Paragon Theatre has culminated a year of spectacular artistic and financial growth with the news it will move to the Crossroads at Five Points Theatre.
Saturday’s opening of “The Night Heron” will be Paragon’s last at the Phoenix Theatre on Santa Fe Drive.
Kurt Lewis, who opened the 84-seat Crossroads at 2550 Washington St. in May, will continue to present his own shows around Paragon’s newly announced 2008 season of “The Gin Game,” “Sight Unseen,” “This Is How It Goes” and “The Glass Menagerie.”
Paragon is a small but burgeoning ensemble company that won the Colorado Theatre Guild’s 2007 Henry Award for best drama (“Frankie and Johnny”), and drew 85 percent capacity for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
That has translated into unprecedented financial stability: The budget for Paragon’s seventh season will be double that of the current year – and for the first time, there’s money in the bank.
That takes Paragon to about a $100,000 annual operating budget – still a small company with no salaried employees, but one that, like Curious before it, has started to distance itself from the majority of small companies that exist from show-to-show.
Co-artistic director Michael Stricker said the new theater’s intimacy, free underground parking and the cultural history of the Five Points neighborhood made Crossroads the perfect choice for a new home.
“It sounds cheesy, but we are at a bit of a crossroads ourselves,” he said. “We have finally matched our business goals with our artistic goals, and the key for us now is to keep staging these emotional pieces that really strike a nerve with people.”
Paragon is a 10-member company of actors and designers. Its 2008 slate reflects an ongoing balancing act: Familiar standards offset by an envelope-pusher or two. “Virginia Woolf” proved those don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
“We very deliberately go out and get shows that people have seen, and we do them in a far better way than they have ever seen before,” Stricker said. “And we try to keep in mind that everything we do is brand new to someone.”
The Pulitzer-winning “The Gin Game,” a simple game of cards between an elderly man and woman in a retirement home, will star Patty Mintz Figel and Jim Hunt.
“Sight Unseen,” by Donald Margulies (“Dinner With Friends”), explores how commercial success blurs an artist’s vision. It will feature Carolyn Valentine, Jarrad Holbrook and Suzanne Favette.
The button-pusher is “This Is How It Goes,” by Neil LaBute, who brutally (how else?) tackles racism, adultery and deception. That one has Scott McLean, Tyee Tilghman and Emily Paton Davies.
“The Glass Menagerie” will star Stricker, Martha Harmon Pardee, Barbra Andrews and Josh Hartwell. Call 303-300-2210 for info.
Galleria’s next show: “The Last Five Years”
The Denver Center’s next offering in its Garner-Galleria Theatre will be “The Last Five Years,” an unusual musical that tells the story of a doomed love affair from the beginning – and the end – simultaneously. It opens Feb. 9 and runs through June 29. The director is again Ray Roderick (“The Taffetas”).
Curious closing in on Acoma Center buy
We’ve long reported Curious Theatre intends to buy its current home at the Acoma Center from developer and patron Mickey Zeppelin. Financing is not fully in place yet, but artistic director Chip Walton intends to close on the $800,000 transaction in April.
Briefly …
Congratulations to Denver East grad Mary Bacon. She’s been cast to play three roles in the U.S. premiere of Tom Stoppard’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” opening Oct. 19 at New York’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Oct. 19. The play, set in August 1968 with Russian tanks rolling in to Prague, explores the connection between rock music and revolution. It won the Tony equivalent for best Brit play …
MTV is looking for a “musical theater coach” (age 25-35) to turn a young Denver girl into a musical-theater star. Interested coaches should e-mail madecasting@mtvstaff.com …
Speaking of MTV, its Sept. 29 broadcast of Broadway’s “Legally Blonde” was scuttled without explanation, but it’s been rescheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday. That broadcast will include Wheat Ridge native Annaleigh Ashford as Margot. She also makes her debut as Glinda in Broadway’s “Wicked” on Tuesday …
And finally: Python fans have spoken: We asked readers to choose their favorite Monty Python comic bit. The winner: “Bring Out Your Dead” from “Holy Grail,” with 19 percent of the vote. Runner-up: “The Lumberjack Song” from “Flying Circus” at 17. The national touring production of “Spamalot” closes today at the Buell Theatre.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
This week’s openings
Thu.-Oct. 27. Thunder River’s “The Trip to Bountiful.” Carbondale
Fri.-Oct. 27. Theatre Company of Lafayette’s “The Deep Beep-Beep: Eight Short Plays about Sputnik.”
Fri.-Oct. 28. Fine Arts Center’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” Colorado Springs
Fri.-Oct. 14. Stage Left’s “Original One-Act Play Festival.” Salida
Fri.-Oct. 28. Festival Playhouse’s “The Werewolf’s Curse, or Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.” Arvada
Fri.-Nov. 3. Hunger Artists’ “An Evening With Edgar Allen Poe” (at the Victorian Playhouse).
Fri.-Nov. 11. California Actors’ Theatre’s “Postmortem.” Longmont
Fri.-Nov. 17: Brooks Arts Center’s “Three Directions”
Sat.-Nov. 10. Paragon’s “The Night Heron” (at the Phoenix Theatre).
Sat.-Oct. 26. Coal Creek Community Theatre’s “Lucky Stiff.” Louisville
This week’s closings
Today. Denver Center Attractions’ Monty Python’s “Spamalot.”
Today. Arvada Center’s “Moonlight and Magnolias.”
Today. Aurora Fox’s “Anna in the Tropics.”
Today. Germinal Stage Denver’s “A Touch of the Poet.”
Today. Lake Dillon’s “Pig Farm.”
Today. Performance Now’s “Hello Dolly!” Lakewood
Sat. Buntport’s “Vote for Uncle Marty.”
Sat. Crossroads at Five Points’ “Voices From the Soul.”
Oct. 14. Bas Bleu’s “The Lion in Winter.” Fort Collins
Oct. 14. TheatreWorks’ “Zorro.” Colorado Springs
Oct. 14. Dangerous Theatre’s “A Time to Go Walking.”
Oct. 14. Union Colony Dinner Theatre’s “The Wizard of Oz.” Greeley
Oct. 14. Nonesuch’s “John & Jen” (Sundays and Wednesdays only). Fort Collins.
Oct. 14. Playwright Theatre’s “Eleemosynary.”
This week’s audio podcast
This week on Running lines, John Moore speaks with the married couple of Erik Tieze (Modern Muse’s “Thom Pain, based on nothing”) and A. Lee Massaro (director, Firehouse’s “Bold Girls”).
New weekly feature! Video podcast with Karen Slack
Denver Post theater critic John Moore interviews Karen Slack in the first of a series of short video interviews with the cast of Listen Productions’ “Macbeth” (length: three minutes), opening Oct. 20. Next week: The Three Witches (Oct. 13 posting).
