Nick Vaughan’s résumé would still look impressive if he were of retirement age and looking back at his career as an internationally accomplished theatrical set designer and costumer.
He’s not. He’s 23. And that makes the 2001 Poudre High School grad’s curriculum vitae nothing less than set-sational.
Vaughan just returned to New York from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where “Particularly in the Heartland” won a Fringe First Award for his New York company called Theatre of the Emerging American Movement (TEAM). The show opens in London next week.
The “Uncle Vanya” set he designed for Columbia’s Burning Wheel has been selected for display at the Prague Quadrennial in 2007. That’s the world’s foremost competitive exhibition of theater scenery.
Did we mention Vaughan only graduated from college in June of 2005? OK, we’re talking Carnegie Mellon here, but just two months later, he won outstanding set design at the New York International Fringe Festival for “The Silent Concerto.” That show, for Packawallop Productions, opens off-Broadway in November.
In September, his “The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl” opens at MetroStage in suburban Washington, D.C. And his children’s set for “Teddy Roosevelt and the Treasure of Ursa Major” bows at no less than the Kennedy Center in October.
Did you say what about opera? His set for “L’Ormindo” bows at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music in November before transferring to the Pittsburgh Opera next February.
And to think, the kid got his start helping load in sets at the tiny Bas Bleu salon theatre in Fort Collins. Now he’s booked solid through the middle of next year.
“I’m just working,” said Vaughan, who seems far too busy to be affected by his success. “I think I just got lucky in making some helpful connections early on.”
But not everyone is a fan. He said audiences tend to think of “Heartland” as either “the greatest thing since sliced bread or horrifyingly terrible.” Variety called his set design dismal and cluttered. “They said I was giving a black eye to the American avant-garde reputation for tech ingenuity,” he said. “Coming from Variety, I cannot think of any higher praise.”
He figures if people either despise his work or decide it’s a revelation, he must be doing something right.
“I’ve come to despise theater scenery in the decoration sense of the word,” Vaughan said. “Most everything I do is about creating interactive pieces that allow for something to develop that is really part of whatever is going on onstage.”
‘Urinetown’ on location
Suddenly everybody’s doing “Urinetown,” it seems, but at least Score Marketing (possibly the worst name for a theater company in history) has a clever angle. Dan Wiley is staging the tuner at the Denver Wastewater Management Building, West Fourth Avenue and Interstate 25 – a twist that required the approval of mayor John Hickenlooper.
“This is the first time in history ‘Urinetown’ has been produced somewhere other than a theater,” said Wiley, whose “stinker” runs Nov. 3-Dec. 3. That’s a comment on the locale, by the way. This will be a union gig drawing top talent.
Briefly …
Gary Bragg, one of the deans at Cherry Creek High School, has written “The Ticket,” a new musical that opens on election day (Nov. 7) in New York’s Sage Theatre. “This is a guy who spends his days talking to teenagers about their attendance and bad behavior,” joked Jennifer Condreay, Cherry Creek’s theater director …
The new Broadway staging of George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House,” opening Sept. 15, sports two former Denver Center Theatre Company actors among its cast of nine – Broadway star Byron Jennings and Gareth Saxe, the latter a graduate of East High and Colorado College making his Broadway debut. It stars Philip Bosco and Swoosie Kurtz …
“Talk Radio,” the 1987 play inspired by the assassination of Denver shock jock Alan Berg by neo-Nazis, comes to Broadway for the first time in February with Liev Schreiber starring …
Kenneth Wajda of Lyons (“A Matter of Altitude”) and Jay Boyer of Tempe, Ariz., (“Suicide Gal, Won’t You Come Out Tonight”), are winners of the New Rocky Mountain Voices one-act play competition. Their works will be performed by the Westcliffe Players on Sept. 1-2…
And finally, Adam Paul, who appeared in the Town Hall Arts Center’s “A Chorus Line” and “West Side Story,” has been named to a two-year term on the advisory committee of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Community Relations Council. Paul, 20-year-old son of popular longtime local actors Ken and Michelle Paul, will represent the youth community.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
This week’s theater openings
FRI-SEPT. 3 | Backstage’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” (concert version) | BRECKENRIDGE
FRI-SEPT. 23 | California Actors Theatre’s “Nunsense” | LONGMONT
FRI-SAT | Westcliffe Players’ “New Rocky Mountain Voices” | WESTCLIFFE
SAT-OCT. 14 | Curious’ “I Am My Own Wife” (Acoma Center)
This week’s theater closings
TODAY | Town Hall Arts Center presents Alex Ryer’s “Pure Piaf” | LITTLETON
TODAY | Backstage’s “The Foreigner” | BRECKENRIDGE
TODAY | Miners Alley Playhouse’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” | GOLDEN
TODAY | TheatreWorks’ “The Comedy of Errors” | COLORADO SPRINGS
MON | Boulder International Fringe Festival | BOULDER
SAT | Theatre Aspen’s “Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time …” | ASPEN
SAT | Crested Butte Mountain Theatre’s “Don’t Dress for Dinner” | CRESTED BUTTE
SAT | Theatre Aspen’s “The Adventures of Johnny Appleseed” | ASPEN
SEPT. 3 | Cripple Creek Players’ “My Partner” | CRIPPLE CREEK
SEPT. 3 | Metro Playhouse’s “Run for Your Wife” | GRAND JUNCTION
SEPT. 3 | Cabaret Dinner Theatre’s “Fiddler on the Roof” | GRAND JUNCTION
SEPT. 3 | Boulder Acting Group’s New Play Festival | LOUISVILLE