New Colorado Shakespeare Festival boss Philip Sneed is full of surprises. Consider his response to a Denver Post review that took his initial offerings to task for seeming a bit under-rehearsed.
“I couldn’t agree more,” he replied.
Where do you go from there?
“We knew we had to expand,” said Sneed, who in his first season grew the nation’s second-oldest Shakespeare Festival from three locally produced titles to five, each opening on successive Saturdays.
But he had to do so with fiscal caution. “We thought it would be unwise to project the full amount of revenue increases we believe these changes will ultimately result in,” he said.
“In other words, we had to produce five plays this summer on revenue projections for four plays – and one of the casualties of that was at least one week less of rehearsal time than we needed.”
A single rehearsal week, by the way, costs the festival more than $50,000.
Good news: The fest is running a whopping 40 percent ahead of the same date last year in both revenue and tickets sold. “If this trend continues, we certainly will be in a position next year to more appropriately fund a five-play season. But we really had to prove ourselves first. I didn’t want to risk running a deficit in my first season.”
Boulder’s Dinner Theatre’s night to shine
Any doubt as to why Boulder’s Dinner Theatre steamrolled its way to seven of the Colorado Theatre Guild’s 20 Henry Awards on Monday were quashed in a chilling, climactic performance of the “Ragtime” number “Till We Reach That Day” that put an exclamation point on the company’s “best musical” and “best season” awards.
It was also a great night for The Avenue, which won four awards for “Dog Sees God,” and Paragon, whose “Frankie and Johnny” won best play and best actor and actress (Emily Paton Davies and Thomas Borrillo).
Much more online: Complete list of winners, a slide show, a video with performance and speech highlights, and our weekly Running Lines audio podcast with post-gala reaction. It’s all at .
“Rain of Ruin” honored
Elaine Romero’s “Rain of Ruin,” one of the chapters written for Curious Theatre’s ambitious “The War Anthology,” has been selected for publication in “The Best Short Plays of 2007.” All the more impressive given that “The War Anthology” included three Pulitzer winners.
“Ruin” starred Peter Trinh and GerRee Hinshaw as lovers – a Japanese man and an American woman – trying to overcome the cultural divide left by the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Briefly …
The Playwrights Showcase of the Western Region returns to Red Rocks Community College (Wednesday and Thursday) and the Arvada Center (Friday and Saturday) after a year-long hiatus. Denver Center Theatre Company artistic director Kent Thompson, Curious boss Chip Walton and playwrights Richard Dresser, Edith Weiss and Anne Garcia Romero are among the luminaries who will offer commentaries following each of the 31 play readings. $15 (720-898-7200) …
At long last, the Arvada Center has a new executive director: Gene Sobczak from the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Read more online …
Country Dinner Playhouse and Arvada Center alumna Rachel deBenedet wrapped a hit off-Broadway run of “The Second Tosca” on July 1. The author is former Boulderite Tom Rowan, who directed at several area theaters …
Spotlight Theatre is peppering its run of the British farce “Caught in the Net” with three performances of the play that preceded it. Spotlight packed them in last month for Ray Cooney’s “Run for Your Wife,” so it will stage that title again July 19, 22 and Aug. 2, around scheduled performances of the “Net” sequel through Aug. 4 (720-250-8220) …
The boundary-pushing handicapped company PHAMALy, which opens “Urinetown” July 27 at the Denver Center, will stage “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in January at the Aurora Fox …
And finally, congratulations to T.J. Mullin, who last week celebrated his 34th consecutive year performing on the Heritage Square Music Hall stage. Check him out in “Too Old to Be Loud” (303-279-7800).
This week’s theater openings
WED-SAT | Playwrights Showcase of the Western Region (at Red Rocks Community College and the Arvada Center)
THU-AUG. 25 | Theatre Aspen’s “Moonlight and Magnolias”
FRI-AUG. 19 | Backstage’s “The Smell of the Kill” (alternating weekends with “The Hobbit”) | BRECKENRIDGE
FRI-AUG. 5 | Limelight Theatre’s “The Illusion” | FORT COLLINS
FRI-JULY 28 | El Centro Su Teatro’s “Bowl of Beings” (outdoors)
FRI-JULY 29 | Playwright’s “Just Pretend Everything Is Perfectly Normal”
FRI-JULY 29 | Front Range Music Theatre’s “Beauty and the Beast” | FORT COLLINS
FRI-AUG. 26 | California Actors Theatre’s “An Evening with Stephen Sondheim” | LONGMONT
SAT-AUG. 16 | Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s “Julius Caesar” | BOULDER
This week’s theater closings
TODAY | Festival Playhouse’s “Kitchen Witches” | ARVADA
SAT | No Holds Bard’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Hamlet” (at Skyline Park)
SAT | Victorian’s “My Husband’s Wild Desires Almost Drove Me Mad”
JULY 22 | Aurora Fox’s “A Year With Frog and Toad”
JULY 22 | Union Colony Dinner Theatre’s “Oklahoma” | GREELEY
