The demise of the Country Dinner Playhouse has many looking to former producer Paul Dwyer to fill the huge vacuum left behind by the closing of the state’s second-largest theater. And if he has anything to say about it, he will.
“We are in the process (of starting over),” said Dwyer. “The long-term goal is to have our own home, but I think within a couple months we will start producing shows.”
Where is anyone’s guess, but it won’t be at the old Playhouse. Dwyer thinks the Barn’s days as a theater are history. “Because when it closed, it became no longer grandfathered as far as codes,” he said. “So for another entity to come in and try to produce theater there – it’s just fiscally wrong.”
While Dwyer was the face of the CDP, he had no ownership stake in it. He was just a 21-year employee. “I’m owed money just like everyone else,” he said.
He said the local and national theater community have offered support. “Everyone from the Denver Center to Littleton Town Hall to (retired producer) Henry Lowenstein has reached out and said, ‘If you need a space, we’re here for you,”‘ Dwyer said. “Problem is we have to work around their seasons, so it’s tough right now.”
Dwyer said to expect an announcement of his new company’s goals within two weeks. “But I promise we will have a home in the future – and if at all possible, in south Denver, near the old Playhouse, that will continue the tradition of fine musical theater.”
Boulder hosts the jilted
Boulder’s Dinner Theatre added a free performance of “The Sound of Music” on Tuesday just for jilted customers of CDP’s shuttered “Evita.” Producer Michael J. Duran said the gesture cost his company $3,500. A dozen “Evita” cast members gave the audience a 20-minute taste of the show they paid for but never got to see.
“I think it was very accommodating and generous of Boulder’s Dinner Theatre to do this for us,” said Karen Simonson of Longmont, who had purchased her tickets to “Evita” two days before the Playhouse closed. She and husband Mike had been CDP patrons for three decades.
Some in the crowd expressed anger at owners David Lovinggood and Bob Buffington, but more expressed empathy for unemployed actors and staff.
In other developments: Uhlmann Offices of California, which owns the land upon which the Playhouse sits, said it had been notified of Lovinggood’s intent to file for federal bankruptcy protection by the end of last week. … In a classy move, executive chef Lee Donaldson saw to it that all salvageable food the owners had left to rot was donated to Meals on Wheels.
Posner play staged in Los Angeles
New Denver School of the Arts grad Max Posner was in Los Angeles last week, where his second published script, “Noble Causes,” received a full production at the Matrix Theatre’s Young Playwright’s Festival.
His story of a young man who thinks he has the world figured out until he becomes the victim of domestic terrorism starred Aaron Himelstein, who played a young Austin Powers in “Goldmember.”
“He’s done a lot of theater in Chicago and New York, so he definitely has the chops,” said Posner.
Tangedal’s plea
Former Theatre Group artistic director Steven Tangedal has issued his first statement since losing his Theatre On Broadway performance space under a mound of debt exceeding $25,000. Tangedal vowed to fight on to save the group’s remaining space, the Phoenix Theatre, on which it holds a $3,000 monthly mortgage.
Tangedal has long blamed his financial demise on the smoking ban’s casino exemption. TG relies on weekly Bingo games for most of its operational income, and proceeds dropped 80 percent after the ban. Tangedal is hoping the new inclusion of casinos effective Jan. 1 will bring Bingo customers back.
He urges anyone who wants TG to survive to simply come play Bingo. TG games are held at 10:30 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday evening at Bingo City, 3820 S. Federal Blvd.
“If the theater community at large wants us to survive, and is willing to help,” he said, “we will.”
Our Tony Award winner
Congrats to John Behlmann, who played Captain Brown in the Tony-winning best revival, “Journey’s End.” But it was a bittersweet day for the Denver Center’s National Theatre Conservatory grad – his World War I play closed the same day.
“To be a year out of school and to have performed nightly on a Broadway stage, in this phenomenal play, with such a stellar group of guys, is more than I could’ve hoped for,” he said. “Winning a Tony is like the perfect cherry on top of an already delicious theatrical cake. … I just hope it’s not all downhill from here.” …
It makes perfect sense in retrospect, but after “Spring Awakening” hauled in eight Tonys, Buddhist writers Stephen Sater and Duncan Sheik said they wrote their musical about sexually repressed 19th-century German youths as an answer to the Columbine massacre. “We had a strong determination to reach youth everywhere,” Sater said.
This week’s theater openings
THU-JULY 27 | Little Theatre of the Rockies’ “God’s Man in Texas” | GREELEY
THU-JULY 7 | Thunder River’s “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” | CARBONDALE
FRI-JULY 1 | Performance Now’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” | LAKEWOOD
FRI-AUG. 16 | Rocky Mountain Rep’s “Suessical” | GRAND LAKE
SAT-AUG. 18 | Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” | BOULDER
This week’s theater closings
TODAY | Miners Alley Playhouse’s “Lobby Hero” | GOLDEN
TODAY | Lake Dillon’s “The Glass Menagerie”
TODAY | Little Theatre of the Rockies’ “Babes in Hollywood” | GREELEY
FRI | Cabaret Dinner Theatre’s “Cinderella” | GRAND JUNCTION
SAT | OpenStage’s “The Threepenny Opera” | FORT COLLINS
SUN | Town Hall Arts Center’s “My Fair Lady” | LITTLETON
