For 10 years, Curious Theatre presented only plays never before staged in Denver. It will enter its second decade still committed to bringing the most talked-about new plays to Denver, but for the first time, it is opening up its catalog to older works.
Sam Shepard’s “Curse of the Starving Class,” which is being touched up by the author for a 30th anniversary production in San Francisco this summer, will be the oldest play ever presented by Curious when it starts its season in September. It’s a surreal, dark satire about a dirt-poor 1920s Western family whose delusions of a better life are falling apart around them.
The tantalizing lineup is topped by Stephen Karam’s big-buzz off-Broadway musical “Speech and Debate”; Sarah Ruhl’s “Eurydice” (a look at the Orpheus myth from her point of view); and last year’s surprise Pulitzer Prize-winner, “Rabbit Hole” (David Lindsay-Abaire’s story of a family coping with the accidental death of a 4-year-old was singled out by the Pulitzer committee even though it hadn’t been named a finalist).
Curious won’t launch its own world-premiere initiative for the first time in several years, but its production of Quiara Alegría Hudes’ “26 Miles” will be the second.
“I feel like we are continuing to bring some of the most exciting new work in America to Denver,” said founder Chip Walton. “And with ‘Curse of the Starving Class,’ I am really going to enjoy doing plays I have loved but could not have produced before.”
Walton describes “Speech and Debate” as “Avenue Q” — without the puppets. Karam’s “columbinus,” about the school massacre, was partly developed at Curious. But his teens here are misfits who turn to far less lethal outlets in the wake of a local sex scandal: the school newspaper, drama club and speech team.
It’s a multimedia story described as an “uproarious, clever and heartbreakingly familiar comedy set to the musical stylings of a Casio keyboard.”
“26 Miles” is about a Cuban mother who reunites with her half-Jewish teenage daughter after an an eight-year estrangement by taking an impromptu cross-country road trip. Hudes also wrote the book “In the Heights,” which opens on Broadway on March 9.
“I really think she could be the next Sarah Ruhl in terms of a writer exploding on the scene,” Walton said.
curious theatre 2008-09
“Curse of the Starving Class.” By Sam Shepard, Sept. 6-Oct. 18.
“Speech and Debate.” By Stephen Karam, Nov. 1-Dec. 13.
“Rabbit Hole.” By David Lindsay-Abaire, Jan. 10-Feb. 14, 2009
“Eurydice.” By Sarah Ruhl, March 7-April 18, 2009
“26 Miles.” By Quiara Alegría Hudes, May 9-June 20, 2009
Information: 303-623-0524
