He spent 11 years on the editorial page and was an innovator bringing a new approach to the art form. In the 50s and 60s, most American cartoonists drew in a square or vertical format and preferred a heavy-handed approach—self-serious commentary. Oliphant opted for a horizontal display, much like a movie screen. This allowed him to create action scenes, movement from left to right. And he used humor to get his point across.

His was a devastating wit.

In the corner of each cartoon, he inserted a tiny penguin named Punk who spouted a second opinion on the issue. His work was an instant success and was noted by other working cartoonists in the U. S. Soon, many others were taking up his approach. None quite as successful as Oliphant����ap.

His cartoons were syndicated both nationally and worldwide. Early on at The Post, he earned a Pulitzer Prize. In 1975, Oliphant left The Denver Post for The Washington Star. His work was so appreciated by the editors there that he appeared daily on the front page. He stayed with the Star until it folded in 1981.

I was both thrilled and overwhelmed in 1975 when I was hired to sit at Pat Oliphant����ap drawing board at The Denver Post. I was well aware of the legend I was following. This was my very first cartooning job after leaving graduate school (math major). For several years, I had drawn a weekly toon for the college paper. Unknown to me, someone had sent samples of my work to The Post when the opening came up.

After a couple of interviews, I was hired. Then I began to hear stories about the great man.

Oliphant was a licensed pilot and owned a small single-engine craft. When most cartoonists sat at a desk staring out of a window, searching for ideas, he was up in his plane, flying over Denver and the nearby mountains, dreaming up today’s cartoon.

When he had it, he would land, then show up in the office to put ink to paper.

My first week on the job, I was rearranging furniture and stashing my things in file cabinets and the main desk. It was there, at the back of a drawer, that I found a letter. It was from Oliphant in Adelaide and addressed to the editorial page editor.

In it, the young man claimed that if he were hired by The Post, he would come to America and revolutionize cartooning. Pretty brash statement. But that is exactly what he did.

It was clear that Denver was a special place for him. Even after he relocated to the D.C. area, he returned often for visits, dropping in at the editorial page offices. After work, he would hold court at the Sportsmans bar, across the street from the newspaper. A good number of reporters and editors would join him there. Lots of laughter.

Instead of seeking another newspaper position after the Washington Star closed, Oliphant elected to provide his work to Universal Press Syndicate, which sold his cartoons to newspapers around the globe. By this time he was recognized as one of the best in the field, one of the best of all time, and he had great success through syndication.

Oliphant retired in 2015 and moved from Washington, D.C. to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where his good friend Bill Mauldin lived. Mauldin was the legendary World War II cartoonist who chronicled the daily lives of common soldiers through his characters, Willie and Joe.

Mauldin had been an early influence on the young Patrick Bruce Oliphant. While in Santa Fe, Oliphant turned his artistic talents to painting and bronze sculptures based on his caricatures of public figures.

Many of us in Denver have fond memories of this extremely talented man. I was glad to have gotten to know him.

Mike Keefe is a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who worked for The Denver Post from 1975 to 2011.

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The chemotherapy she had for breast cancer 15 years earlier prompted heart failure, an ironic outcome for a woman renowned for her big heart.

Schrader – as she was known in her byline and to her legions of friends – specialized in health and science and served as an editor while working at The Post from 1979 to 2012.

She was a key reporter on the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, which resulted in a Pulitzer for The Post for distinguished local coverage of breaking news.

“Columbine was a big international story, but for Annie it was heartbreakingly local. She lived in the neighborhood. She knew many of the people,” said Post colleague Mark Obmascik. “In the newsroom, she was always on reporters and editors to be really good listeners — and to get it right.”

In the newsroom, Schrader also served as the Newspaper Guild steward, the commissioner of football pools, and the reporter who reminded newsroom commuters after every snowstorm to “Go before you go.”

“She was an editor’s dream,” said colleague Billie Stanton. “And she was one of the funniest, warmest and best friends I’ve known.”

After retiring from The Post, Schrader and her husband, Pat, operated the Laz E Acres horse boarding stable in Littleton. There, daughter Caitlin, now 37, became an equestrian and would go on to compete in reining at the National Western Stock Show.

Caitlin was Schrader’s proudest achievement, far more important to her than any journalism award. They shared an impenetrable bond and were together in hospice throughout Schrader’s weeks-long illness.

Ann and Pat later moved to a 10-acre farm east of Franktown, where Schrader gardened, raised hens, spoiled cats and hoisted 50-pound bales of hay among other chores for the family’s eight horses.

Schrader was born Feb. 2, 1951, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to the former Jane Schmidt and Harold J. “Gus” Schrader, a newspaper man whose love of the profession inspired her.

She graduated from the University of Iowa, where she studied English literature and journalism. She went on to work at the Cedar Rapids Gazette before coming to The Post.

She is survived by her loving husband, Francis Patrick O’Neill; her daughter, Caitlin O’Neill, and her husband, Jess Nelson; her sister, Melissa McGuire (Mike McGuire); her stepson, John O’Neill (Raquel O’Neill), and stepdaughters Jane Irigoyen (Marcelo Irigoyen) and Mary Eident (Derrick Eident).

She is also survived by grandchildren Jake O’Neill, Kelsey Huwa (Anthony Huwa), Kylie O’Neill, MacKenzie Rasvey (Matt Rasvey), Cyrus Anaya, Ryne Skiles and Lucy Irigoyen; and her great-grandchildren, Adeline Rasvey, Aria Rasvey and Emberly Huwa.

She was preceded in death by her parents and brother, Steven C. Schrader.

A memorial service will be announced later.

Billie Stanton, who wrote this obituary, is a former Denver Post employee and former member of the editorial board who worked with Ann Schrader. Her remembrance of her colleague is included here. 

“Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Ship,” by John Shears, Nico Vincent (National Geographic, 2024)

John Shears was expedition leader and Nico Vincent was subsea project manager on the Endurance22 expedition that ultimately located and documented the submerged wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s polar expedition ship, Endurance, which sank off the coast of Antarctica in 1915.  This National Geographic book is much more than a coffee table tome, although you could easily spend hours just poring over the photographs: black-and-white reproductions from Shackleton’s voyage, and color photos from both the unsuccessful Weddell Sea Expedition (2019) location attempt and the successful Endurance22 project. The text depicts what went wrong for Shackleton; lessons learned in 2019; and the flexibility, creativity and perseverance of the crews, as well as the triumph of new technologies in 2022.  It’s a great gift for the explorer in your life. –– 4 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver

“The Second Mrs. Astor,” by Shana Abe (Kensington, 2021)

In 1912, the wealthy and powerful Astor family lost its patriarch, John Jacob Astor IV, when the so-called “indestructible” Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, taking the lives of about 1,500 souls. Many stories have been written about the tragedy; this one focuses on Astor’s second wife, Madeleine, who was newly married and pregnant on that voyage, returning to New York from an extended honeymoon abroad. The novel begins with Astor’s recent divorce from socialite Ava, mother of his two children. He courts, marries and impregnates his new bride, 30 years his junior and indeed, still a teenager. The short marriage, shunned by his family and New York society as well, ends in tragedy but creates an heir to the fortune. The visceral, devastating description of Titanic’s last hours, and how it unfolded, will stay with me for a long time. – 2½ stars (out of 4); Karen Goldie Hartman, Westminster

“The Salt Path: A Memoir,” by Raynor Winn (Penguin, 2018)

After a three-year legal battle for their centuries-old farmhouse in Wales, taken over by a cheating lifelong friend, Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, are homeless and penniless except for a weekly stipend of $40. Despite their ages (both over 50) and Moth’s recently diagnosed terminal illness, they decide their only option is to spend summer months camping along the Southwest Coast Path of Cornwall. Luminous writing tempers this memoir of an arduous trail with moments of sublime beauty. Courage and devotion and eventual acceptance bolster the couple through hunger, pain and dangerous weather. The story is inspiring, yet realistic and revelatory of another side of homelessness. “If we hadn’t done this there’d always have been things we wouldn’t have known, a part of ourselves we wouldn’t have found, resilience we didn’t know we had.” — 4 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker

“Devotions, the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver” (Penguin Press, 2017)

This volume contains a superb selection from the poet over the spread of more than fifty years, from 1963 until 2015, four years before her death. Winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oliver tapped her love of nature and solitary walks to draw insights into living. She presents no borders between her poetry her insights, and her observations, coaxing them together into an exuberant whole. Somehow even topics like death spring to life in her hands. I keep this volume at hand for any time I’m discouraged or depressed. — 4 stars (out of 4); Bonnie McCune, Denver (bonniemccune.com)

But post-pandemic and after last year’s dual labor strikes — which prevented actors from attending film fests to support their work — something feels different headed into the Labor Day weekend ritual.

“I feel like the program has an element of exuberance to it,” executive director Julie Huntsinger said in a call. Programming Telluride is an act of mirroring more than molding, she believes, so Huntsinger offered her customary  (if humble) caveat. “We just reflect. All glory goes to filmmakers — but there is a reflection of a hopefulness that everybody not only needs but is also entitled to.”

In a hallowed Telluride tradition, the fest announced the four-day program on the cusp of the gathering. The festival begins Friday and ends Monday evening. This is the first peek at what festivalgoers will line up for, ride the occasional gondola to get to and immerse themselves in. The fest will screen feature films, shorts, revival programs, along with tributes, panels, conversations and student programs. As a festival founded on a love of international cinema, it����ap no surprise that 26 countries will be represented among the 60 or so films.

At a festival that has never shied away from the dark and demanding — and doesn’t for this edition, either — signs of the upbeat and exhilarating include “Saturday Night.” Director Jason Reitman’s film unfurls in the 90 minutes before the first airing of a little show called “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. As with so many innovations, creator Lorne Michaels’ idea of a show written by young firebrands and packed with unknowns who would in fairly short order become pop cultural quasars got lots of pushback.

As if to nod to the durability of the show, two of its stars who’ve gone on to first-rate film careers will appear onscreen in different movies. Will Ferrell and his dear friend Harper Steele, who is transgender, hit the road in the documentary “Will & Harper,” about the deep truths of friendship, directed by Jeff Greenbaum. And Bill Murray appears alongside Naomi Watts, Carla Gugino and Bing, a harlequin Great Dane, in directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s adaptation of “The Friend,” novelist Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award-winning novel about an author who adopts the dog of her departed mentor. News has it the giant pup will be on hand. (In the unabashedly dog-friendly town, that won’t give anyone paws.)

Also in the ebullient department, director Morgan Neville’s “Piece by Piece” tells the story of Pharrell Williams, the singer-songwriter-producer responsible for one of the most titularly happy songs ever. To accentuate childlike wonder, the biopic is told using animation with Lego bricks.

The documentary “Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” will introduce those not in the know (i.e., not from the Denver area) to the pink palace of entrancing cliff driving and legendarily so-so (OK, not good) Mexican food, Casa Bonita. Director Arthur Bradford follows “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone on their passionate quest to reopen the iconic restaurant (yes, with a great chef). It screens in the Backlot, the festival’s most accessible venue, which means non-passholders have a shot at seeing the film. (Also of note in the Backlot: the Irish drama ��ٷɲ������Ƿ�,” which features Brenda Fricker as a ruminative solitary figure living in a seaside home, who begins writing a letter to an unknown correspondent.)

Films that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to acclaim — either whole-hearted or prickly —  will be well represented with Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning “A�Դǰ���” and festival honoree Jacque Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez.” Both make the argument that the language of filmmaking is often buoyant and wowing beyond its subject matter. Baker (“Tangerine,” “Red Rocket”) has made the loving centering of sex workers his oeuvre. “A�Դǰ���” features a Brooklyn call girl who snags the affection of a scion of a Russian oligarch. When the news hits Russia, the fantasy Ani (Mickey Madison) hopes to live out gets complicated. Audiard’s latest features a quartet of lauded performances in a sumptuously shot musical about a transgender drug lord: Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz and Karla Sofía Gascón, as the cartel boss of the title, all took the best actress prize at Cannes earlier this year.

This year’s guests are scheduled to include Angelina Jolie, star of Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas film, “M��������”; Danielle Deadwyler and John David Washington of “The Piano Lesson,” directed by Malcom Washington, making good on father Denzel’s promise to produce August Wilson’s 10-play cycle for the screen; Martha Stewart, the fascinating, resilient subject of R.J. Cutler’s documentary of the same name; Embeth Davitz, who directed but also acts in the adaptation of Alexandra Fuller’s “Don’t Let����ap Go to the Dogs Tonight,” about her childhood in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); guest director Kenneth Lonergan; and Amanda Zurawski (who, along with husband Josh, made indelible the outrages of the Dobbs decision at the DNC) in the documentary “Zurawski v Texas,” about Texas abortion ban and the women fighting it.

Also attending: Saoirse Ronan, who will receive a tribute and one of the fest’s three silver medallions. Her latest, “The Outrun,” directed by Nora Fingscheidt, is based on Amy Liptrot����ap celebrated memoir about her downward spiral into alcoholism.

Telluride is known for its deeply enjoyable and illuminating program notes (hats off to Larry Gross, who authors many of them). The one on Ronan was written by Greta Gerwig, who directed the actor in “Ladybird” and “Little Women.” “The word ‘prodigy’ is thrown around a lot, but in her case, it is fitting,” Gerwig writes of the four-time Oscar nominee, who made such a disquieting impression in “Atonement” at the age of 12. Her work has only deepened in films as varied as “The Lovely Bones,” “Hanna” “Brooklyn” and “Ammonite.”

“Her gift is incredibly rare, but how she’s cared for it and grown it to become the formidable artist she is today is rarer still,” Gerwig continues. “She is a translucent actor — she somehow makes her external life transparent so we can all see her soul. But every character she plays is unique, wildly different from the others, so each soul she shows us is a new revelation.” That should be one helluva tribute reel.

So, too, will be the one for film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, whose work as Martin Scorsese’s longtime collaborator is unparalleled. The Oscar nominations started in 1971 with Michael Wadleigh’s documentary “Woodstock” and continued to last year’s “The Killers of the Flower Moon.” The wins began in 1981 with Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” and include “The Aviator” and “The Departed.” Schoonmaker was married to British film director Michael Powell (who died in 1990). In an elegant gesture both cinematic and familial, Schoonmaker will be interviewed onstage by Powell’s grandson, director Kevin Macdonald (this year’s TFF doc “One to One” John & Yoko”).  She’ll also be in conversation with film editing’s wise practitioner and champion Walter Murch.

If the festival were as tall as one of the nearby mineral-specked peaks, this preview would barely get us to the first steep incline. With films by Errol Morris (��ٱ�貹�����ٱ��” about families cleaved at the U.S.-Mexico border), Matt Tyrnauer (“Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid”) and Bonnie Cohen (“In Waves and War” with Jon Shenk and “The White House Effect” with Shenk and Pedro Kos) among others, the documentary slate is better than robust, it����ap edifyingly timely.

One film sure to arrive with the aura of discovery is “Nickel Boys.” The book it hails from is well known, but its budding director, RaMell Ross, is a cherished secret. His much-anticipated film is based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that focuses on friends Elwood and Turner, who meet at a harsh Florida reformatory in the 1960s. That literary provenance might be reason enough for attendees to queue for the film, but it is Ross, in his narrative feature debut, who holds such great promise.

“It’s a remarkable achievement,” Huntsinger said of the film, which screens in the Herzog venue, an ice rink transformed into an arthouse with impossibly pristine sound. The film also opens the New York Film Festival next month.

“I just want everybody to understand how privileged we are to witness this,” Julie Huntsinger said. “I wish I could be in the screening at the Herzog to watch everybody discover this movie and feel it and go through the things that the characters go through. I’m very happy for everybody involved. May it be as beloved when it’s finally out there in the world.”

And with that benediction, the Show, as it����ap dubbed, begins.

Former colleagues remembered her as a 5-foot-3, Keds tennis shoe-clad woman with enormous grit.

Through multiple casts of owners and editors at The Denver Post, Robinson carefully gathered information on law enforcement and crime, then produced thousands of reports conveying the hard side of a rapidly expanding city.

Robinson relied on relentless questioning, modeling the methods and core values of journalism to inform the public — even when the news was horrific and unwelcome, such as the murder of JonBenet Ramsey and the Columbine High School tragedy, for which The Post won a Pulitzer Prize.

She worked mostly in the newsroom beneath towering stacks of old newspapers and her notes, making countless calls to dispatchers, desk sergeants and frontline officers from the old landline telephones, sometimes with a phone on each ear, sustaining herself on coffee, Pepsi, popcorn and yogurt. Robinson simultaneously monitored chatter from police radio scanners.

“There’s a body in the river. Do we care?” she once chimed to nobody in particular, one of the numerous “Marilynisms” that colleagues compiled.

Fellow reporter Kieran Nicholson considered her his mentor and recalled how, when she learned about a man who had barricaded himself in a house, she rode to the scene in a cab (she didn’t drive). Police had surrounded the house, Nicholson said.

“She got out of the cab, walked up to the front door and knocked. She started interviewing the guy. Meanwhile, all these cops were standing around waiting on her,” he said. “She was a dogged reporter. Even though she was really well-sourced with the police departments, she wanted to investigate and check out all the angles. That����ap what she was doing that day, going straight to the source.”

Retired Colorado State Patrol Capt. Larry Tolar called her “the most truthful and courteous person I ever met. There will never be another one like that.”

A mother of three sons in Lakewood, she enjoyed riding her single-speed bicycle with a basket on the back for groceries and swimming up to 100 laps in her neighborhood pool.

“Her cooking – cookies, fudge and pot roast – was extraordinary,” said her son Jon Beegle, who took her to Colorado Rockies baseball games.

Marilyn Faith Robinson was born in Centralia, Washington. Her father died when she was 13 and she helped her mother manage a household and three brothers. She was the valedictorian of her high school class and played the clarinet. She attended the University of Washington and worked during the summer of her junior year at her hometown Chronicle.

After graduation, she worked briefly for the Seattle Post Intelligencer, where the editor said he already employed two women and had no immediate position for her, prompting her move to Denver in 1956 for a job with The Post.

She started in the “women’s department,” then covered various topics before settling on police in the early 1960s. She’d married Robert Beegle in 1962. He died in 2007.

“Fairness and accuracy are the watchwords of our profession. I like to add another one – compassion,” Robinson said, describing her approach to journalism upon retirement from the Post in 2002. “I believe reporters should put themselves in the other guy’s shoes.”

Police valued her expertise and trusted her. “The way Marilyn was respected was due to her character and the way she handled the news and the way she talked with you,” said former Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputy and longtime agency spokesman Steve Davis. “There will never be another Marilyn Robinson. The world and the way news is gathered and reported has changed so much. She set a standard that will be impossible to match.”

The Post’s former executive city editor Todd Engdahl remembered her as a perfectionist who constantly pushed to refine stories more. She stood out for her interviewing skills, Engdahl said. “She always seemed to know exactly whom to call for information, whatever the situation. And once she’d reached the right person, Marilyn was a virtuoso of telephone interviewing. She always seemed to know just the right combination of cajoling, familiarity, curiosity, sternness and sense of urgency to extract the information she needed to get the story,” he said.

When Frank Scandale, a former assistant managing editor for news, arrived at The Post, he saw Robinson as “the epitome of a solid news reporter,” he said in an email Monday morning. “Facts. Quotes. Story. Nothing fancy. But boy could she collect information. If you asked her for something that she wrote about 18 years ago, she would reach into one of those skyscraper piles and pull out the notes from the story and say, ‘This what you’re looking for?’”

Her colleague Jim Kirksey called her “the consummate journalist. It was her life.” And working beside Robinson for years in the 1990s, Billie Stanton, an early riser herself, knew Robinson as “the first one in and last one out. I used to beg her to leave,” Stanton said. “I felt: You are never going to be paid for all this overtime you are giving us. She was so committed. So relentless. She loved the work.”

She’s survived by her three sons, her brother, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Family members were planning a small, private burial and hoping to organize a celebration of her life at the Denver Press Club.

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Kilzer’s career spanned newsrooms across the country and world, including stints at the Fort Collins Triangle Review, Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Korea JoongAng Daily and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

He was most recently a novelist and investigative consultant for The Colorado Springs Gazette.

“He was very much a reporter’s reporter, a journalist����ap journalist,” said Henry Dubroff, former Denver Post business editor.

Former Post reporter Robert Kowalski was close friends with Kilzer for nearly 40 years, starting when Kowalski joined the Post in 1986 and Kilzer quickly became his mentor.

A shoe-leather reporter who loved combing through records at city hall or the courthouse, Kilzer was known for a “Columbo” approach to interviews, modeling the 1970s television detective’s style of knowing far more about a topic than he let on, Kowalski said.

“His legacy will certainly be as one of the finest and most accomplished investigative reporters and editors in the country, without question,” he said.

Kilzer won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for public service alongside Post reporters Diana Griego and Norman Udevitz for their series on missing children, which debunked the idea that most missing children are abducted by strangers and found that the majority are runaways or involved in custody disputes.

Kilzer won at the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1990 for investigative reporting with reporter Chris Ison for uncovering a network of local citizens with links to the St. Paul Fire Department who profited financially from fires.

Kilzer worked at the Post as a reporter and assistant city editor from 1983 to 1987, returning as investigations editor from 1994 to 1996.

Kilzer was staunchly devoted to the truth, introducing Kowalski and other reporters to line-by-line edits during Kilzer’s time as investigations editor.

Kilzer would require reporters to go through every line of a story and prove, through interview transcripts or other documentation, the facts they contained. The process took weeks, Kowalski said.

Kilzer was understated and relatively quiet, Kowalski said, while still uniquely capable of homing in on the core of any issue.

“As low-key as he was, he had a real powerful sense of outrage at wrongdoing, and I think that motivated him,” he said.

Louis Charles Kilzer was born on Feb. 10, 1951, in Cody, Wyoming, to Robert and Marjorie Ann (Harkins) Kilzer.

Lou Kilzer graduated cum laude from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1973. He married his wife, Elizabeth Kovacs, in front of a justice of the peace in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1975.

Outside of the newsroom, Kilzer could be found traveling to Costa Rica, Moscow and Seoul. He wrote two nonfiction books about World War II and co-authored a two-book mystery thriller series.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Kovacs, son Alex and daughter Xanthe.

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Letts, the author of the family meltdown drama “August: Osage County,” brings his knack for the implosive to what should be a routine Big Cherry city council meeting — if only Mr. Peel (played with hapless decency by Josh Robinson) would stop asking about the absence of Mr. Carp (Erik Sandvold).

New to the council, Peel has just returned from burying his mother. It����ap only natural for him to wonder, what did I miss? When he last saw Carp, the latter was talking about a cache of stolen bicycles that the brother of another council member had come into lucrative possession of.

Carp’s chair and nameplate sit at the end of a long table, but he’s nowhere in sight. Why? Might a reading of the minutes of the council’s prior meeting clarify things?

The nonreplies, evasions and push-back provide the first hint that something may be out of whack. Then there’s the fact that from the play’s outset, there have been the rumblings of a storm. (Sound designer Jason Ducat and lighting designer Richard Devin make deft work of wielding the theater’s version of special effects.) Later, lightning will illuminate the stage. And this taut one act, which begins as one kind of play — a farce of governance perhaps — builds into something more sinister, troubling and rending.

Still, things begin civil enough. The small talk between the colleagues, a mix of cordiality, disinterest or low-grade wariness, provides its own amusing dance. Mentions of Kiwanis pancake suppers, bridge gatherings and daughters’ ages lend a neighborly vibe to the room.

That atmosphere is mildly undercut by the triumvirate of Mayor Superba (Michael McNeill), Mr. Assalone (William Hahn) and Mr. Breeding (Michael Morgan). Gathered at one table, they look like a power throuple and behave like one as well. “Breeding is the weathervane. Assalone is the junkyard dog,” Mr. Blake (Cajardo Lindsey) tells Peel.

With its mute expression of the solemn work of democracy, Markas Henry’s evocative set provides a perfect counterpoint to what unfolds onstage. Early chatter gives way to peevish grievances, a doublespeak absurd enough to rival Abbott and Costello and one thoughtful bill likely not to see the light of day.

Disrupting a meeting that has yet to hew to “Robert’s Rules of Order,” Ms. Innes (Kathryn Gray) asks to enter into the record a rambling statement about how sacred the Big Cherry Heritage Festival is to one and all. It is after all a celebration of the battle that led to the founding of the town: a fight between an unsuspecting settler family, the soldiers billeted at their farmstead and the twenty-six “stealthy” Sioux warriors who set upon them.

The citizenry of Big Cherry is not reflected on stage, apart from Ms. Johnson (Ilasiea Gray), the clerk who arranges the meeting room and keeps the minutes. “This is a closed session where we do the people’s work,” Mayor Superba says without irony.

As Thomas Jefferson said rather unforgivingly, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” And Letts makes clear that although we the audience may feel superior to these clowns, they are elected representatives. Their foibles, misdeeds and worse are our own to an uncomfortable degree.

Mr. Carp makes a riveting appearance late in the play, with portrayer Sandvold giving a rattling performance.

The founding of Big Cherry enters the play first as a comforting fable and then as a harrowing tragedy. The ability of the horror genre to address the outrages of systemic violence is a rich theme in literature and even more so in film, but not nearly enough in theater. It’s exciting that director Montour-Larson and her willing-and-so-able cast go there. With the playwright as a brilliant guide, they have carefully calibrated the demonic to maximum, damning effect.

In “The Minutes,” the path from farce to horror resembles the slow burn of the 1968 chiller “Rosemary’s Baby,” where so much of the demonic was introduced as harmless, neighborly even. Here, the innocuous or vacuous also hides a dastardly offense. To quote the Scottish play, in which Shakespeare made splendid use of the supernatural and the horror humans inflict, “Something wicked this way comes.” Oh, there may be wickedness yet to come, but so much of it resides in an unreconciled past.

“The Minutes”

Written by Tracy Letts. Directed by Christy Montour-Larson. Featuring Brian Landis Folkins, Ilasiea Gray, Kathryn Gray, William Hahn, Jim Hunt, Cajardo Lindsey, Michael McNeill, Michael Morgan, Josh Robinson, Erik Sandvold, and Karen Slack. At the Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St., through Oct. 14. curioustheatre.org or 303-623-0524.

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“Trust,” by Hernan Diaz (Riverhead Books)

This is a multi-layered, spellbinding story of wealth, reputation, secrets and appearances, set in the 1920s in New York City. The more the different layers of history and truth are pulled away, each revelation leaves the reader less sure which reality is the true one. (This novel won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.) — 4 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver

“So Far from Spring: A Novel of the American West,” by Peggy Simson Curry (WestWinds Press)

“So Far from Spring” is set in the North Park area near Walden, along the Wyoming-Colorado border. Written by the first poet laureate of Wyoming, this is the saga of Kelsey Cameron, who has come from Scotland to break into the cattle business and make his fortune in the 1890s. The wind-whipped landscape holds both promise and peril as Kelsey tries to make a home for his wife and daughter. The descriptions of the land and the forces of nature that shape it are powerful, and the hardscrabble life, the interplay of the characters and the life-and-death decisions that are part of ranching are beautifully rendered by Curry in her exquisite prose. A gem from the mid-1950s, this story will stay with you long after you have turned the last page. 4 stars (out of 4); Susan Tracy, Denver

“The Deep Sky,” by Yume Kitasei (Flatiron)

A crew of 80 women (he/she, they/them) is the last hope for our species. Earth is dying and the women have trained since childhood to travel into deep space and grow humanity (literally and figuratively) on Planet X. In this sci-fi debut, Kitasei takes us on an intergalactic journey in which Asuka (Susie) needs to find the cause of an explosion that has torn her ship off course and killed three crew members. Without that course correction, the mission will fail and death is a strong possibility. To succeed, the crew will need to give up their AI, join together and use their training if they want to survive. This is a good debut, raising current Earth issues in a fantasy-sci-fi-thriller with an exciting murder-mystery baked in. It kept me guessing and turning the pages (reminiscent of the Mao-Miller storyline in “The Expanse” TV series and books by James S.A. Corey).  – 3 stars (out of 4); Dave Pallozzi, Lakewood

“Lark Ascending,” by Silas House (Algonquin Books)

Set in North America and Ireland in a not-too-distant future world that has been ravaged by climate change and by both political and religious extremism, this is a story of the dangers of both flight and immigration, survival enabled by chosen families, and the grace of humanity amid chaos. I had to read some sentences several times over to fully appreciate the beauty of the writing. (This one was recommended by Pulitzer Prize-winner Barbara Kingsolver.) — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver

“Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater,” by Peggy Orenstein (Harper)

During the pandemic, long-time knitter Peggy Orenstein devised an ambitious project to “tap into the romance and resilience of an earlier age” by creating a sweater from scratch, meaning from the sheep up. Along the way, Orenstein grieved her mother, prepared for upcoming empty-nesting, committed to “thinking more consciously about clothing, as well as other consumption,” and lamented increasing fires and the climate crisis. She writes about her experience with precision, self-effacement, humor and beauty. Although I’m not truly a knitter, I found this book supremely satisfying.  Orenstein’s writing is so accomplished it seems effortless. She combs together her memories, her philosophy, her humor, and her love for words. The result is cozy and beautiful, with details that delight and illuminate. This is a memoir in which we, too, learn about life in ways that stretch beyond the titular subject. 4 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker

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“Stealing,” by Margaret Vreble (Mariner Books)

A Native American girl’s life is seemingly idyllic — until she is suddenly sent to a Christian boarding school in the 1950s due to some event that she doesn’t consciously remember. Her experience at the school is horrific on many levels. She starts a journal, which she uses to bring her comfort through remembering her life prior to landing at this school and which she also uses to slowly remember what happened to land her there. It’s the slow reveal that gives the novel a bit of a mystery twist. Vrebel’s first novel, “Maud’s Line,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is also about a Native American heroine. Both novels are definitely worth reading. — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver 

“Lincoln in the Bardo,” by George Saunders (Random House)

Don’t just read “Lincoln in the Bardo”; listen to it on audiobook instead and see if you recognize the voices of the many celeb readers, such as Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, Susan Sarandon, Ben Stiller, Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, Bill Hader and many more. What a treat. In Saunders’ groundbreaking novel, Abraham Lincoln’s beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, dies and is entombed in a crypt in Washington, D.C. In Buddhism, a bardo is a state of existence between death and rebirth, and in this cemetery, that’s where we find an unsavory group of spirits hanging out, watching Lincoln despair. Sure, there are a lot of names thrown at you early on (there are 166 characters in “Bardo”), but don’t give up on it. The payoff is huge. Just. Brilliant. Don’t just take my word for it: “Lincoln in the Bardo” won the 2017 Booker Prize and was lauded by many critics and publications as the book of the decade.  — 4 stars (out of 4), Barbara Ellis, Denver Post staff

“The Chinese Groove,” by Kathryn Ma (Counterpoint)

A novel about family losses, immigrant dreams, the tall tales told to those left behind to cover up the lack of immediate success and riches in the new country, and disappointments, both large and small along the way. The title refers to the cultural bonds and unspoken understandings among Chinese, regardless of where they live. — 2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver

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It����ap been four decades since the publication of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epistolary novel. With a book by Marsha Norman and Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray music (such stirring songs, such “can we get an amen?” numbers), this revival of the 2015 musical points the way back to the book, promising that lessons still reside there.

How do I know? Because director Timothy Douglas and his exquisite cast and gifted crew bring grace, grit and hope to the story of Celie, Nettie, Shug, Mister, Sophia, Harpo and the community that buoys and bears witness to Celie’s trauma as well as her triumphs. There is penance, earned forgiveness and redemption, to boot.

Celie’s personal epiphanies and resilience pre-date current trends about self-love and self-care, and underscore what a rooted, “womanist” thinker late Black Arts Movement writer Walker was — and remains.

At the musical’s start, Celie (Maiesha McQueen) is 14 years old; she is big but doesn’t want to take up space. She is pregnant with her second child by the same father — hers. A Greek chorus of church ladies furthers this and other aspects of the story. Pa will take her newborn to God-knows-where like he did the time before. If Pa (Steven Rich) is an abuser, Celie’s sister Nettie (Elexis Morton), is her lifeline. Their friendship is an unyielding cord.

Widower Albert “Mister” Johnson (David Aron Damane) comes, riding crop in hand, hoping to secure Nettie as his wife; he leaves with Celie. Later, when Nettie seeks refuge with Celie and Mister, he sends her away after she rebuffs him. Nettie promises to write Celie but never does. Celie resigns herself to the bitter work of tending Mister’s farm.

Throughout Act I’s miseries, there are hints of possibility. Mister’s son Harpo (Torrey Linder) falls for the wonderfully willful Sofia, who has no problem opening a can of whup-ass on Harpo when he tries to beat her, the way his father brutalizes Celie.

Taylor Washington imbues Sofia with a fierceness beyond nature. She does not bend easily, which is why her run-in with racism (early in Act II) remains (regardless of version) one of “The Color Purple” and its incarnations’ most crushing incidents. She is nearly broken (physically) by a canted system, its beneficiaries (in this instance, a mayor’s wife) and its nightmarish traps.

The arrival of the nightclub singer Shug Avery (Angela Wildflower) remains a catalyst. Celie’s care of Mister’s love interest turns to affection and then romance. Act I ends with Shug and Celie’s moving duet “What About Love?” and Shug’s revelation of the cache of Nettie’s letters that Mister has hidden from Celie.

If Act One ends with Celie’s discovery of Mister’s low-down dirtiest act, Act II comes with the measured ascent of Celie, her family, her community.

There is no shortage of beautiful, differently timbered voices here – from McQueen’s and Wildflower’s to the harmonies of the communal trio of Darlene (Christine Wanda), Doris (Ne’Lashee) and Jarene (Domonique Paton). The ensemble numbers (choreography by Dane Figueroa Edidi) take the audience to church. (A special nod of appreciation goes to at times dulcet, other times dauntless and delightful work of the orchestra led by keyboardist S. Renee Clark.)

In 2009, the Broadway touring company’s version of the musical came to the Buell. I recall being underwhelmed even as the show leaned into sumptuous spectacle. It wasn’t until the Aurora Fox’s production, wisely directed by donnie l. betts, that “The Color Purple” reveled in and revealed its more poignant insights. The Denver Center Theatre Company’s version has the intimacy of that more modest production but delivers big-souled splendor.

Tony Cisek’s set achieves states of grace all the while maintaining a deceptive simplicity. (Those lucky enough to see last season’s “Choir Boy” have been beneficiaries of Cisek’s shrewd and elegant support of a show’s emotional ambitions.) Great, slatted wooden walls evoke the siding of a shotgun shack. Its dun color, echoed in the floorboards, hints at the somberness of Celie’s life. Almost lost in the gray-brown of a wall, a lone tree reaches its spindly branches upward. But there are a few potent and poignant tricks up the scenic designer’s sleeve. And costume designer Trevor Bowen plies muted and colorful fabrics to resourceful effect.

The slats will open and close like shutters, bringing in bold light (the vivid work of Peter Maradudin), bringing in a faraway Africa. Walker is of an artistic generation whose hunger for and grasp of Africa’s meaning for the descendants of the Middle Passage is often sewn into their art. That profound connection is subtly made here with the opening of those slats during the reading of Nettie’s letters.

In rehashing the many, many plot twists of “The Color Purple,” the iconic show would seem to tilt toward melodrama, in which dastardliness and sensuality, church folk high-mindedness and their gossipy habits move the action. Yet McQueen and the full ensemble earn the audience’s tears — yes, bring tissue — and joys. Celie’s anthemic “I’m Here” received an opening-night ovation (and it is not the final number).

In December, the musical will get its big-screen close-up. It’ll arrive in movie theaters with some Denver threads to pull on. The music is the same, but playwright Marcus Gardley (author of Denver Theatre Company’s world premiere “Black Odyssey” in 2014) adapted the novel. When Mister, played by Danny Glover, appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film, the characterization of a Black male villain invited some vociferous pushback — for reasons thoughtful, boneheaded and reflective of the rise of hip-hop and black film. This version addresses those quandaries.

Does “The Color Purple” earn its pleasures, its perhaps tidy yet bravura conclusion? Yes, and then some.

IF YOU GO

“The Color Purple.” Based on the novel by Alice Walker. Book by Marsha Norman. Music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray.  Directed by Timothy Douglas. Featuring Maiesha McQueen, Elexis Morton, David Aron Damane, Angela Wildflower, Torrey Linder, Taylor Washington, Elise Frances Daniells, Christine Wanda, Ne’Lashee and Domonique Paton. Through May 7 at the Wolf Theatre in the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex, 14th and Curtis. Denvercenter.org and 303-893-4100.

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