Theater
No “Normal” musical
Opening Tuesday. A family’s terrifying trip. Only seven musicals have won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and the harrowing “Next to Normal” recently joined the list with its wrenching look at a loving family that, at first, seems like any other. We’re lured into witnessing the disintegration of a family that has battled the effects of bipolar disorder for two decades. This winner of three 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Score, surprised the skeptics who thought Broadway audiences would never embrace such an uncompromising stage journey. The touring production stars Alice Ripley, who also headed the Broadway production. Read our upcoming interview with her in Sunday’s Denver Post. Through Jan. 16 at the Denver Center’s Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Tickets $20-$95 (303-893-4100 or ). John Moore
All ages
Light that candle!
Tonight. Whiz. Bang! Gather up the crew and head downtown for Denver’s New Year’s Eve fireworks extravaganza. Two identical fireworks displays will light up the city — an early show at 9 p.m. for the kiddos and a midnight welcome to 2011. All sorts of street entertainers will walk the mall to add to the atmosphere. All RTD public transportation is free after 7 tonight, so hop a bus or light rail and forget about parking problems. The 16th Street Mall, downtown Denver. Free; more info: . Kathleen St. John
Give 2010 the boot
Tonight. Let ‘er buck. It’s a Colorado kind of party: First National Bank’s New Year’s Eve Extreme Rodeo, going on tonight at the Budweiser Events Center. The family-friendly show rings — or bucks — in the new year with an evening of rough-ridin’ competition. Cowboys challenge one another in four events: bareback riding, saddle-bronc riding, bull riding and (yikes) freestyle bullfighting. 7:30 tonight. Budweiser Events Center, 5290 Arena Circle, Loveland; 970-619-4100. Tickets are $14-$27 for adults, available at or at the door. Kids tickets are $8, including fees, if purchased at the box office. Visit for more information. Kathleen St. John
Torch song on snow
Tonight. Fire and ice. Experience a ski-town New Year’s in Breckenridge. The fun starts with a torchlight parade down the resort’s Peak 9, when skiers and ‘boarders zoom down the mountain with lit torches. In town, rock group Yamn puts on an all-ages holiday show with openers the Shook Twins. The concert will pause at 9 p.m. so guests can run outside and watch fireworks over the Ten Mile Range. Parade, 6 p.m.; concert, 8 p.m.; fireworks, 9 p.m. The parade is viewable from anywhere in town that Peak 9 is visible. Concert: Riverwalk Center, 150 W. Adams Ave., Breckenridge. Tickets are $25. Visit or call 970-547-3100 for more information. Kathleen St. John
Together for Kwanzaa
Saturday. Get dancin’. The Denver Kwanzaa Committee caps its week-long Kwanzaa celebration with a community kinara lighting at 6 p.m. at Zona’s, 26th and Welton streets, and The Big Dance from 5 to 10 p.m. at the Zion Senior Center, 5151 E. 33rd Ave. The Big Dance is a chance for committee members, supporters, sponsors and the community to enjoy dinner and entertainment in honor of the holiday’s seven principles: unity, determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. The admission price is a suggested donation of $5. For details, visit . Elana Ashanti Jefferson
Family fun
Bubbly (wrap)
Today. Kiddie countdown. Little ones get a New Year’s party all their own at the Children’s Museum of Denver’s “Noon Year’s Eve” bash. The plaza outside the museum turns into a mini-Times Square, complete with a sparkly ball drop; every hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., revelers can gather and count down to the drop. Sheets of bubble wrap everywhere simulate the sound of fireworks. Inside, there are art projects, performances and story times. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today. Children’s Museum of Denver, 2121 Children’s Museum Drive; 303-433-7444. Admission is $8 for guests ages 2 to 59, $6 for 1-year-olds and seniors age 60 and older. Visit to learn more. Kathleen St. John
Big, big river
Through Sunday. Fishy finale. It’s the final weekend to take a dip in the Amazon at “Amazon Voyage: Vicious Fishes and Other Riches” at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Learn all about the Amazon’s diverse ecosystem, including plenty of tidbits about the South American river’s more ferocious denizens: piranhas, anacondas, electric eels and more. See how researchers do their work in the field and explore river preservation. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd.; 303-370-6000. Admission is $11 for adults, $6 for students and seniors. Visit for more information. Kathleen St. John
Morning after
To-mahhh-to
Saturday. Brunch. Up the ante on your New Year’s Day hair-of-the-dog meal at Lola, where the house bloody marys (and bloody marias, made with tequila) are among Denver’s best. A special, one-day-only menu features enchiladas with asadero cheese and butternut squash, chicken and waffles (with chorizo gravy) and pineapple pancakes. By the time your plate’s clean, that hangover will be nothing but a bad memory. 1575 Boulder St., Denver, 720-570-8686. Tucker Shaw
Film
Pushing the envelope
Starting Wednesday.Film series. Auteur! Auteur! Fresh off its series featuring the works of Spanish great Pedro Almodovar, the Thin Man Tavern goes even more eclectic with “Eight Nights With Independent Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch,” above. Things kick off with one of the harbingers of the 1990s indie-film wave, “Stranger Than Paradise” (1984). The series runs Wednesdays through February. Jan. 5 through Feb. 23. 8 p.m., the Ubisububi Room at the Thin Man Tavern, 2015 17th Ave. Free with food or beverage purchase. 303-320-7814 or . Lisa Kennedy
Visit Gardens’ cheery, citrus-tinged Orangery
It’s time to forget the sugarplums. Indulge your senses, instead, at the new Orangery at Denver Botanic Gardens.
Take in the beauty and fragrance of winter-defying plants ranging from grapefruit to gardenia in this cheery new expansion of the gardens’ iconic greenhouse.
The Orangery, a glassy and classy horticultural corridor, is the latest — and perhaps finest — fruit borne of the gardens’ capital campaign.
“Of all the new construction, this is my favorite spot,” said Sarada Krishnan, the gardens’ director of horticulture.
Panayoti Kelaides, a senior plantsman who recently celebrated his 30th year with the gardens, seconded that. “I love the Orangery,” he said. “Who doesn’t?”
Orangeries originally blossomed in Renaissance Italian gardens. Developments in glass-making technology allowed the manufacturing of ample expanses of glass. The spaces the glass enclosed were in that era heated with stoves or open fires to keeo tender, exotic plants warm over cold Northern European winters. Orangeries grew as a prestigious trend among the wealthy.
“To my mind, the term suggests the enormous, collonaded, neoclassical structures one sees at (Great Britain’s) Kew or Edinburgh . . . big enough for mature oranges to stretch up,” Kelaidis said.
“I see ours as more of an arcade. It provides a wonderful transition between steamy greenhouses and the out of doors.”
The Denver orangery is rooted in a plan to make greenhouse operations more transparent. A long and narrow space, its form follows function.
“During design of the greenhouses, we were wondering how to make visitor-interface space visually attractive, rather than have the working greenhouses right in the face of visitors,” Krishnan said.
“We came up with the idea of the orangery separating the greenhouses from the gardens, creating an attractive interface that allows visitors to look into the greenhouses and see what it takes, behind the scenes, to have diverse botanic gardens.”
The orangery’s series of garage-like doors will remain open during temperate times of the year. The indoor-outdoor space will allow citrus trees to be wheeled outdoors onto a terrace in summer to soak up the full sun that the plants relish.
The defining elements in an orangery, of course, are oranges. The orangery’s citrus collection also includes large containerized trees bearing grapefruits, limes, lemons, tangerines, blood oranges, tangelos and finger citron.
History’s most ambitious orangery belonged to France’s King Louis XIV, whose Versailles gardens included 3,000 orange trees.
So Krishnan gathered images of traditional Versailles planter boxes to inspire metalworker Jesse Groff with The Roofing Company, located in Granby.
Groff crafted the customized planter boxes out of powder-coated steel and painted white oak slats. He created 20 square planters that contain permanent installations. The garden’s horticulturalists will freshen up the twelve rectangular planters seasonally — six times in 2011 alone, Krishnan said.
“We are in the process of acquiring a camellia collection, which, when blooming, will be featured in these square planters,” Krishan said.
Aromatherapists associate citrus scents with joy. In the orangery, benches offer strollers the opportunity to sit and catch their breath. With a touch of appealing humidity in the air, the perfume of flowers, and the assortment of colors, the orangery can help melt the midwinter blues.
Colleen Smith’s first novel, “Glass Halo,” was a finalist for the 2010 Sante Fe Literary Prize.
