The disappearance of attorney Royal “Scoop” Daniel has hit the Backstage Theatre particularly hard. The venerable Breckenridge company is missing both a board member and a friend.
Daniel now has been missing for nine days, “and every minute that goes by, our hearts sink a little bit deeper,” artistic director Christopher Willard said.
Daniel’s legal expertise has been invaluable to the theater, where he also has appeared onstage, most recently last summer as a brother in a concert version of “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.” Daniel, 61, also played the title role in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” for a Breckenridge church, and Willard has talked about remounting that show at Backstage with Daniel again playing Charlie.
Willard said Daniel took him under his wing when he became artistic director two years ago, and drafted policies for the theater on fairness and a code of conduct.
“I have always been able to turn to him for good, solid advice,” Willard said.
The entire Backstage family will be joining a community-wide foot search for Daniel that is scheduled today, Willard said.
“We’re all in the same horrible place of not knowing anything,” Willard said. “It’s like being frozen. Like everyone, we’re grasping at straws for any information. But we are staying hopeful.”
Friends say one of the last things Daniel did before his disappearance April 27 was to make arrangements for payment of items he won at a recent Backstage silent auction.
Daniel is a 5-foot-9, 210- pound white man with white hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call 970-668-8600.
“Expedition 6” launches
“Expedition 6,” the funky trapeze-based play created and developed by actor Bill Pullman “Independence Day”) over several years with the help of the Denver Center’s National Theatre Conservatory Class of 2006, will get its world-premiere staging at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.
It’s a stylized docudrama about the astronauts who were stranded on the International Space Station during the buildup to the Iraq war. It will run Sept. 8-Oct. 7.
And the best part is that the Magic wants to make sure that everyone involved from Denver is still involved with this staging. That means the eight original NTC actors will likely make up the cast.
“Blonde” takes punch
Don’t be swayed by this week’s pan-tastic reviews of the Broadway pretty-in-pink musical “Legally Blonde.” From a critical perspective, it was a sitting duck, but trust me, this show is critic-proof fun.
The most bizarre comment came from The New York Times’ Ben Brantley, who wrote of Loveland native Heather Hach’s book, “Hatch’s book scales up, sometimes to the point of vulgarity, the cartoonishness of a work that was hardly subtle to begin with.” Vulgar? I must have missed that. But, as Brantley misspelled Hach’s name, maybe he was writing about another show.
“Awakening” tour?
The mesmerizing Duncan Sheik musical “Spring Awakening,” which everyone under 50 is rooting for to edge out “Curtains” for the best musical Tony Award, has announced a U.S. tour. But it won’t be coming to Denver anytime soon, said DCPA chief Randy Weeks.
The unusual musical, which sets a century-old story and theatrical conventions against contemporary pop music, “is taking time to find its audience,” Weeks said, by which he means finding youth. “The longer the show is out there generating a following, the better off we’ll do when it gets out here in the middle of the country.”
I’ve seen it. It’s worth the wait.
Briefly …
Officials with DreamWorks had conversations with the city of Denver about developing the coming Broadway musical adaptation of “Shrek” at the Ellie, a la “The Little Mermaid,” but schedules didn’t work out … After David Ledingham finishes his terrific run in the “Light in the Piazza” national tour that recently stopped in Denver, he’ll summer in his native Aspen, returning to Theatre Aspen to star in “Moonlight and Magnolias and direct “The Last Five Years.” “He’s a terrific guy and I want him to be a major part of our future,” said artistic director David McClendon. … The Denver born-“Hats” loved us and left us all too quickly at the New Denver Civic Theatre, but the soft treatise on life after 50 is being well-received in Chicago, where it stars co-writer Melissa Manchester. Variety praised its spunk and spirit and predicted an “extendable run in Chicago that will likely be a harbinger for midsize, long- lasting regional productions galore.” …
Impulse Theatre, which has performed improv comedy in the basement of the Wynkoop Brewery for 20 years, marks its 5,000th performance with shows at 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday. Tickets $18 (303-297-2111) …
And finally, services for Performance Now founder Nancy Goodwin, who died Thursday, are 10 a.m. Monday at St. Andrew United Methodist Church, 3350 White Bay Drive, Highlands Ranch.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
This week’s theater openings
WED-JUNE 3 | National touring production of “Wicked” (at the Buell Theatre)
WED-JULY 8 | Country Dinner Playhouse’s “Evita” | GREENWOOD VILLAGE
FRI-JUNE 3 | Fine Arts Center’s “Into the Woods” | COLORADO SPRINGS
FRI-MAY 27 | Vintage’s “The Heidi Chronicles” (at the Buntport Theater)
FRI-MAY 26 | Theatre Company of Lafayette’s “The Diviners”
FRI-MAY 20 | Festival Playhouse’s “A Bench in the Sun” | ARVADA
FRI-JUNE 17 | Miners Alley Playhouse’s “Lobby Hero” | GOLDEN
FRI-MAY 26 | Upstart Crow’s “Romeo and Juliet” | BOULDER
FRI-MAY 20 | Giving Voice Productions’ “Power to Pleasing: The Sex Lives of Teenage Girls” (in the Dairy Center bathroom) | BOULDER
This week’s closings
TODAY | Country Dinner Playhouse’s “Guys & Dolls” | GREENWOOD VILLAGE
TODAY | Town Hall Arts Center’s “1776” | LITTLETON
TODAY | Germinal Stage Denver’s “Razzle Dazzle: A Saroyan Circus”
TODAY | Union Colony Dinner Theatre’s “Steel Magnolias” | GREELEY
TODAY | Jesters Dinner Theatre’s “Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” | LONGMONT
SAT | Bas Bleu’s “The Imaginary Invalid” | FORT COLLINS
MAY 13 | Aurora Fox’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”
MAY 13 | Arvada Center’s “Do I Hear a Waltz?”
