The play “Dusty and the Big Bad World” opened in previews Thursday at the Denver Centera show loosely based on the true story of a PBS kids’ series and the government outrage that resulted when a cartoon character on it visited a real girl with, gasp, two moms.
To help promote the play, the theater company’s new multimedia man, Charlie Miller, put together a gasser of a parody website at .
“It’s very tongue-in-cheek,” Miller explains. “But it takes itself very seriously.”
The stars of the mock site are pediatrician Dr. Dean Prina and Denver’s Road Home project manager Jamie Van Leeuwen. They submit an audition tape to the website in which they pretend to be the two dads of Lizzie Goldberg-Jones, a character in the play. They’re not in the stage play, just on the website.
Miller says that in making the video, the pair took direction well from Denver Center Theatre Company artistic director Kent Thompson.
This is just one of various Internet projects from Miller, who’s taking the theater company into new media. He’s a Denver native and a recent Harvard grad following stints at Graland and Colorado Academy. A 23-year-old with a paid job in the theater, and health insurance? His life story should be called, “Charlie and the Big Good World.”
EATS!
If we ever needed Denver Restaurant Week it’s now — with more than 200 area eateries offering three-course meals for two for $52.80. It runs Feb. 21-27 and you can see the roster and the menus at . Book a table at . asap as some good joints are filling up fast.
Denver’s Soup for the Soul brings bowls of the hot stuff from Denver’s best to the Sheraton Denver on March 26 — to benefit Porter Hospice and St. Anthony Hospice. Call 303-715-7615.
And it’s the Bert and Ernie Show when Bertha Lynn and Ernie Bjorkman host the Give Paws star chef dinner March 24 at Gourmet Fine Catering. It’s a benefit for the Dumb Friends League. Go to .
Valentine.
Chevy Chase has changed the date for his appearance at the Boulder International Film Festival to Feb. 14. Maybe he can be your Valentine.
The Nacho Men play a Valentine Fling on Feb. 14 at Denver Marriott DTC for Project Safeguard.
The show “Girls Only” is hosting a “Date Free Zone” Valentine’s party. For $65 each, you get tix to the play and one room with two queen-sized beds at the Curtis Hotel, complete with girly drinks and girly junk food. That sounds like a blast!
City spirit.
Parade magazine says Neil Diamond is kicking back at his Colorado cabin after his world tour. He told an audience that Colorado feels like his second home because it is — he’s had a streamside pad in the Roaring Fork Valley for 30 years . . . The editors of “Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak” are at Tattered Cover Colfax at 7:30 tonight . . . Sez who: “You loved, lied, cheated, me too.” Six-Word Memoirs
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. You can reach him at 303-954-1486 or at bhusted@denverpost.com. Take a peek at Husted’s next column at .
