Theatre

Denver Theatre: A New Series of Writings

In the upcoming year, I will be spotlight approximately one company a month, either in the form of a review or a feature story. If you’ve seem something worth seeing or knowing about it, post it in the comments section. Let’s go!

By Lisa Bornstein


If you’ve made it as far as this page, it seems safe to assume that you already know about what may be Denver’s greatest innovation in American culture (no, it’s not sign-twirling dispensary employees), the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. You know, it’s that thing … with the money … for the zoo?

In fact, it spreads over seven counties, over four decades, over $1.7 billion, over the arts, science, and disciplines that border the unnameable (Buntport, I’m looking at you). You paid for it, for the grand total of a one-tenth of one percent sales tax.

It was founded for the big four: the Museum of Nature and Science, the Zoo, the the Denver Arts Museum and the Denver Botanic Gardens (in recent years, after much lobbying, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts was added). A second tier was added for a number of other very large organizations (only one consistent theater was large enough to qualify: the Arvada Center).

So those top two tiers included only two of dozens of theater companies in the Denver metro area. An egregious oversight. A tragedy. A slap in the face. No, just a result of the nature of theater, not just in Denver, but in much of the world. There are the colossi, which exist as seeming Rocks of Gibraltar (their boards and artistic directors do not view them quite in the same way). But the bulk of theater is created on the fly, on the sly, on a wing and a prayer and way too many late nights after a day job. Those are your theaters of the SCFD Tier III.

It’s a wide stance. It takes in 18 theaters with varied circumstances and missions. At Curious Theatre Company, there are multiple salaried employees, a professional theater contract with Actors Equity, and a company-owned building. Other companies, such as Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, have a staff that earns its keep in other venues, and puts together professional quality (enough so to receive SCFD funding) on what is frequently a shoestring basis.
So who are these people? What should you see at their theaters? Who am I? And why does this paragraph sound like the opening to “Gossip Girl?”

I encourage you to educate yourself. Because here’s the really cool thing about the SCFD: As a quasi-governmental organization, its information is open to the public. You can get your start by seeing just how these groups are funded by going to this page.

As for me? I spent 10 years as the theater critic for the Rocky Mountain News. In fact, I was the last theater critic for the Rocky Mountain News. They tell me I am not the reason that the paper folded. I’m trying to believe that’s true. In that job, I reviewed my very first production at one of these companies. I wrote about the very first production of another of these companies, when its founders had just graduated college. I spent an entire year following a third of the companies. I haven’t spent much time with any of them in the past three years, a time when I was getting a graduate degree and becoming an elementary school teacher. In my previous career, I prided myself on always saying what I thought. I have been assured by the publishers of this blog that I will be allowed to do the same here.

In the upcoming year, I will be spotlighting approximately one company a month, either in the form of a review or a feature story. If you’ve seem something worth seeing or knowing about it, post it in the comments section. Let’s go!

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