As frantic riverboat passengers confront a bizarre murder, the realization sets in that it was the ship’s captain who killed the poor woman. By drowning her in lemonade.
It’s all good, ridiculous fun, of course, at the King Penny Radio show, an improvised stage comedy that runs the third Thursday of each month at .
That gilded, variety venue tucked underneath downtown Denver’s D&F Clocktower has hosted hundreds of burlesque, drag queen, and magic acts over the last two decades of its current ownership (it was formerly Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret ). But King Penny, which is celebrating its landmark , is one of the most successful ideas the Clocktower has seen in the 21st century, building a loyal audience and attracting newcomers with word-of-mouth raves and a 1940s-style radio format.
The concept gives loft to the on-the-fly punchlines and cheery, faux-sponsorships for razors and laundry detergent — all of them built off of pre-show audience suggestions.
Nearly a year after upgrading to the Clocktower Cabaret from a mix of Denver venues, King Penny is still gathering momentum among date-nighters, theater kids, Boomers who recall old-school radio tele-plays, and more — at least based on the capacity audience at a March performance.
It helps that all the players seem to be having the time of their lives, said show founder and artistic director Matt Zambrano, who often performs in King Penny between acting and directing gigs at the Arvada Center, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and companies outside Denver.
“When you see a King Penny show, you’re going to see the cast listening to one another maybe better than at any improv show you’ve seen,” he said. “Improvisers have to pick up on dramatic cues and play off each other, whereas a traditional radio show would have been written and scored out for them.”
“I encourage myself to play with different accents and registers in my voice, which is what makes it really fun for me,” said Libby Zambrano, who sings, hosts and plays the character of Rose Royce in the cast.
She met husband Matt while performing improv at The Impulse Theater in Denver in 2004, before moving to New York City with him in 2012 and jumping into the theater and improv scenes there. King Penny started about a year after they moved back to Denver in 2022, and it bears the marks of the highly competitive, high-pressure improv and comedy world of the East Coast.
Like the rest of the cast, Libby can switch from wacky physical comedy to silky-smooth voiceovers and elaborate character work in the space of a few seconds. It’s part “Saturday Night Live” and part “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” with a dash of noir, romance and adventure.
“The story doesn’t really exist on stage, even though you can watch and listen to us be goofy,” Libby said. “The story is actually in the audience’s mind.”
While the seats at Clocktower Cabaret are limited to 115, the crowded shows hint that the concept is less niche than it may seem. The half dozen, period-dressed actors on stage are joined by a bowtie-clad piano player and dedicated sound effects (or foley) artist at a table of whiz-bang noisemakers — splashing noises for an overboard passenger, horns for the boat, and dramatic stings that bookend scenes.
The audience supplies 100% of the subjects for both the show and the between-scene, old-style radio ads. And the players, sporting character names such as Fiona Fuggetaboutit, Cheese Gumway and Campbell Nüdlesoop, bring them home.
“Our audience appreciates having a choice that isn’t burlesque or drag or live music, because some people wouldn’t necessarily see that kind of show,” said Selene Arca, co-owner of the Clocktower Cabaret. “It’s a great option for audiences who don’t want a lot of adult content. Most people just want to go to a PG-13 movie.”
King Penny Radio Show, named after a hardware store in Astoria, New York, has grown quickly over its three years. It premiered at Chaos Bloom Theater and has since played at the Denver Savoy and Rise Comedy Theater, working its way into the heart of the local theater and improv scene through 2024’s Denver Fringe Festival, last year’s CityCast Denver Heyday Event, and Rise’s own Comedy Festival.
On June 20, they’ll make their debut at the capping their current 50-show run, courting new audiences, and setting the stage for future growth, which Zambrano said may include a podcast.
In person, the audience sips cocktails and witnesses top-notch side acts that cleanse the palate between improv blocks, with a mix of nationally touring stand-up, mimes, musicians and more. The main event allows them to tap into nostalgia for a time they likely never experienced. To help them, the cast isn’t afraid to take on tropes and stereotypes, filtering contemporary anxieties through snappy repartee and Mid-Atlantic accents straight out of a screwball classic like “His Girl Friday.”
“At one of my very first shows, someone suggested Tucker Carlson as a subject, which is an extremely modern reference,” said actor Tom Van Ness, who plays the suspenders-clad Cheese Gumway. “Now we pull 2 or 3 cards out to let us avoid some of those references and having to talk about what’s happening in the outside world. But sometimes we deal with it by saying, ‘Hey, it’s 1946 and we’ve beaten fascism!’ ”
It’s a tighter, higher rope to walk than it may first seem. As anachronisms constantly threaten to puncture the illusion, the cast stays wry, nimble and self-conscious in order to locate plot points and jokes that reinforce the golden-age radio setting, scribbling notes and introducing characters that propel them through ludicrous narrative arcs.
“Improv is typically ‘Show, don’t tell.’ Well, in this we’re supposed to be in a radio studio, so it’s very much ‘Tell, don’t show,’ ” said Jean Schuman, a 2025 cast addition who plays the elastic Flora De LaFauna. “It creates a secret with the audience over the people who are supposedly at home listening. Only you get to see this face, or that gesture, or this costume. Only you get to tell us what to do.”
