Just before the start of the venerable Heritage Square Music Hall’s latest comic offering, “Buffalo Bill & Annie Oakley,” an excited young first-timer asked what to expect.
“Not a history lesson, I can tell you that,” I said. Heritage Square isn’t a place to give you a boring old biography. It’s a place to eat chicken fingers, suck on helium balloons, sing along to some great tunes and watch some poor bald schmuck get mercilessly, hilariously picked on by Annie Dwyer, the scariest human hunter since Dick Cheney.
Then, they made me a liar. Because this one is pretty much straight out of Wikipedia. And just about as fun.
Luckily, the “Bill & Annie” story is only the first half of the evening’s entertainment. The second half is music, music, music.
When producer and star T.J. Mullin took over the Heritage Square Opera House in Golden in 1988, he expanded the age-old melodrama format to include other forms of silly, family-friendly entertainment, such as Westerns, mysteries and full-on musical revues.
But now that the “Loud” franchise has run its course — that’s the popular series of pop-music revues that ran for a decade — the Music Hall is struggling with mortality and modernity. How to remain relevant in a pop-culture landscape where to be old-fashioned is to be old hat?
It’s a question lots of theaters are asking. And the Music Hall is pondering all sorts of blood-infusing new programming ideas.
In the meantime, we have “Buffalo Bill & Annie Oakley,” which follows the Music Hall template in that it starts with a basic script and then lets a talented collection of veteran improvisational comedians like Alex Crawford and Rory Pierce make hay with it.
Now I’d rather spend an evening at Heritage Square than at just about any other theater in town, but “Bill & Annie” feels like it was mailed in . . . by the Pony Express.
Mullin is both Buffalo Bill and our narrator. And bless his genial heart, he talks too much, firing off tepid facts about Oakley’s life that aren’t all that interesting in fourth-period homeroom, much less at 8 o’clock on Saturday night. Not that there aren’t giddy comic tangents, but this one feels comparatively sedate.
So let’s skip ahead to the good part. For the first time, the Music Hall’s second-act “musical and comedy” revue is themed, appropriately enough, around country music. And while the Statler Brothers, Brooks & Dunn and Dolly Parton mark new territory for the Music Hall, it’s a perfect fit for its blue-collar, blue-jean clientele.
Mullin, Dwyer, Crawford, Pierce, A.K. Klimpke and Johnette Toye can’t much go wrong when they are singing, dancing and playing. The country format suits Toye’s voice especially well, evidenced on Parton’s “Jolene” and the Judds’ “Grandpa.” And whether the boys are singing the Four Seasons, as they often have, or the Oak Ridge Boys, as they do here, there’s nothing like hearing Mullin harmonizing with his buddies.
Country is an ideal genre for fiery ragtime piano man Randy Johnson, who moves effortlessly between keys, guitar and banjo. It all ends with a rousing takeoff on the Stevie Ray Vaughan hit that removes all doubt from the title, “If The House is Rockin’ . . .” It is.
Luckily for me, that aforementioned Music Hall newbie has a short memory because she left with a smile on her face and a spring in her step.
Now if we could just leave Buffalo Bill in his grave . . .
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Buffalo Bill & Annie Oakley” **1/2 (out of three stars)
Music, comedy and biography. Presented Heritage Square Music Hall, 18301 W. Colfax Ave., Golden. Through May 22. 2 hours, 5 minutes. 7 p.m. selected Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays (dinner 2 hours before). $27.50-$31 (show only); $35.50-$40.50 (with dinner). 303-279-7800 or
