Jamie Horton, the senior member of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s resident acting troupe, has been named associate professor of theater at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. He starts in September.
“The affection I feel for this theater company, for this community and for this city is unbounded,” said Horton, a native of Boston who joined the DCTC in 1982. “This is a marvelous opportunity for me, one that is on the one hand professionally exciting; but on the other, my wife, Nancy, and I realize how painful and sad it will be. The hard part is the deep, deep roots I have in this place as my artistic home for these past 24 years.”
The news is an additional blow coming after word that Bill Christ and Mark Rubald also will soon depart. The trio has 52 seasons of DCTC experience.
The happy side is that artistic director Kent Thompson, who wanted Horton to play Salieri in his season-opening “Amadeus,” intends for the company’s association with Horton to continue. Horton, who just directed Curious’ “Fiction” and in August helms “cowboyily” for the Creede Repertory Theatre, said he hopes to return in future years as actor and director, whenever his academic schedule allows. But that won’t be for at least a year as he settles into his new responsibilities.
Horton won a 2003 William & Eva Fox Foundation Grant to further his theatrical studies in New York, and ever since that sabbatical, he said, “my life has led toward a greater and greater interest in teaching.”
Horton’s departure means the senior member of the DCTC acting company is now Kathleen M. Brady, who joined in 1983.
“This is a goodbye in some ways,” said Horton, ” … but I hope that it ain’t.”
Touring Tattered Cover
There are just three weeks before the Tattered Cover Bookstore opens in the historic old Bonfils/Lowenstein Theater on June 26, and owner Joyce Meskis and her architects have gone to remarkable lengths to maintain the integrity of the historic space on East Colfax Avenue at Elizabeth Street.
Customers will enter the Tattered Cover either from the south end, at what was once backstage, or from the west, through what was once an alley. That area is being turned into an esplanade connecting the bookstore to a new building housing Twist & Shout records, Neighborhood Flix Cinema and Cafe and a new parking lot.
“When you walk in right onto the stage, don’t you just want to break into a soliloquy?” Meskis said.
Once it became apparent the theater, which sat vacant for two decades, would never again be used for that purpose, there was some relief that it would be turned into a retail outlet featuring five local, independent and culturally inclined businesses (the Denver Folklore Center and Udi’s Handcrafted Foods have joined the lineup).
But because theater seating is built on slopes, cynics presumed the interior would be gutted, taking with it all sense that the building spent 33 years as the crown jewel of Denver theaters. But the moment you walk into the 22,000 square-foot space – from any direction – it is evident this was once a great theater.
“It’s a challenge turning a theater into a bookstore because bookcases don’t like slopes,” Meskis quipped as she led a tour with architect Josh Comfort, theater namesake Henry Lowenstein and his son David.
The slope has been removed, of course, but Meskis has preserved parts of the back row by converting them into two elevated reading skyboxes, one adorning a portrait of founder Helen Bonfils, the other of Lowenstein. They will be called the Helen and Henry balconies.
At the other end, by the stage, Meskis has taken the area that was the orchestra pit and submerged it several feet to maintain the visual effect of a pit. That’s where theatrical and performance books will be sold.
The edge of the original stage has been preserved, as has the proscenium arch, which will have parts of the stage curtain hung as a valance. Lowenstein has donated playbills and posters for display. Some original stage lights will be hung and decorated. The letters from the outside Lowenstein Theater sign will be displayed throughout the interior. The walls that lined the actors’ green room remain green.
The front lobby, which will be the back end of the bookstore, has been refinished and preserved, its chandeliers kept. The doors most people think of as the main theater entrance will lead to an as-yet unnamed new Udi’s restaurant.
“From the beginning, the theme of the renovation has been ‘a theater of ideas,’ said Meskis, who noted that preserving the building’s theatrical character was required by the Department of Interior, which is partly financing the project.
Lowenstein walked away tickled by what he saw. “My biggest fear was that it would be demolished entirely, so I am absolutely delighted,” he said. “I think it will do wonders for Colfax Avenue.”
Briefly …
The 2005-06 Broadway season grossed a record $861.6 million in ticket sales, up 12 percent from the previous season. Total attendance was also a record, 12,003,148 …
Denver Center Attractions has added a return visit for “Cats,” Sept. 5-10; added three weeks to the return of “The Lion King,” now docking here Sept. 28-Nov. 12; and added a week to the start of the “Wicked” return, now May 9-June 3, 2007…
Playwright’s “Party of 1,” the longest-running show in Colorado, closes July 23. Local writer Melanie Tem’s “Comfort Me With Peaches” runs in repertory with “Party of 1” (on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays) during July (303-499-0383).
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
