The Denver Center Theatre Company is not the only troupe responding to patrons asking for earlier start times. Colorado Shakespeare Festival patrons soon will be getting to bed before midnight.
Starting next season, the DCTC will expand its popular 6:30 Monday-Wednesday start times to include Thursdays. And Friday-Saturday starts will start a half-hour earlier at 7:30. The reason: “To give our patrons a 30-minute head start on parking spaces over the 3,000 people heading to the Buell at 8,” said company spokesman Chris Wiger.
New CSF producing artistic director Philip Sneed also is moving his Tuesday and Sunday outdoor performances up two hours to 6:30, with Wednesday through Saturday starts remaining at 8:30. Indoor starts remain at 2 and 7:30.
Sneed said the move is to accommodate students, the elderly … “anyone who doesn’t want such a late night, especially if they are driving from Denver or if they have to work the next day,” he said. “But we are especially doing this for parents who want to expose their kids to theater but don’t want to deal with the crankiness if they don’t get them to bed till midnight.”
Phil, all of us nonkids who get cranky at midnight also salute you.
Big names in Boulder
Sneed is nearly done casting his first, expanded five-play summer season, and he’s assembling a star-studded list to celebrate the CSF’s 50th year.
DCTC veteran Randy Moore will play Actor One, the showcase role in “Around the World in 80 Days.” Moore will take on 17 roles opposite Elgin Kelley, the 2005 Denver Post Ovation winner for best year by an actress. Moore starred in the CSF’s 1980 production of “Hamlet,” in which Sneed also appeared in a small role. Moore also will play Lafew in “All’s Well That Ends Well.”
There will be more established members of Colorado’s year-round theater community in Sneed’s company than in years. Leading the list is Karen Slack, who will cross genders to play Cassius in “Julius Caesar.” Other ensemble members will include Josh Robinson (Curious’ “Aphrodisiac”), Sarah Fallon (TheatreWorks’ “The Importance of Being Earnest”) and Geoffrey Kent (Modern Muse’s current “Seascape”).
Sneed also has hired a marquee director in Scott Schwartz to helm “A Servant of Two Masters.” He was the original director of “Bat Boy, the Musical” – and is the son of “Godspell” and “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz.
Sneed’s company will number 32, down from 42 last year. Five will be students, and six will be members of Actors’ Equity – up from just one last year.
Sneed has taken the final preliminary step to soon attain the highest union standard short of Broadway it’s called “LORT C” for outdoors and “D” for indoors. Only about 100 theaters have achieved that status. “It means you’re a jewel in the crown of the American regional theater,” Sneed said.
Briefly …
The New Denver Civic Theatre hasn’t confirmed it, but I’ll bet my lunch money the one-woman show it intends to launch this fall on its way to Broadway will be a musical retrospective starring Judy Collins. At 67, the East High alum has been selling out her cabaret show in New York and was to appear Friday at Denver’s Paramount Theatre but the show was canceled. She was here, but her band was caught in the snowstorm that canceled their flight from New York. …
Tickets to Disney’s pre-Broadway debut of “The Little Mermaid” (July 26-Sept. 9) go on sale at 10 a.m. today. Tickets range from $20-$77; call 303-893-4100 or 866-464-2626…
DCTC artistic director Kent Thompson is almost through assembling his next class of commissioned playwrights, bringing to 12 the number of new scripts in some phase of development. The newest addition is Jason Grote, whose “1001” just got its world premiere at the DCTC … You can find a complete play-by-play assessment of the DCTC’s newly announced 2007-08 season at denverpost.com/theater …
Andrew Lloyd Webber announced last week he will pen a sequel to “The Phantom of The Opera,” the longest-running musical in Broadway history … I was in the vast minority in praising “tempOdyssey” at Denver’s Curious Theatre last year, but playwright Dan Dietz got the last laugh when the New York Times called it “a brilliant tour de force” in its Big Apple bow last week …
Buntport is back Friday with the opening of its latest original production, “Moby Dick Unread.” It’s got one boat on wheels, a few buckets of water and four performers with only a cursory knowledge of Melville’s classic novel (720-946-1388) …
And finally, from the “you’ve got to be kidding me” department: Jason Brenner, a Florida high school music teacher, was fired for appearing in an unpaid, local production of “The Full Monty” in which he bares all – completely out of audience view. The school board cited the need to hold its teachers to “a higher moral standard,” while acknowledging that no one on the board actually had seen the show.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
This week’s theater openings
THU-APRIL 21 | Denver Center Theatre Company’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”
FRI-APRIL 27 | Buntport’s “Moby Dick, Unread”
FRI-APRIL 29 | Miners Alley Playhouse’s “Tuesdays With Morrie” | GOLDEN
This week’s theater closings
TODAY | TheatreWorks’ “The Importance of Being Earnest” | COLORADO SPRINGS
TODAY | Jester’s Dinner Theatre’s “Deathtrap” | LONGMONT
TODAY | Union Colony Dinner Theatre’s “The Taffetas” | GREELEY
TODAY | Theatre Company of Lafayette’s “Woman in Mind”
SAT | El Centro Su Teatro’s “I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinkin’ Badges”
SAT | Playwright’s “The Perfect Party”
SAT | OpenStage’s “Enchanted April” | FORT COLLINS
SAT | E-Project’s “An Evening of One-Act Plays” | LAKEWOOD
SAT | Longmont Theatre Company’s Solid Gold Cadillac”
SAT | Arvada Festival Playhouse’s “Barbecuing Hamlet”
MARCH 25 | Aurora Fox’s “Almost, Maine”
MARCH 25 | Town Hall Arts Center’s “Footloose” | LITTLETON
