“When 9/11 hit, I went over to my pizza store and it was loaded with nobody but New Yorkers,” Ficke recalled. “All they wanted to do was tell their story, and hear other stories, and be around each other for emotional support. So later that night I said, ‘We have to do something. We’ve got to help.'”

Ficke, the former Denver Nuggets assistant and NBA scout, is a Long Beach, New York, native who founded in 1995. Over the last three-plus decades, Ficke’s joint has emerged as more than just a pizza parlor. The restaurant at Holly Street and County Line Road is a community staple with a sports motif and basketball roots reflective of Ficke’s background in athletics.

Ficke’s philanthropic epiphany that night in his restaurant led to his annual 9/11 Day of Giving, where Big Bill’s New York Pizza donates all its proceeds in remembrance of the September 11 attacks.

He hosted the first fundraiser the week following the attacks for a fireman’s fund in New York. Another fundraiser was held the next week to support the families of , which had while attempting to rescue people trapped inside the South Tower that day.

Instead of customers paying their check to the restaurant, their money for their bill — plus however much more they want to tack on as an additional donation — goes to Ficke’s fundraiser, which has become a hallmark of the restaurant. The 9/11 Day of Giving raised about $70,000 that first year, and has raised about $3 million in the 25 years since.

In the early years of the campaign following 2001, the money raised went to an orphanage in Denver. Then in 2008, Ficke began sending the fundraiser’s money to Colorado entities that support cancer research, treatment and support, as part of the that honors his late wife who died of the disease in ’07.

While the beneficiaries of the fundraising changed, the focus remains the same: To honor the lives lost on one of the most influential and somber days in American history. Each of the last two years, the fundraiser drummed up about $170,000 in donations. Ficke hopes to reach the $200,000 mark this year.

“When you come in to Big Bill’s on 9/11, you’re really seeing the spirit of 9/12,” Ficke said. “Which was our country coming together.

“I truly believe life is about helping others. That’s what we’re put here for. And in my small way, I love doing this. Everyone who walks in our door today is here to honor the dead of 9/11 and to help other people. We don’t see enough of (the latter) in life.”

A parlor frequented by local pros

Ficke played college basketball , served in the Air Force and made his first notable mark in the Denver business world as the owner of Fleet Feet, an athletic shoe store he ran for two decades while getting into coaching.

When the basketball player/coach-turned-businessman opened his pizza parlor in 1995, he did so without knowing anything about cooking or running a restaurant.

“I went home and told JoAnn I was opening a pizza place, and she beat the crap out of me because she grew up in the restaurant business,” Ficke recalled with a laugh. “They had a restaurant up in the Catskills. It was in their family for 100 years. And she just said, ‘You have no idea what you’re getting into.’ Which was true.

“I didn’t know how to boil water. But I started to work at my buddy’s pizza place, where he taught me how to cut lettuce, how to cut a tomato, how to make a salad, how to toss the pizzas. I did that for about six months before opening up my own place.”

From those humble beginnings, Big Bill’s New York Pizza became an iconic parlor with dozens of autographed jerseys and photos adorning the walls, all of which Ficke acquired through personal connections. The restaurant has become a favorite within the circles of Colorado professional sports, frequented by big names of the past and present.

It was a common eating spot for former Nuggets coach Michael Malone during his tenure that culminated in an NBA championship. Other former Nuggets coaches George Karl, Dan Issel and Bill Hanzlik are also frequent visitors there, as was the late Doug Moe, for whom Ficke served as a Nuggets’ assistant in the 1980s. Ficke hosted a celebration of life for Moe, who died in February, at the restaurant

In the past, Ficke has also held a Coaches vs Cancer event that’s drawn in basketball coaches from across the state, including longtime CU boss Tad Boyle. And every couple of months for the past half-decade or so, Ficke hosts former American Basketball Association players who live in the area for a luncheon.

“It’s a great time for them to sit around and lie to each other about how great they were,” Ficke cracked.

Beyond the basketball coaching realm, notable Colorado athletes/coaches such as Jimmer Fredette, Joe Sakic, Gary Kubiak, Chris Harris Jr., Mark Schlereth, Emmanuel Sanders and Clint Hurdle, among many others, have repeatedly made their way to Big Bill’s New York Pizza, often with their families in tow.

It’s not uncommon for celebrities to stroll in, too, like the time actor Denzel Washington came by for a slice. And the party room features hundreds of framed photographs of Ficke with famous people from all walks of life, many of whom he met at golf tournaments and dinners as a president and board member for the , a California non-profit dedicated to fighting cancer.

Growing up in that sort of environment at the confluence of sports, pop culture and pizza is what propelled Ficke’s son, Dan Ficke, into a career in coaching. Dan is currently the head basketball coach

“When I was younger and then also early in my coaching career, like when I was an assistant at DU, I loved how (the Coaches vs Cancer event) would have college staffs from all over the state coming to the restaurant to have fellowship and get to be with each other outside of that competitive environment,” Dan Ficke said. “I got to be a fly on the wall in those rooms and for those conversations.

“It was the same thing when my dad’s friends would come by when they’d come into town — guys like (NBA coach) Larry Brown or (longtime Kansas coach) Bill Self. I got to be a part of that world as a kid, and it had a huge influence on me.”

The ‘Cheers of Pizza’

If you walk into Big Bill’s New York Pizza on a weekday at lunchtime, you’ll likely see Big Bill Ficke sitting at the “Doug Moe Table” in the corner of his restaurant, holding court over a pie with his closest pals.

“He always has four, five, six of his friends there and I don’t think they’ve ever paid for a meal that they’ve eaten,” Issel said.

It’s that sort of camaraderie that has kept Ficke, 83, going all these years. And all the famous faces that walk through the restaurant’s doors aside, Ficke still gets goosebumps thinking about the ripple effects of 9/11 and his visit to New York City six months after the attacks.

During that trip, Ficke spent time raking through the rubble at Ground Zero, and then later also stood in as part of an impromptu honor guard as an ambulance drove away with the remains of a victim that had been found. Ficke says those moments are still “two of the greatest days of my life,” and his memories of seeing the devastation up close continue to fuel his desire to honor 9/11 victims from afar.

On Friday at lunchtime, Big Bill’s Pizza was already packed with patrons as Ficke and his staff settled in for a long day of service. Each year for the fundraiser, Ficke gets to the restaurant at 6 a.m. to prepare for his busiest day of the year; the doors open around 9 a.m. and don’t close “until the last person leaves.” Many of the restaurant’s employees, who all wore commemorative 9/11 25th anniversary shirts, donate part of their salaries from the day.

The waiting area overflowed with patrons, and a line stretched out the restaurant’s front door, wrapping around the sidewalk and spilling into the asphalt of the parking lot. While Dan Ficke hustled around taking drink orders, a throwback to his college days working at the parlor, another line extended back from the to-go counter. Behind that counter is a mural of the New York skyline painted on the upper wall, with a heart and a 9/11 with the words “Never Forget.”

Ficke sat in the corner of the restaurant, behind the “Doug Moe Table” and adjacent to one of the several white donation buckets perched on chairs. A stream of customers went up and shook his hand, with many dropping donation envelopes into the bucket as they did so.

Throughout the day and evening, Ficke filtered from table to table, sprinkling a personal touch that not only made the restaurant a longtime success, but also cultivated an intensely loyal customer base that is eager to help the 6-foot-6 former forward raise six-figure donations for cancer research in a single day each year.

Hanzlik, who recalls bringing his young children into Big Bill’s New York Pizza and Ficke dropping a big ball of dough on the table to keep the youngsters entertained, notes that Ficke is “a master of connecting with people.”

“I always make sure I get around to the tables, talk to people, get to know them over time,” Ficke said. “Like developing relationships with coaches and players (in my basketball career), I see it as an important part of what I do here. It’s why the community ordered so many takeout pizzas during COVID (to keep us in business). It’s why they are so supportive of the 9/11 Day of Giving.

“It’s why we call Big Bill’s the ‘Cheers of Pizza.'”

On Friday, a cross made from the steel of the World Trade Center was on display in the restaurant. The piece is loaned to Ficke by a diehard customer for each 9/11 Day of Giving. Also on display was a firefighter helmet from Squad 41, which Ficke obtained during his trip to New York the year after the attacks.

Ficke hopes those two pieces serve as tangible reminders of the anguish of the day, but also of the resilience that followed. And even as he enters his mid-80s, he hopes he still has a couple of decades ahead to continue owning the restaurant and overseeing the charitable day that’s become a central part of his life ethos.

Whatever the future holds, his old hoops buddies say Ficke’s legacy has transcended both basketball and business.

“Pizza places come and go, but not this one,” Issel said. “And that’s because of the heart that Ficke has for his community.”

This year marks the 18th annual stair climb to honor 343 FDNY firefighters and nearly 3000 people killed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Each participant climbed the equivalent of the 110 stories of the World Trade Center.

On 9/11, I was working in Lower Manhattan, about a half mile south of the towers. These are my memories of that day.

It started as a beautiful, sunny morning. A coworker came by and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We gathered around a TV and watched as the second plane hit. I walked to the north side of our building and saw a giant hole in the South Tower with flames pouring out. We were told to evacuate our building and wait across the street until it was safe to return.

When the first tower collapsed, we heard it but could not see it because other buildings were in the way. Suddenly, a crowd of people came running down the narrow street, followed by a large cloud of white dust that quickly engulfed us. We walked up a ramp onto the FDR Drive and headed towards the Brooklyn Bridge. As we entered the pedestrian path in the middle of the bridge, the second tower came down, covering us with another cloud of dust.

I’ll never forget seeing the first responders on the roadways on either side of the bridge, racing towards chaos that we had just escaped from. I caught the LIRR in Brooklyn and finally made it home.

I went back to work the following Monday. There were hundreds of flyers posted around downtown with pictures of missing people. The smell of smoke lingered for several weeks.

John Robb, Littleton

Twenty-five years ago, at 5:46 am, most Arizonans were still in bed during the terrorists’ attacks on 9/11, 2001. I, on the other hand, have always been an early riser. I arrived at my office at 5:20 a.m. Twenty-some minutes later, as I poured myself a second cup of coffee in the break room, my boss interrupted me and told me about a televised newscast about a plane that had just crashed into the Twin Towers. We both went back to his office, and for the next two hours we watched in horror as the events unfolded.

Four commercial airliners were hijacked, killing 2,977 people, excluding the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks. Approximately 1,100 victims remain unidentified. Eight children were killed, and more than 3,051 children lost their parents due to the horrific attack.

I can’t be at the nation’s capital or at the location where the Twin Towers once stood, at 5:46 a.m. this Friday, I am going to honk my horn four times (once for each airliner), pausing two seconds (in honor of the Twin Towers) between each blast of my horn. I’m certain that I have neighbors who may not take too kindly to my recognition of the event, but they will have to get over it. Wouldn’t it be great if the entire nation would get on board with the idea?

Douglas Wall, Dewey, AZ

Re: “Sept. 11 hasn’t yet found its meaning,” September 6, opinion

Steven Simon has found a way, in my opinion, to make something fairly simple, complicated. In his lengthy analysis of the 25-year aftermath of Sept. 11, he professes that we have yet to see the meaning of what happened that day.

Here is what Sept. 11 means to me, and I would venture to say most Americans: Sept. 11 was a terrorist attack with the objective of murdering as many Americans as possible, while also destroying American cultural icons in the process. The attack was based on a hatred of America and its way of life.

Unfortunately, this hatred is evident in many parts of the world 25 years later, now most obviously in Iran.

I would hope that we can experience Sept. 11 this year as a commemoration of the tragedy and leave consideration of the host of other world events enumerated by Simon for another day.

Karen Libby, Denver

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But many of the pieces that remained stateside — nearly 2,000 of them — have gradually made their way to all 50 states to be put on display as part of solemn memorials, including several installed in Colorado. Some steel made its way across the world to serve as part of overseas memorials, to places as far-flung as New Zealand, Italy and Canada, according to a new book about the fate of the steel that came crashing down.

On Friday’s anniversary, the broken and shattered strands of steel stand as reminders of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, the day that 19 Islamic radicals hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Virginia and a field in Pennsylvania — the last one occurring after passengers and crew tried to rush the cockpit.

Nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the terrorists’ actions that day, though few bodies were recovered because of the extraordinarily violent impacts and the ferocious fires the commandeered planes caused.

“The agony of the steel — the twisting — is a metaphor for the people who died that day,” Max Holleran told The Denver Post this month. “Bringing this steel to all parts of the country gives communities closure — a kind of burial.”

He and his brother Sam, both of whom spent a significant chunk of their childhoods in Boulder, wrote the which tells the story of what happened to the tons of steel that once supported the nearly 10 million square feet of floor space the towers contained.

Around a dozen pieces of gnarled metal ended up in memorials in Colorado, including at fire stations in and Denver and at sites in Grand Junction, Colorado Springs, Broomfield and Pueblo.

With few burials possible following the attacks, “alternative death rites” were needed to memorialize the tragedy of that day, the Holleran brothers write in their book, with “proxy funerals and mourning rituals … performed not on bodies but on an architectural component: structural steel.”

That structural steel holds a special place in the heart of 84-year-old Don Addy. Addy served as president of the National Homeland Defense Foundation, a now-defunct Defense Department program that supported military personnel and their families.

He is responsible for bringing a half-dozen pieces of World Trade Center steel to Colorado Springs, most of which went to the military bases that give the city so much of its identity. Standing under a large, mangled I-beam memorial at Fort Carson’s Gate 1 this week, Addy thought back to the countless 9/11 ceremonies he had attended and spoken at.

“If you look at that, you can’t possibly misunderstand the power of the destruction and damage caused by these buildings’ collapse,” he said, pointing to the contorted 17-foot-long beam. “That’s the way I brought it in.”

As years have passed, the ceremonies honoring those who died on 9/11 — and in the wars that were launched in response to the attacks — have evolved, Addy said, as those alive on the day have become fewer. In fact, his search for steel pieces in New York in 2010 was prompted by a colonel at Fort Carson.

The colonel told him a memorial could help his young soldiers, who were just 10 or so years old in 2001, better understand the day’s significance.

“Why are we in these wars? Why are we doing this?” Addy said, pointing up to the twisted steel monument. “Because of that.”

Now, 16 years after the memorials were unveiled, that generational disconnection is even more pronounced, with now either too young to remember 9/11 or not yet born when it happened. That has created fertile ground for new, and often pernicious, narratives to form around that day, Addy said.

That includes comments from Colorado Democratic House candidate Melat Kiros, who is heavily favored to represent Denver in Congress starting in January. The democratic socialist, who was a young child on 9/11, was sharply criticized in recent months after saying a comment that U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, whom Kiros had challenged in the Democratic primary, said her. Kiros beat DeGette by double digits in the June 30 primary.

Addy feels comments like Kiros’ are a rewriting of history that shifts blame from the terrorists who carried out the attacks to the country that was attacked.

“I’m very worried about the rhetoric that has popped up around that day,” Addy said. “It’s propaganda.”

Highest ‘steel-to-citizen’ ratio

Colorado Springs is cited in “Scattered Steel” as the city with “one of the country’s highest steel-to-citizen ratios” when it comes to World Trade Center remnants.

Memorials can be found at Fort Carson, Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the campus of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

“In a place where so many people were lost in the War on Terror, it becomes a way of talking about their sacrifice and of rationalizing these wars that were not going very well,” Holleran said of the country’s extended conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq following 9/11.

Most of the memorials in Colorado Springs are on base, behind military checkpoints, but the ones at Fort Carson and on the CU campus are accessible to the public. The memorial at Fort Carson sits just feet from a tribute to soldiers from the base killed during the wars in the Middle East over the last quarter-century.

“In the years since 9/11, steel has become the de facto language of memorialization, and the placement of hundreds of salvaged steel beams in local memorials has spread the grief of the attacks to every U.S. state,” the Hollerans write in their book. “These scattered memorials are relics of a new kind, diffusing the national grieving process.”

The steel relic mounted on three beams at Fort Carson’s Gate 1 was brought from a hangar at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2010 on a flatbed truck driven by a father-and-son team and paid for by the then-Coors Brewing Company, Addy said.

The steel had been stored at the airport, “and, for several years, (was) largely forgotten about,” the Hollerans write.

“People want to touch it,” Addy said, looking up at the beam this week. “This is where people died.”

There is no better place in the city than the CU campus to provide the tactile connection that so many seem to want when they come across a piece of 9/11 steel, Addy said. A small team of students in the school’s College of Engineering and Applied Science spent the better part of a year designing and building a large memorial for Cheyenne Mountain.

They made a smaller version, complete with a globe partially shrouding a piece of World Trade Center steel, for the CU campus. It was dedicated on Sept. 12, 2011 — one day after the 10th anniversary.

The steel inside the globe is rusted and looks rough — and that’s on purpose, said Peter Gorder, the engineering department’s chair. He oversaw the students’ work on the memorials.

“We wanted it to look like it looked when it was dropped off on our front step,” he said. “And the globe concept reflected that this was a world-changing event.”

Gorder, 63, was in his second year as a professor at CU when 9/11 happened. His son was watching SpongeBob SquarePants on the kitchen TV that Tuesday morning when his wife told him to switch the channel. He saw a plane crash into the second tower.

“It was a very meaningful event in my life,” he said of 9/11.

What Gorder remembers most about the process behind the fashioning of the memorials was the need people had to touch the steel while it sat in the department’s machine shop.

“We had people coming from all over campus to put their hands on that beam,” he said. “People just wanted to be in its presence.”

In “Scattered Steel,” Gorder said that 15 years after the memorial was put in place at the top of an outdoor staircase between two engineering buildings, hundreds of people a day walk by it — but they pay it little attention.

“Which is, I don’t know, maybe not unexpected, but kind of sad,” he told the authors.

That was the case for Jacob Biles, a 19-year-old student at the university now. He said he passed the memorial half a dozen times a week but had no idea what it represented — that is, until his parents visited him on campus and told him what it was.

“It should be something people think about,” he said this week. “It’s still affecting us to this day.”

A few minutes later, senior Clara Aziz walked past the steel-in-globe sculpture. Until that moment, the 22-year-old had no idea what it was.

“I just thought it was a metal sculpture of the globe,” she said. “I guess it doesn’t affect me as much as someone who was alive at the time (9/11 happened).”

‘Never forget’

United Airlines Captain Miles Morgan, who is managing director of flight training for the airline, said he oversees young pilots who weren’t alive when 9/11 happened.

That’s why unveiling a memorial made of 9/11 steel — Colorado’s latest — in a ceremony Friday at United’s flight training center in Denver is important to him. It comprises two steel beams, each measuring 9 feet and 11 inches, that represent the World Trade Center towers that once dominated the skyline of Lower Manhattan, he said.

Eighteen United employees died in the attacks, he said.

For Morgan, it’s personal. Over his 31 years as a United pilot, he said he flew both of the United jets that were deliberately crashed that day 25 years ago, one into a World Trade Center skyscraper and the other into the field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

“It was a horrifying thing to watch,” he said. “That’s why the monument we’re dedicating Friday is so special to us.”

Max Holleran, now 41, was a student at Boulder High School on 9/11. He watched the day unfold on a TV in the school’s library.

He hopes that at some point people can come to terms with the solemnity of the day, and honor those who died that day, while at the same time leaving space for discussions about U.S. foreign policy and religious extremism.

At Colorado’s most extensive and comprehensive 9/11 memorial in Broomfield, all was quiet at midday on a workday this week, as the collection of bronze placards mounted to stone bases told the story of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

Tucked between two pieces of flagstone, below a sculpture of a fireman resting his head on a beam — the bottom of which was buttressed by a piece of steel from ground zero — was a handwritten note written in pink magic marker. Below it sat a solitary red rose.

“Keep America free from all enemies foreign and domestic,” the note said.

And then, in all capital letters on the back: “NEVER FORGET.”

Denver emergency management officials published a notice about the flyover earlier this week to let residents know the event may be “highly visible from parts of Denver, noticeable by sounds, more noticeable than a typical aircraft event, (and) brief, but surprising if you aren’t aware it’s planned.”

“There is no emergency. This is a planned memorial event,” city officials said in the alert. “The flyover is intended to honor and remember the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001.”

The flyover was set to start at 8:15 a.m., when a United Boeing 777 would leave Denver International Airport and be joined by a 120th Fighter Squadron from Buckley Space Force Base before flying over United flight training center in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood.

United officials said the company had planned the flyover, “a meaningful gesture to honor the memory of those lost within the pilot community, but will suspend those plans due to concerns in the community and instead carry on with the other events of the day.”

The company did not elaborate on those concerns and a United spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Colorado National Guard officials did not respond to a request for comment about the 120th Fighter Squadron’s participation. Military officials , including F-16s, to respond to the attacks the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

City leaders decided to notify Denverites about the flyover after United Airlines informed Denver officials about the plan, said Jon Ewing, spokesperson for Mayor Mike Johnston’s office.

“We understood it as a means of honoring the victims of 9/11, first responders, pilots and the aviation community, but we also understood there could be significant concerns or surprise from the public,” Ewing said.

The community response to the planned flyover was mixed, with some who thought it was a good idea to honor victims while others said it would be concerning, Ewing said. Ultimately, the decision to cancel was United’s, he added.

“Whether you think this was a good idea or a bad idea, I don’t think you can deny that OEM got the word out,” he said.

United’s memorial service commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks is not open to the public, airline officials said.

United, American Airlines and other airport employees will pause for a moment of silence at DIA at 9:03 a.m., which is when hit the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the north tower 17 minutes earlier, and Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m.

The airline on Friday is unveiling a monument at the Denver flight training center made from steel recovered from the World Trade Center to honor crew from Flight 175 and , which terrorists had planned to use to attack Washington, D.C., until passengers and crew overpowered them and crashed the plane in a field in Pennsylvania instead.

Through Nov. 8. Now a tradition, the surreal, lit-from-within sculptures of Bright Nights are back at Four Mile Historic Park with another round of gorgeous lantern sculptures that in some cases take 200 hours and 25 people to complete. “This year travels through space and time,” with oversized insects, flowers, sharks, and more.

Shows run 7 p.m.-11 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays, through Nov. 8, at 715 S. Forest St. in Denver. Tickets: $28 online, $30 walk-up; $21-$23 for kids. Food trucks will be on site. Call 720-865-0800 or visit for more.

Union Station + Latin America

Sunday. The plaza around Denver Union Station is about to get even more lively on Sunday, Sept. 6, with “Ritmo & Raíces: A Latin American Heritage Celebration.” The event — Spanish for “rhythm and roots” — kicks off Hispanic Heritage Month with a free, family-friendly celebration featuring live music, traditional and contemporary dance, food, and history, organizers said.

The 11 a.m.-3 p.m. event, hosted with the Mexican Cultural Center, takes place on Wynkoop Plaza and the Terminal Bar patio, and also offers free face painting, bilingual tours of Denver Union Station, community-partner craft stations and Latin American-inspired food and beverage specials throughout. (Guests 21+ can also hit up the Terminal Bar Patio for a donation-based tequila tasting experience.) 1701 Wynkoop St. in Denver.

Remembering 9/11

Thursday. Aurora’s Colorado Freedom Memorial will, on Thursday, Sept. 10, mark a solemn occasion with “On the Eve of Change, Remembering the 25th Anniversary of 9/11.” The free, public program will feature “stories about the night before 9/11 in Denver as well as Jason Dahl, the United Airlines pilot of Flight 93, that crashed in Shanksville, Pa.,” organizers wrote. “There will be a civilian flyover, a static display of photos from 9/11 and a piece of steel from the North Tower of the World Trade Center,” plus firefighters and service members reading the names of those who were lost.

The Colorado Freedom Memorial is located at Memorial Park, at 756 Telluride St. in Aurora. The event will begin at 5:30 p.m., and seating is limited so attendees are encouraged to bring chairs. Visit for more details.

Symphonic folk

Sunday-Monday. When Boulder’s Gregory Alan Isakov takes the stage, there’s always the potential for magic. The longtime singer-songwriter, who sells out major venues internationally, is back in Colorado for a pair of shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and he’s brought Colorado Symphony back with him.

The artists’ years-long, live collaborations have only gotten better since they started more than a decade ago, so expect a chemistry you wouldn’t often find with most pop-symphony sets (folkie or otherwise). 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6, and Monday, Sept. 7, at 18300 W. Alameda Parkway in Morrison. Both shows still have resale tickets available, starting around $150-$200, via .

The venue cancellations, at least two of them said to be based on security concerns with hosting the event featuring Hasan Piker, prompted outrage by the candidates. The episode also underlined broader questions as Democrats from different factions of the party debate whether figures like Piker draw in voters or risk alienating them.

Piker, a Twitch streamer who has 3 million followers on the video livestreaming platform, has tapped a young, anti-establishment audience that the Democratic Party has struggled to bring into its fold.

He’s also been the subject of sharp criticism from prominent political groups, including , for some of his most controversial comments. Those include a 2019 comment because of its foreign interventions and Piker saying he would “ every single time.” Piker has apologized for the comment about 9/11.

His provocative comments have made Piker a . But some Denver Democrats, including Melat Kiros, who is running in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District primary against U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, and state Sen. Julie Gonzales, who is running against U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, have leaned into the figure’s sphere of influence. Both share progressive political views with Piker, and Kiros identifies as a democratic socialist.

“He has a large audience of really engaged voters,” said Annie Orloff, a spokesperson for Kiros’ campaign. “I think people like to throw a lot of shade at him, but he’s really supporting these candidates and helping them.”

Orloff said the two times have overlapped with some of the campaign’s best fundraising periods.

Gonzales, who wasn’t available for an interview for this story, to discuss her platform.

Both Kiros and Gonzales were set to campaign with Piker at a rally in Denver on Sunday. The event changed locations three times after venues canceled.

The original location, ReelWorks in the Five Points, canceled the event a week ahead of time after stating that its HVAC system wasn’t working, according to an email provided to The Denver Post. According to Kiros’ campaign, the venue hosted other events that same weekend.

A Reelworks representative didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Then a backup location, the Ogden Theatre on East Colfax Avenue, pulled out two days ahead of time, citing “significant pressure and concern from the local community.”

“This decision was made purely from a security viewpoint, there was no political viewpoint or political decision around it,” Dennis Dennehy, a spokesperson for theater operator AEG Presents, told The Post.

Organizers then turned to the Stanley Marketplace in Aurora. But it also canceled the event, citing security concerns related to Piker’s appearance, according to the Kiros campaign. The Stanley Marketplace didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Piker has spoken at Yale University and the University of Chicago. He was also set to speak at South by Southwest in London until he was banned from entering the country because officials believed his presence “may not be conducive to the public good,” .

After the Kiros campaign ultimately moved the event to the steps of the Colorado Capitol on Sunday, drawing hundreds of people, Piker and Gonzales both decided not to attend. Instead, during the event and later hosted Kiros and two candidates from other states who were in town for the event on his channel.

Kiros’ campaign alleged, without evidence, that DeGette had applied pressure to compel the venues to cancel the event.

“I think it is hard to make a distinction from the folks who fund people like Diana DeGette and the people who own these venues,” Orloff said.

AEG Presents is part of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, founded by Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz, a Republican.

DeGette’s campaign denied the allegations, saying the claim was made up.

“I can’t believe I have to say this, but it’s an absolute lie that I or my campaign had anything to do with her venue cancellations,” DeGette said in a statement. “She’s free to make her own mistakes, and campaigning with an infamous anti-semite who says he ‘hates this country’ and thinks we ‘deserved 9/11’ is a big one.”

Democrats in other states who have appeared alongside Piker have seen a mix of harsh criticism and a boost of engagement with their campaigns.

Democratic left figures like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders have also all appeared on his channel.

Other Democratic candidates — like Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser, who are running for governor of Colorado — haven’t appeared on Piker’s channel. Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Andrew Nicla said the party had no comment on candidates appearing on shows like Piker’s.

Colorado’s June 30 primary and other states’ party contests may serve as a litmus test of sorts for candidates who welcome that ideological corner of the internet.

When Politico reported that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was appearing alongside Piker in April, his opponents heaped criticism on him. But in recent polls, he in the three-way race.

Earlier this month, as primary election results rolled in, Piker celebrated the victory of a congressional candidate he had campaigned for in New Jersey, . But that same night, in California, three candidates whom Piker also supported lost their primary races.

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The editor and publisher of the newspaper in rural northwest Nebraska looked in amazement at the resume for her newest reporter, A. Marie Hamilton: multiple degrees from a well-known journalism school. Seventeen years working for the . Several statewide awards for her coverage.

“We were all super excited,” Perez said of the April 2023 hire. “Like, wow, why would someone with that much experience, why would she be here?”

Slowly, though, Perez realized that not everything was as it seemed. Hamilton had a problem with authority, Perez said, and ruffled feathers with the town’s police chief and school board. She appeared to sometimes sleep in the office. Nobody ever met her husband, who she said was a district manager for a local cable company.

“We heard so many different things,” Perez said. “It turned out to be this melange of (expletive).”

In fact, A. Marie Hamilton wasn’t even her real name. Those bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University? Never attained. No evidence exists that she worked for 17 years at USA Today-affiliated newspapers.

“In seeking truth, you have to get both sides of the story,” Hamilton said in her at the Nebraska paper, citing the quote .

This is the other side, a story rife with inconsistencies, false claims and, now, a slew of felony charges that could land her in prison for decades. A. Marie Hamilton is actually April Marie Morganroth. Before that, she was April McClellan. At various points in her career, the journalist reinvented herself to start fresh in new states, including Colorado.

Wyoming prosecutors last month charged Morganroth, 40, with 20 felonies in two separate criminal cases in which she is alleged to have falsified documents and lied under oath — charges that relate to her alleged acts as a private citizen, not as a journalist. But Morganroth’s previous stops in at least four states and numerous publications were also marked by falsehoods and fabrications about her background, The Denver Post found.

She was fired from a Boulder newspaper for inventing quotations and misrepresenting the stories of sources she had interviewed about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In Arizona, she was convicted of forgery after authorities said she falsified documents as she sought housing. In Wyoming, she claimed to be a muckraking reporter with a Ph.D. who was also in law school. She never sought either degree.

Now she’s facing decades in prison, leaving the communities she covered wondering: Who was April Morganroth?

“There are people who are liars, people who are chronic liars, and then there is mental illness,” Perez said.

Two journalism ethics experts told The Post that while there have been high-profile examples of reporters caught ���ǰ���, they had never heard of someone committing these ethical violations and then altering their identity to continue practicing the trade elsewhere.

“It’s safe to say this is historically unprecedented in the modern era,” said Mark Feldstein, the Richard Eaton Chair of Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland.

None of the editors interviewed by The Post who worked with Morganroth outside of Boulder said they found fabrications in her work, and the newspaper could not independently fact-check all of her published stories.

Morganroth, who is free on bail in the two criminal cases, did not return messages from The Post seeking comment.

‘It was always the perfect story’

In her writings and website biographies, Morganroth extolled the virtues of freedom of speech, of seeking the truth no matter the roadblocks and of adhering to strong ethical values.

She wrote that she harps on honesty and accuracy as a foundation for earning and maintaining public trust. Her work must be consistent and principled, fair and independent.

“I aspire to bring truth, integrity and a personal touch to American journalism, unlike what we’ve seen since its early conception,” Morganroth once wrote on her .

But peel back the lofty rhetoric, and a different side of Morganroth emerges.

In 2007, Morganroth — then known by her birth name April McClellan — was charged with cashing a $5,000 welfare check in Arizona meant for her brother, according to court documents. She failed to respond to the bank’s efforts to seek restitution, authorities said, and attempts to locate her were unsuccessful.

“She then withdrew the $5,000 and disappeared,” investigators said in a criminal complaint.

McClellan pleaded guilty to one count of forgery, a class four felony, and was sentenced to probation.

In March 2008, McClellan was charged with three counts of felony forgery after Arizona authorities accused her of forging a court document, a Department of Corrections employment statement and a document from her previous landlord as she sought an apartment for rent, according to an arrest affidavit.

She pleaded guilty to one count and received probation.

McClellan, after her marriage to Scott Morganroth, started going by April Morganroth.

Bethany Barnes met April Morganroth around 2010 when the two worked at a Sears department store in the Phoenix suburbs, and the two quickly became close friends.

Over time, however, Barnes realized that it became hard to trust her friend’s word. Morganroth said things about her family that Barnes later learned were false. She would say she couldn’t hang out for a certain reason, only for Barnes to find out that Morganroth was somewhere else.

“She was always making herself look bigger than what was actually the case,” Barnes told The Post. “It was just a little bit of everything. You could tell she was being dishonest.”

These larger-than-life tales grew harder to tolerate, Barnes said. Eventually, the two lost touch.

“It was always the perfect story,” she said. “She did it very well. She lied very well.”

Morganroth graduated from , a community college, in December 2013 with an associate’s degree in digital photography. At the same time, she was finishing her first full semester at Arizona State’s .

On her blog, Morganroth promoted her services as a commercial and wedding photographer, showcasing her work in local galleries.

During her school years, she accumulated bylines for ASU’s student newspaper, appeared on the school’s radio station and did a , the state’s largest news organization, covering a variety of breaking news stories, including fires, floods and crime. A university spokesperson told The Post that Morganroth was enrolled at ASU at one time but never completed her degree.

Fabricated quotes and a retraction

In 2020, Morganroth moved with her husband and three children to Colorado, where she got a job in the joint newsroom of the Boulder and , newspapers owned by , which also owns The Post.

Her author page shared little in common with reality: She claimed she had been a newspaper journalist for nearly 20 years — even though she was just 35 at the time. She referred to her role at the Arizona Republic as a “full-time writer and multimedia journalist,” but an archived version of the from that time doesn’t show her name. Morganroth, on her , called it an internship.

She said she graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State.

On Sept. 11, 2021, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Daily Camera and Times-Call by Morganroth featuring reflections from locals who had been impacted by the day’s horrors.

Morganroth interviewed three Boulder residents, including a naval intelligen­ce analyst who recounted a harrowing story in which, she wrote, he watched Marines perform a heroic rescue of children from a nursery in the Pentagon. She quoted a flight attendant who, she said, was scheduled to work on 9/11 but switched her plans at the last minute. And she detailed the supposed experiences of a mental health clinician who, she wrote, didn’t know whether his daughter was alive or dead on Sept. 11.

It turned out that the three individuals said very little of what Morganroth wrote.

A few weeks after its publication, the Daily Camera , saying in a lengthy editor’s note that the story “substantially misrepresented” statements from the three subjects and fabricated many of the quotations attributed to them. One of the sources called his purported quotes “fictional.”

“I was absolutely horrified — like blood-pressure-spiked horrified,” said Mark Pfundstein, the former naval intelligence analyst, in an interview with The Post. “I thought, ‘My God, what will my colleagues think about this?'”

Morganroth, after the retraction, was fired, according to a from one of her colleagues. Mitchell Byars, who covered courts and crime for the paper, called for more due diligence in the hiring process.

“I feel there were some frankly easily identifiable red flags that I brought up with editors after her hire,” he wrote. Byars did not identify those warning signs on social media and declined to be interviewed for this story.

Colleagues, though, had noticed that Morganroth frequently retweeted far-right conservatives on social media, including U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert. Standard social media policies at newspapers forbid this type of political activity.

John Vahlenkamp, one of the editors who retracted the story, declined to comment on his investigation into Morganroth’s work or her tenure in Boulder.

An incident like this could have ended Morganroth’s journalism career. Instead, she pivoted.

New state, new name

In 2022, Morganroth popped up in the Wyoming journalism scene under a new byline: A. Marie Hamilton.

She worked for the , a newspaper in a small community in southeast Wyoming near the Nebraska border, for roughly a year, according to a review of her bylines on the site. Current ownership could not confirm her exact employment dates.

Morganroth’s father, in text messages with Barnes, the friend from Arizona, suggested that he knew that his daughter was running from trouble.

Child protective services “from Colorado was on April; she ran to Cheyenne this time,” Bill McClellan wrote to Barnes in June 2022, according to texts reviewed by The Post. “She thinks it’s okay to keep pulling her lieing (sic) and (expletive). Not working for her, I’d say.”

A few months later, McClellan told Barnes that “they will catch her soon enough.” McClellan died in 2024.

In April 2023, Morganroth took the job in Sidney, Nebraska.

Perez, the editor and publisher there, said Morganroth appeared to be “super knowledgeable” with professional writing chops. The editor said she never worried about the content of her reporter’s work — and only recently learned about what happened at the Daily Camera.

Still, Morganroth was difficult to manage, Perez said.

“Nobody knew what she knew,” Perez said. “Her attitude was: everyone was stupid.”

Many details about her life, though, just didn’t add up. The cable company that her husband supposedly worked for advertised in the paper. So Perez asked about him. The company said they had no idea what she was talking about.

Only four months after getting to the state, Morganroth said she was putting in her two-week notice. Perez didn’t fight her. On her way out, Morganroth told colleagues that the Nebraska newspaper company was starting a new outfit in Cheyenne and that they had asked her to be the editor, Perez said. None of this was true.

“That level of lying and thinking you’ll get away with it that goes beyond telling falsehoods,” Perez said. “That’s where you live in your own reality.”

A slew of felony charges

Once again, Morganroth started anew.

She returned to Wyoming, landing a job at the in southeast Wyoming, an hour north of Cheyenne.

Her listed accolades just kept growing: She now boasted more than 25 years of journalism experience, despite being under 40. The paper, in its , said she previously worked for National Public Radio and iHeartMedia. The Post could find no evidence of these employment stints.

Morganroth, still going by “Marie Hamilton,” earned the nickname “Little Miss Fact-Checker” by her peers at Wyoming Press Association conventions, the paper said, for “always providing clarifying and enriching accurate information about various news topics in our state.”

She again falsely claimed to hold both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State, and said she was in the midst of obtaining a law degree from the University of Wyoming. A university spokesperson said she was never enrolled there.

After the Record-Times briefly ceased publication, Morganroth launched her own media outlet called the , an “independent, community-centered” news organization focused on southeast Wyoming.

Its stated values: honesty and accuracy, integrity, ethical and watchdog journalism. Its motto: “Independent. Local. Unafraid.”

“I am unafraid to hold the accountable — accountable — and I have faced my fair share of credible threats, attempts to intimidate, blackmail and discredit because I refuse to allow elected officials to have a get-out-of-jail-free card,” she wrote.

Her journalism, in practice, often blurred the line between objective news coverage and her own opinions.

On social media, Morganroth frequently posted her thoughts on gun rights, supposed corruption in the Democratic Party and President Donald Trump.

Morganroth took a particular interest in a planned near the town of Chugwater in southeast Wyoming. She published a on Nov. 25 — which she called an “investigation” — in which she falsely drew links between solar and wind farms and disabilities in children.

The story, published under a “Wyoming Sentinel Staff” byline, quoted a “Marie Hamilton” numerous times as an advocate for children with disabilities. Hamilton is listed on the news outlet’s website as the owner, publisher and managing editor. There’s no indication anyone else worked there.

Her involvement in the project, though, was about to get much more serious after she personally lobbied against the wind farm.

On March 9, prosecutors in Platte County, Wyoming, arrested Morgranroth and related to her opposition to the Chugwater energy project. Authorities allege the local journalist concocted letters of support from two area residents expressing their supposed objections to the project and lied under oath during a public hearing held by a state panel considering the proposal.

In a pre-hearing statement, she asserted she held three degrees from Arizona State, was pursuing a law degree, owned an unspecified local brand and operated various family ranching businesses in several states, an arrest affidavit states. She introduced herself as “Dr. Marie Hamilton.”

Two weeks after the initial charges, prosecutors in the same district against Morganroth. Authorities say she forged documents purporting to show that she had prequalified for a federal loan as she attempted to purchase a home in Chugwater, according to an arrest affidavit cited in local media reports.

Morganroth also claimed that she and her husband had been approved for a federal grant to do construction on the property to allow them to qualify for the loan, prosecutors alleged, submitting to the sellers supposed invoices from two companies for the work. Both companies told investigators and The Post that they never did jobs on this property.

“It was so impressive,” Jessica Logue, owner and CEO of Cowgirl Demolition and Excavating, told The Post. “She used my logo, faded it with an opaque excavator, and had all the verbiage right. I was like, ‘Who is this?'”

‘Detrimental to journalism’

Up until the arrest, people in southern Wyoming knew her as Marie Hamilton. When the news broke, editors at the papers she worked for expressed their disappointment and confusion.

Klark Byrd, managing editor at the Casper-based , said Morganroth covered the state legislature for a month this year, but she never filed paperwork with human resources to get paid. Despite numerous reminders, he said in an interview, the reporter wouldn’t submit her forms.

Boyd said he fact-checked her work and it was always clean.

“It’s always detrimental to journalism when someone in the profession breaks that kind of trust,” he said. “It wasn’t just public trust; she broke the trust of colleagues. It floored me when all the pieces finally came together.”

Lying about a journalist’s true identity calls into question what else they might have fabricated in their stories, the two journalism experts said, calling trust a bedrock principle for the industry.

“You expect this maybe out of priests who get bounced from parish to parish or doctors who get their licenses pulled in one state and move to another,” said Feldstein, the University of Maryland ethics expert. “But I’ve never heard of a journalist doing that.”

Publicly advocating on a topic you’re also covering as a reporter is a clear violation of journalism ethics, said Bob Steele, a former professor and director of the at DePauw University in Indiana. Since Morganroth served as the Wyoming Sentinel’s publisher, editor and reporter, there’s an even greater obligation to be honest, independent and fair in her reporting, he said.

Quoting oneself in the third person, meanwhile, breaks every rule of journalism, both experts said.

“It’s astounding,” Steele said. “It’s problematic to the nth degree.”

Steele and Feldstein said it’s important to characterize Morganroth’s behavior as an extreme outlier in the industry. The public, they said, should not see this as all that’s wrong with journalism. Even Pfundstein, the intelligence analyst whose story Morganroth mispresented in the 9/11 remembrance, said the incident did not shake his confidence or trust in the media.

Those who knew Morganroth previously said they weren’t entirely surprised by her alleged actions. They were just surprised she got caught.

“Part of me thinks she’ll wiggle out of this; that is her forte,” said Perez, the Nebraska editor. “Getting out of things is kind of her milieu. I’m popping some popcorn to see how she’ll get out of this one.”

As the videos play, my chest tightens with shock, fear, and indignation. This is not the first, second, or third time I’ve witnessed someone’s death on my phone.

Brutality at the hands of ICE agents is all too common, completely normalized, and people are dead as a result. These aren’t isolated incidents: this is the predictable outcome of a system built for force and funded to grow at all costs.

I was a college freshman at Yale when America was engulfed in fear and panic after the unspeakably horrific terror attacks of 9/11. My mom was worried because I  was just a short drive from New York City. Fellow freshmen spent hours frantically trying to reach their loved ones in Manhattan, but phone service was down, and almost no one had cell phones. The terror was palpable.

After 9/11, fear metastasized into a new, massive federal agency: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its mission was to “protect the homeland,” and in service of that mission, DHS normalized the idea that some communities — Muslims, noncitizens, or anyone who dissented — should live under permanent suspicion in order to prove their Americanness.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was formed inside that new DHS bureaucracy, and from the beginning, it pursued a vision that was neither modest nor targeted. Their 2003 strategic plan, “Operation Endgame,” treated deportation as the golden measure of success, pushing the agency toward maximum enforcement and maximum churn.

When your job is numbers, every person becomes a statistic and a justification in pursuit of their end goal. No matter their pending immigration application, their U.S. citizen children, their ties to their community, or their payment of taxes, for a noncitizen, any contact with law enforcement – even for a traffic offense – results in being labeled as a “criminal alien.”

The fear-driven othering feeds the deportation machine.

Over the ensuing two decades, both Democrats and Republicans served as willing cheerleaders, giving ICE ever-more resources for immigration enforcement, detention, and surveillance. Immigration detention funding ballooned more than 400% , according to a budget analysis done by The Forum.

The GEO Group pioneered for-profit immigration detention in Aurora in 1987, and in December 2025, ICE awarded GEO a no-bid contract to open a second facility in Hudson.

Corporations like Flock and Palantir, which contract with governments to provide surveillance for immigration enforcement, now also celebrate their record profits. While justifying ICE’s endlessly-expanding budgets, politicians from both parties routinely claim that those resources prioritize immigrants with criminal histories, and that as long as you are a law-abiding, “good” American, you have nothing to fear. The murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti tell us otherwise.

It simply doesn’t have to be this way. ICE is escalating its cynical politics of cruelty and fearmongering, pitting Americans against each other and lying to the public to justify billions in annual immigration-enforcement spending. Stopping this madness will take everyday Coloradans speaking up and pressuring elected officials to change course.

Now’s an important time to remember that the Constitution protects us all, regardless of immigration status. Download a Know Your Rights card, and add the Colorado Rapid Response Network’s phone number (1-844-864-8341) into your phone in case you witness ICE activity.

This session, the Colorado legislature will consider Aurora Sen. Mike Weissman and my bill, Senate Bill 5, to ensure civil remedies are available to Coloradans when their constitutional rights are trampled upon by immigration enforcement entities.

Congress is now contemplating giving ICE even more funding in a cynical ploy to avoid another government shutdown. The Colorado Congressional delegations’ votes fell along party lines, and both of Colorado’s senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, have indicated their intentions to vote no. However, a “no” vote on giving ICE a blank check is not enough.

This moment requires leaders with backbone who will not sell out Americans’ freedom, and instead advance actual solutions. Congress must extract the profit motive from immigration detention and surveillance, restore due process to the immigration system, create pathways to citizenship, pass strict standards on the use-of-force, and ensure that immigrants have access to legal counsel.

This rogue agency has no legitimacy left; the only answer that remains is to abolish ICE, and instead build an immigration system worthy of a nation that claims to believe in justice, dignity, and the rule of law.

Colorado state Sen. Julie Gonzales is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and currently represents north, west, and downtown Denver in the Colorado General Assembly.

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Thursday-Dec. 24. ‘Tis the final season for the 23-year-old theatrical tradition known as “Santa’s Big Red Sack,” which is returning with “nonstop sketch comedy, music and technology bursting at the seams,” according to its creators. It’s celebrating its last year of offensive glee, so buy a shot and make sure to leave your propriety at the door. (Note: This bawdy production is not, as you may have guessed, for kids.)

It takes place at various times and dates from Dec. 4 to Dec. 24 at The People’s Building, 9995 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora. Tickets are $39.10 via.

Magical Winter Nights

Through Jan 4. When it comes to holiday light displays in City Park, Denver Zoo Lights tends to have it covered. But don’t count out the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, also located in City Park. The institution this year has launched Magical Winter Nights, its very own holiday celebration running through Jan. 4, 2026. The “dazzling winter wonderland” has “glowing savannah skies, shimmering northern lights and cozy cocoa (to) create memories that will last a lifetime,” according to the museum.

“This experience takes you on a journey through select areas of the museum, specifically the West Atrium and third-floor diorama halls,” organizers added. “These spaces have been transformed into a series of enchanting winter worlds just waiting to be explored. Under sparkling stars and through a series of immersive scenes, there’s something for everyone in this adventure designed to delight all ages.”

The first entry is 4:15 p.m. daily, with 21-and-up nights on Dec. 4, 11 and 18. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for ages 3-18, and $22 for seniors. 2001 Colorado Blvd. in Denver. Call 303-370-6000 or visit for more.

Fly, Moonlight Elves!

Through Dec. 7. Denver’s always-curious (in a good way) Starry Night Productions and Theatre Artibus this year are debuting “Moonlight Elves,” which they dub “a circus-immersive holiday extravaganza,” playing Nov. 26-30 and Dec. 3-7 at Savoy Denver.

The show blends comedy, circus, interactive games and theatrical spectacle, according to Starry Night’s Amber Blais, with “dazzling aerial artistry, juggling, magic acts, and playful audience participation … costumes and elf ears are encouraged” (ears are, of course, available for purchase on site). Audiences can arrive early for interactive lobby fun, including arts and crafts, holiday drinks from the bar, and special visits from Santa (James Brunt) on Saturdays and Sundays, she added.

The all-ages shows take place at 7 p.m., with matinees at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, at 2700 Arapahoe St. in Denver. Tickets: $35 via

U.S. history, from George Washington to 9/11

Open now. “Our story was never inevitable,” History Colorado writes. “We shaped it at every turn.” But how, exactly? The state’s historical society answers that with a new exhibition as Colorado’s and America’s dual anniversaries approach. “Moments That Made Us” displays rare artifacts that enlighten “nearly 50 turning points in American history from a variety of perspectives,” highlighting “both challenging and celebratory times, from Mesa Verde to Valley Forge to Ebbets Field,” curators wrote.

Get up close with a silver spoon made by Paul Revere, a set of spurs worn by President George Washington at Valley Forge in 1777, one of the first Mexican editions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo from 1848, Jackie Robinson’s baseball bat, a firefighter helmet from 9/11’s Ground Zero in 2001 and — this one’s pretty cool — the tape recorder used by President Richard Nixon at the center of the Watergate Scandal in 1973, the museum said.

It runs through Oct. 18, 2026, at History Colorado Center, 1200 Broadway in Denver. Included with admission. Call 303-447-8679 or visit for more details.