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The Arvada Center has lured plenty of Broadway stars from New York before. But for “Sunset Boulevard,” it could have been a stampede.

That’s what happens when you land a musical that’s been made available to only one regional theater in the country in the past 14 years — and it has a starring role that nearly every soprano with air in her lungs wants to play.

“When my casting agent started giving me the names of all the women who were interested in playing Norma Desmond, I was thinking . . . ‘They all want to come to Arvada?’ ” said director Rod Lansberry. “Really?”

Ann Crumb, for one, is ready for her close-up.

“I don’t travel out much anymore unless it’s a big tour, but I love Colorado, and I love the work,” said Crumb, who in 1990 became the first American actress ever to create a starring role for Andrew Lloyd Webber (“Aspects of Love”). She’s the daughter of pioneering avant-garde composer George Crumb, and she lived in Boulder as a teenager.

She’s not only the real deal, says Lansberry. She’s a real big deal.

Big enough to follow in the footsteps of Patti Lupone, Glenn Close, Betty Buckley, Elaine Paige, Diahann Carroll, Petula Clark and, most recently, Stephanie Powers as the iconic Norma Desmond.

“I have so much respect for those actresses that I am kind of intimidated by it,” Crumb said. “But in the end, all you can ever do is your own work.”

Desmond is a celebrated silent-movie star who was thrown out of show business after the arrival of talking movies. Years later, she’s teased not only by the possibility of a comeback, but with the love of a younger man.

What makes it the role of a lifetime, Crumb said, is the Oedipal-scale tragedy that comes with it.

“People are drawn to a great collapse, and the further somebody goes, the more people want to be looking through the window at it,” she said. “That’s certainly the case with Norma. She was 16 when her career started to take off, and she lived in this very unreal, fairy-tale kind of world. And ultimately she comes to this place where she takes a great, great fall.”

The Webber stage musical is based on Billy Wilder’s 1950 film classic, which was groundbreaking for showing the dark underbelly of Hollywood — and for its cougar romance.

“Today, that’s a big joke,” Lansberry said. “But back then, many, many actors before Gloria Swanson turned the role of Norma down, because they didn’t want to be seen as an older, fading star.”

Not anymore. Crumb, a Tony-nominated singer (for “Anna Karenina”) and even more acclaimed for her “straight” acting, didn’t have to be asked to audition. She came in on her own. Lansberry was glad to have her.

“In our space, trying to fake age is pointless. It becomes silly,” he said. “I didn’t want a girl in her 30s — I needed a woman. That was important to me.”

Last summer, Crumb performed at the University of Colorado’s weeklong tribute to her Pulitzer Prize-winning father, who began his teaching career in Boulder in 1959.

Growing up Crumb, she said, was a wild and crazy ride.

“It was a wonderful place to be,” she said. “There were always strange sounds in the house, and we traveled all over the place and met all kinds of people.”

Though it was an itinerant childhood, Ann remembers Boulder as where she developed her lifelong love of wild horses. It was off one of them that she fell and “smashed my arm into particles,” she said, the first in a lifelong series of serious freak accidents.

“I’m really getting to be bionic,” she said with a laugh.

Fitting in was always tough, she said, but moving was always harder.

“I am not one to appreciate cheerleaders, but I was always moving, and so everywhere I went, I was having to adapt. And in Boulder, I made cheerleader, and my school made a big deal out of it. They bring you up on stage and give you a sweater. I was so excited. But when I got home, I remember my dad had the atlas out and he said, ‘Oh, Ann, look here — how would you like to move to Buffalo?’ And that was it for Boulder.”

Always surrounded by the most famous classical voices in the world, it never occurred to Ann to become a singer herself. “I was too afraid to open my mouth, so I didn’t sing,” she said. “I thought I was going to be a classical violinist.”

That changed when she got the jones to play Eva in Webber’s “Evita.”

As a composer, George finally teamed with his daughter on Ann’s project to create jazz treatments of Appalachian songs. George Crumb, who was born in West Virginia, contributed “Unto the Hills: A Cycle of Appalachian Songs,” for Ann to sing. That’s since become a part of George Crumb’s magnum opus: His “American Songbook” series, which includes American Indian and African-American music, is now the largest classical song cycle in history.

While more people may know Norma Desmond from the Carol Burnett TV parody than from the Wilder film, Lansberry says those who come to see Crumb in “Sunset Boulevard” might be surprised by the intense emotional journey she takes them on.

Just don’t ask her to say the most famous line ever uttered on a winding staircase.

“It’s too soon,” she said last week. “But I will tell you the other one: I am big — it’s the pictures that got small!”

John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com

“Sunset Boulevard”

Musical. Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd. Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Christopher Hampton. Starring Ann Crumb, Kevin Earley, Stephen Day and Jenny Gelwick. Opens Tuesday, through Oct. 10. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sundays, 1 p.m. Wednesdays. $47-$57. 720-898-7200 or

Our video interview with Ann Crumb

Weekend Best Bet: “Stories on Stage”

You may know Stories on Stage for its “Always on Sunday” series of themed short stories that are read aloud at the Denver Center’s Stage Theatre. But the program has expanded with “Out of the Box,” more daring storytelling forays that are presented on other days and at other venues. On Saturday, “Words and Music” will explore the world of jazz, with stories accompanied by live music at the Denver Civic Theatre. Robert Gossett of “The Closer” TV show will read “Albino Crow” by Chris Abani, and award-winning actor Leonard Barrett (PHAMALy’s “Beauty and the Beast”) will read “Body and Soul” by Wesley Brown. $25. 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. at 721 Santa Fe Drive, 303-494-0523 or .

Best Bet: Nonesuch’s “My First Time”

Time for some pillow talk(s). Nonesuch, a salon theater in Fort Collins, debuts “My First Time,” Ken Davenport’s provocative new comedy that’s about exactly what the title infers: It’s a theatrical look at that rawest state of the human condition — the first sexual experience. Drawn from more than 40,000 online submissions, the actors tell true stories that are by turns comic, sentimental, erotic, political, galling and heartrending. The audience will provide some of each evening’s stories through the form of a questionnaire. $20, with a dinner package from the Rustic Oven also available. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and 10 p.m. Saturdays at 216 Pine St., Fort Collins, 970-224-0444 or

This weekend’s other theater openings

“Aida” Elton John and Tim Rice’s contemporary musical take on the timeless bond between an enslaved Nubian princess and an Egyptian soldier. Through Nov. 20. Carousel Dinner Theatre, 3509 S. Mason St., Fort Collins, 970-225-2555 or

“Arsenic and Old Lace” Enduring comedy about two darling old ladies who have turned their cellar into a cemetery. Through Sept. 25. Longmont Theatre Company, 513 Main St., Longmont, 303-772-5200 or

“Art” Yasmina Reza’s ubiquitous Tony- winning best play about a friendship that’s tested when a man buys a white painting with a hefty price tag. Starring Chris Kendall, Jim Hunt and Josh Hartwell. Through Oct. 24. Miners Alley Playhouse, 1224 Washington St., Golden, or 303-935-3044.

“Brilliant Traces” An Alaskan man’s slumber is interrupted when a disheveled and bewildered young woman dressed in full bridal regalia bursts through the door of his remote cabin. Through Oct. 10. Presented by OpenStage at the Nonesuch Theater, 216 Pine St, Fort Collins, 970-221-6730 or

“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” Gordon is dead, but his cell phone lives on. When Jean, an empathetic museum worker, answers his ringing phone beside her in a caf茅, she is soon playing unwitting comforter and confessor to the man’s grieving friends and family. Before she knows it, Jean is ensnarled in the underbelly of the dead man’s bizarre life. By Sarah Ruhl (“Eurydice”). Through Oct. 16. Curious Theatre, 1080 Acoma St. 303-623-0524 or