was created specifically for this venue, nor could it be staged anywhere else. What’s more, it wouldn’t be the same without you, the specific audience member. If you’re looking for an immersive theatrical experience that’s wholly bespoke, this is it.

In an area better known for office parks and chain restaurants than arts & culture, the park is a standout with a permanent collection that includes Alice in Wonderland sculptures and a wealth of other works in various media set amid the manicured grounds.

Also here is the permanent home of Hanzon’s “Cabinet of Curiosities and Impossibilities” — a wee little house chock-full of whimsical artifacts, art, curios and other objects that harken from another era. With items ranging from the severed tails from the “Three Blind Mice” (definitely legit!) to stereopticon images, spinning model planets overhead, and a zillion other old-timey gee-gaws, doodads and what-nots crammed into every corner, it’s one of the main stops along the way in the Impossible Things journey.

Chris Kendall plays the curator of the Cabinet of Curiosities in ‘Impossible Things.’ | Photo: Alex Miller

The grad’s journey

With all of these wonderful elements in place, the challenge for playwright Jessica Austgen was to figure out some kind of throughline to pull it all together. Her clever solution was to weave the tale around a graduation party where audience members are the guests on hand to see “Alex” off into the world of adulthood. Played with anxious flair by Mel Schaffer, Alex is the grad who’s not entirely on board with what their parents want. No-nonsense Mom (Betty Hart) is all about college while goofy Dad (Mark Collins) is hoping they stay away from hallucinogens.

Betty Hart, Mel Schaffer and Mark Collins in ‘Impossible Things’ | Photo: Alex Miller

Our emcee is the high-octane hired party planner Barb, brought to life with bouncy brio by Maggie Tisdale. Sporting a cartoonishly hot-pink outfit (think the neighborhood women in Edward Scissorhands), Tisdale’s character is everywhere serving as an ombudsman of sorts for the party guests while uttering cheeky asides about the action.

We listened to the speeches and applauded at the appropriate times — like party crashers pretending to care about people we don’t know just for the free drinks. It’s awkward, to be sure, but it sets the mood for what’s to come as we leave the real world and traipse about the property to meet a set of new characters inhabiting specific parts of the museum grounds.

Mark Collins as Mr. Grimm | Photo: Alex Miller

With the audience split into groups, there are a half-dozen or so stops in what could best be called an exploration of a fantasy world. Harry Marinsky’s life-sized Alice in Wonderland sculptures form a perimeter around the park, and in my group our first stop was at his Mad Hatter piece. Here, Hart has shifted from Mom to Queen, and as we settled into chairs for whatever’s to come, she exhorted us about the proper honorariums used to address her while denigrating us as peasants.

In one of many fantastic costumes designed by Jayne Harnett-Hargrove, Hart is a hoot as a power-mad Red Queen. But before long we’re being shuffled off to the next stop — Collins as Mr. Grimm, proprietor of a nonsensical puppet show based on the most pessimistic premise imaginable: “Everything Ends Terribly for Everyone Always.” Wolves are always out there waiting to do us in, he warns, handing out pamphlets with tips and tricks about avoiding them. (Tip One: Don’t leave home. And also: Don’t howl.)

Collins is hilarious in this role, dispensing his dim view of the world with a happy-go-lucky air that makes death at the paws of a wolf pack seem perhaps not so bad.

Betty Hart as the Red Queeen | Photo: Michael Ensminger Photography

A quirky circumnavigation

Things keep moving around the park, including a visit with Mother Goose (Joan Bruemmer-Holden) and the swan version of The Ugly Duckling (Min Kyung [Cecillia] Kim). Both of these actors exemplify what’s so special about immersive as they welcome us into their space, share their very big personalities and dispense their world view while also responding to the harried appearances by Alex.

There’s also a jumbo chess game and a visit to the Cabinet of Curiosities hosted by a perfectly cast Chris Kendall. In a dented hat and plum smoking jacket, Kendall is the batty uncle who lives out back, surrounded by his collections and possessed of the infinite patience required to explain each and every little thing to anyone who’ll listen.

Through it all runs Alex, getting in plenty of steps as they pop in on all of the groups, react to what’s being said and fly off perhaps just as confused as before. In a brilliant ending scene, all of the groups and characters come together and cheer Alex on as somehow things all start to make sense. (Hats off go to stage manager Lara Maerz who timed this whole thing out.)

Joan Bruemmer-Holden as Mother Goose in ‘Impossible Things’ | Photo: Alex Miller

Immersive theatre is becoming all the rage in Colorado these days, and The Catamounts and Hanzon Studios are at the forefront pushing the boundaries of this art form. Having the two of them team to create Impossible Things, then mount it in such a perfect spot and then populate it with such a lively cast and crack production team — well, it’s a dream team that makes for a highly enjoyable evening.

Held around sunset, the action goes from day to night, with a variety of colored lights adding yet another layer of magic as the sun goes down. With the weather turning warm and dry, there should be plenty of perfect nights ahead for the rest of the run.