“Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley’s 2005 Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner, will tour this fall, and even better, it will feature its Tony-winning Broadway star, Cherry Jones. But it’s unlikely Denver will be among the first 24 cities scheduled, Denver Center president Randy Weeks said last week.
For all the Denver Performing Arts Complex has, it lacks a venue well suited for touring plays, which would be in the 1,000-capacity range. Its smaller venues don’t have enough seats to recoup the cost of presenting a touring play. Its Buell Theatre, at 2,880 seats, is too large for an intimate play.
“But in this case, the issue is scheduling. We are still looking for the opportunity to put small plays in the Ellie,” Weeks said of the new 2,268-seat Ellie Calkins Opera House. “But on the dates that ‘Doubt’ is available, the Ellie is not.”
Shanley’s morality play is set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, where a strong-minded woman must decide if she should voice concerns about one of her male colleagues, when she’s not certain of the truth.
Weeks also said it’s too early to say whether newly announced tours of “Spamalot” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” might be heading our way.
“Dancing Girl” is back
Denver’s Thordis Simonsen is back again with her dramatic monologue, “Dancing Girl: An American Woman’s Greek Village Odyssey,” for matinees over the next two weekends at Golden’s Miners Alley Playhouse, 1224 Washington Ave.
Reminiscent of the film “Under the Tuscan Sun,” Simonsen takes audiences to a village in southern Greece she discovered in 1982 and where she made a home for herself and eventually became a member of the community. Tickets $14 (303-321-5403).
Local updates
That’s Littleton High School grad Colin Cunliffe playing Philippe, one of the ensemble male boyfriends in the national touring production of “The Boy Friend” closing today. Cunliffe, 24, was a member of Kidskits back in the day. Since growing up, he’s been on the national tours of “Fame” and “Cats,” but this is his first professional appearance in his hometown …
Frank Caeti of “MADtv” is in town next weekend performing improv sets with Second City’s “Red Scare” at the Galleria. The Second City alum graduated from Standley Lake High in 1991 and went to Colorado State ….
The “Red Scare” cast, by the way, had tons of fun last week performing an improv set spoofing actual e-mails received at the Denver Center over its mildly controversial productions of “Jesus Hates Me” and the Matthew Bourne ballet “Swan Lake.” They called the skit “Jesus Hates My Gay Swan’s Boy Friend.” …
Cajardo Lindsey, star of the Arvada Center’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” now lives in Los Angeles and had a guest spot on Monday’s episode of NBC’s “Medium” opposite Patricia Arquette …
National Theatre Conservatory grad Pierre-Marc Diennet was back from New York for a brief but memorable appearance in the Denver Center’s Colorado New Play Summit. Diennet, an awesome Scooby in the 2003 national tour of “Scooby-Doo: In Stage Fright,” recently married Liz Pearce, who charmed Denver audiences in December as Audrey in the national tour of “Little Shop of Horrors.”
“War Anthology” titles
The pieces and playwrights for Curious’ “War Anthology,” opening Saturday, have been announced. The lineup, with writer and wars, where applicable:
“The Closest I’ve Been To War” (Civil War), by Paula Vogel; “Oldest American GI,” by Bonnie Metzgar; “Welcome Me,” a song by Suzan-Lori Parks, “Bully Composition” (Spanish-
American War) by Will Eno; “The Pledge of Lesions” (Sand Creek Massacre), by Melissa McCarl; “Rain of Ruin” (Hiroshima), by Elaine Romero; “Making Whoopee,” a dance by David Ruille; “Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy,” by Tony Kushner (an extant piece concerning American activity in Iraq in 1999; “Old Kentucky Home,” a musical piece by David Dunbar; “One Shot in Lotus Position” (Vietnam), by Steven Sapp and Mildred Ruiz; and “Weird Water” (Iraq), by Robert Lewis Vaughan.
Starry kids show
The Denver Children’s Theatre returns to the Mizel Center in a big way March 12 with “Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse.”
“To say we have a star-studded cast is a complete understatement,” Mizel executive artistic director Steve Wilson said of Karen Slack (Curious’ “The War Anthology”), Mare Trevathan (Curious’ “The Goat”), Trina Magness (Write Angle’s “Colorado Quickies”), Josh Hartwell (Modern Muse’s “Inherit the Wind”) and Elgin Kelley, winner of the Denver Post’s “best year by an actress” 2005 Ovation Award. The director is Billie McBride.
“Lilly,” by Kevin Kling, is the story of a young mouse who learns lessons about family and forgiveness. Public performances are 1 p.m. Sundays through May 7 303-316-6360).
And finally…
In a Feb. 6 story on Castle Rock native Amy Adams, the Oscar-nominated actress in “June-bug,” we talked about how it would surely take “greater forces at work in the universe” lining up in just the right way for her to have any chance of winning tonight for best supporting actress. Paul Slevin thinks those “greater forces” might be his son, Brendan, who died in a climbing accident on Gladstone Peak near Ouray in 2002.
“Brendan had a special friend at Douglas County High School. It was Amy Adams,” Slevin wrote in an e-mail. “Amy was one of a very few classmates and friends of Brendan who contacted my wife, Barbara, after the funeral. Amy is a very special person.
“I’m sure Brendan will be watching the Oscars,” Slevin added – and throwing his cosmic weight Adams’ way.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
