Loney's Show Notes
By Glenn Loney, May, 2010.
About Glenn Loney
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| Caricature of Glenn Loney by Sam Norkin. |
INTRO: Denver, the Mile High Culture City!
Not only is Denver, Colorado's Capital, a Mile High, it's also High on all forms of Culture. But with none of the Overtones of Elitism striving to appear Viewer Friendly Popular that infects much of Manhattan's Arts Offerings.
With Pike's Peak in the distance, rising above the Colorado Rockies, this was surely the inspiration for what the Denver Theatre Center is proud to call THE COLORADO NEW PLAY SUMMIT.
This past month from 11 13 February the DTC's innovative Artistic Director Kent Thompson, his excellent Production Team, & his outstanding Repertory Ensemble staged the Fifth New Play Summit, inviting members of the American Theatre Critics Association [ATCA] to share in the event.
As a member of ATCA, this was the first time Your Reporter was invited to scale the Summit, but he is no stranger to Denver, nor to the DTC & its sister components in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Here, under a kind of "wedding canopy" of arched steel & glass, The Galleria linking a variety of performance venues & protecting audiences from the Colorado Elements the Public can enjoy Broadway Musicals, Operas, Concerts, Popular Plays, even Lectures & Prime Dining & Drinking…
Mary Poppins & Legally Blonde are on the road, but Carmen & The Barber of Seville also have Denver Audiences on their Itinerary.
Among the theatre venues are the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, the Temple Hamilton Buell Theatre, the Boettcher Concert Hall, & the stages of the DTC: the Jones Theatre, the Ricketson Theatre, plus the several performance spaces of the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex.
Helen Bonfils was smitten with Theatre & with Broadway, so for many years working with the charming Morty Gottlieb she backed Broadway shows.
Before the admirable Kent Thompson late of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival my friend Donovan Marley was the adventurous Artistic Director, so the Denver Theatre Center has long been in very good hands.
The recently retired Donald Seawell was also an outstanding DTC board president & patron. The striking portrait of his late wife, the affecting actress Eugenia Rawls, graces the Bonfils Lobby…
Your Reporter almost did not make it out to Denver: NYC & Long Island Blizzard!
My esteemed colleague Jeffrey L. Jenkins Editor of Best Plays & I got on the last American Airlines flight out of LaGuardia. They were spraying some kind of greenish gunk on the wings to prevent icing on take off…
This reminded me of the same Wing Treatment in Salt Lake City, some seasons ago, when I was returning from the Pan Canada New Play Festival in Calgary home of the famed Calgary Stampede.
TS Eliot has famously observed that "April is the cruelest month," but February, in the depths of Winter, can also be brutal, especially to Theatre Practitioners & Theatre Lovers!
At least in Calgary, I was finally able to Walk on Water!
I rented a car & drove up to the Canadian Rockies, including Banff & Lake Louise. I'd always wanted to stay in all of those magnificent Canadian Rail Grand Hotels, like the Chateau Frontenac in Québec City…
At Lake Louise, the hotel was fully booked with New York City Heart Surgeons, who had to fly up to Canada for a Conference that apparently could not have been convened in Manhattan at the Empire Hotel…
Fortunately, Lake Louise was frozen over. Not only were Locals crafting Ice Sculptures & Castles on its surface, but I was also able to walk across it without sinking!
Back in Calgary, I was at least able to photograph the Calgary Stampede Arena, sans Bulls & Broncos, as well as to witness One Yellow Rabbit with its affecting Leonard Cohen Tribute…
But enough of Canada, already!
Most of the American Theatre Critics who were actually able to make into flights into Denver stayed at the Curtis/Doubletree/Hilton Hotel, just half a block from the Denver Center for Performing Arts. The hotel personnel are obliging & charming, so you might want to check it out.
As I fell on my head photographing the Golden Gate Bridge not long ago, my balance is not so good now. At home, my bathroom is fully equipped with heavy metal grab bars in the shower. I may not always need them, but they do give Confidence…
The ferociously Post Modern Interior Decorated Curtis, however, has no Grab Bars at all. I thought these should now be Standard in all hotel rooms. But no…
I had to hold onto the ceramic soap dish, embedded in the tile wall at shoulder level. I was afraid I'd crack it off & have an Unpleasant Addition to my hotel bill.
Also, there were no towel racks on the walls beside the wash stand. These are good for steadying oneself, but they can also prove useful for holding towels.
But no… There was only a hook on the back of the bathroom door, certainly unhandy.
All the towels three sizes were rolled tightly & jammed into a fashionable wire basked, shoved underneath the open wash stand, but not at all easy for the Aged & Infirm to pull out. Nor was the toilet paper dispenser easy to reach from the Throne…
Otherwise, the Curtis is excellent. Could the Doubletree/Hilton Management at least install some Grab Bars & Towel Racks?
The Aorta or the Carotid or Jugular of Downtown Denver just two blocks from the handsome Theatre Complex & the immense adjoining Conference Center is the 16th Street Mall, linking the Old Town & the Art Deco Union Station with the State Capitol & Denver Art Museum Complex at its other end.
The Mall's Traffic Blood Flow is fortunately two way, almost instantly serviced by rubber tired trams that take on Locals & Tourists alike at each block ABSOLUTELY FREE!
This is an Idea that other American Cities ought to consider, to increase Local Convenience & to Attract Tourists. Some famed European Cities already have such Complimentary Transport in their Historic Centers.
[But Manhattan, whose Chief Industry is now Tourism, has done nothing to make bus travel down Fifth Avenue & up Madison not to mention Cross Town on 42nd Street Visitor Friendly.
[Arts Lovers from London, Paris, Milan, St. Petersburg formerly Leningrad, & Stockholm often try to board the M1, M2, M3, or M4 at the Met Museum bus stop, their fists full of dollar bills, only to be ordered off, as the MTC Fare Boxes will not accept paper money: ONLY EXACT CHANGE!
[Of course, Metrocards will work in the fare boxes, but unlike major World Cities & even in some Third World Capitals it is not possible to buy them from machines installed in the buses or standing beside the Met Museum's bus stop.
[Tourists are often told to go to a Subway Station to purchase a Metrocard. Most of these stations are not near major bus lines…
[What is the matter with MTA & City Hall: why can't they equip buses & major bus stops with compact machines as in Munich & Berlin that will accept Coins, Paper Currency, & Credit Cards for Single Fares, Metrocards Limited & Unlimited, Day Passes, & Family Passes?]
Denver buses even have Bike Racks in front & behind… There's also excellent Light Rail service!
There even Horse Drawn Carriages on the Mall.
The Center Strips of each block are Mini Parks, with distinctive Arts Enhancements. In fact, Public Arts, such as Sculptures, Murals, Decorative Tiles, & Arts Installations abound, even incorporated into hotel & building plazas!
The 16th Street Mall also has an odd kind of Commercially Driven Impromptu Performance Art: otherwise unemployed men & women hop about the ends of various center strips, waving large Arrow Signs to alert visitors to shops & restaurants in the side streets that they might otherwise miss!
At the upper end of the Mall, both the neo classic State Capitol & the elegant City & County of Denver Complex reward a visit, for both Architecture & Arts Adornments.
But the most important Destination for Visitors is the two sectioned Post Modernist Denver Art Museum & the handsome Frank Ghery designed City & County Public Library.
As an occasional visitor to Denver Cousins live in nearby Colorado Mills & Your Reporter has had Jin Shin Jyutsu Acupressure treatments in Pioneer/Hippie Boulder, which has the only surviving Chautauqua Auditorium in the West! I never had time to check out the new addition to the Museum, glimpsed only from a distance.
From afar, it looked like another Frank Ghery Titanium Explosion of Angles & Planes. It is, in fact, the device of Daniel Libeskind, with some fenestrations that recall his ingenious Jewish Museum in Berlin.
The Museum's astonishing collections include the Usual Suspects, but also distinctive Colorado Artists & Visual Chroniclers of the Old West, currently spotlighting The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell.
Another outstanding talent is Allen True, whose impressive & colorful Art Deco Murals adorn seven major buildings in the center of the city.
At the Museum, you can obtain an illustrated Allen True brochure, featuring reproductions of the murals & a map of their placements, in such venues as the Brown Palace Hotel remember the Unsinkable Molly Brown? as well as in the Colorado National Bank & the Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Building, which has a charming ceramic Bell System Blue Bell above its entrance!
Yes, there is a Colorado edition of The Onion, but a local weekly freebie, Westword, astonishes for its three pages of full color ads for Medical Marijuana!
Apparently, you cannot just walk in off the street to take advantage of such offers as "Free Joint," Free Peanut butter Hash," "Buy a Gram, Get a Gram," "Free Samples," & "Bring in this ad for a Free Joint."
To keep a Clear Head as a Drama Critic, obviously I could not check out any of these Cannabis Oriented Invitations.
It would seem, however, that Potential Customers have to have Medical Exams & Cards to certify their need for Marijuana for Medical Purposes: "Doctor Exam Starting at $89," "Doctor Referral w/ Coupon," or "Medical Evaluations." Some of these seem to be available on site…
How about "Your Kind of Medicine," "Access the Benefits: Get Legal," "Peace in Medicine," Health & Wellness Center," "Caregiver Dispensary," "Over 60 Strains Daily," or "Local Caregivers of Colorado: Mobile Medical Marijuana Dispensary for the Front Range"?
In noting this unusual surge in Herbal Wellness in Colorado, Your Reporter does not mean to suggest that Denver Theatre Center repertory actors give such excellent performances thanks to Substance Enhancements. Not at all…
My impression is that these fine actors get high on the Characters they are playing & the Narratives in which these ingeniously imagined people Live, Move, & Have Their Being, to borrow an operative phrase from Mary Baker Eddy!
Just as you in the audience should you book a flight to Denver & tickets for their shows can also get high from entering into the spirit of the performances! Anyway, you will already physically be A Mile High…
New Plays in World Premieres:
Rogelio Martinez' WHEN TANG MET LAIKA [****]
Eric Schmiedl's EVENTIDE [****]
[Based upon Kent Haruf's novel]
Play Readings: Not for Review!
Caridad Svich's THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
[Based upon Isabel Allende's novel]
Michele Lowe's MAP OF HEAVEN
Ken Weitman's THE CATCH
Jason Grote's CIVILIZATION (ALL YOU CAN EAT)
Stories on Stage: As Time Goes By…
[Just For the Record: Denver Theatre Center Readings after the ATCA Drama Critics Departed…]
Cristina Henriquez' GABRIELA, MY HEART
[Read by Nick Sugar]
Jay McInerney's THE DEBUTANTE'S RETURN
[Read by Jeanne Paulsen]
Steven Millhauser's IN THE REIGN OF HARAD IV
[Read by Ping Wu]
Steve Martin's CHANGES IN THE MEMORY AFTER 50
[Read by John Hutton]
Play Summit Internet Enhancements:
[Readers might want to check some of these out, to see if Play Summit Photos, Videos, & Comments are still online…]
www.twitter.com/DenverCenter
www.facebook.com/DenverCenter
www.youtube.com/DenverCenter
www.denvercenter.org/blog
SHOW NOTES OVERVIEW:
The Colorado New Play Summit World Premieres:
Rogelio Martinez' WHEN TANG MET LAIKA
For those too young to remember Sputnik & Yuri Gargarin or, for that matter, the Presidencies of LBJ & Richard Nixon it could be useful to know that Laika was the First Dog in Space!
She was sent to her Certain Death by Soviet Rocket Scientists, but she returns to life in Rogelio Martinez' interesting exploration of Life in Space versus Life on boring old Earth.
Tang, on the other hand, seems very earth bound in this play. In its powdered form, it is used to make the favorite pie of NASA Space Cadet Patrick, even though he will never eat it, as he is up in Space on the Russian space station Mir.
There are several Earth vs. Space Issues in this drama.
While life on earth, whether in America or in the Soviet Union, moves forward or stays in place from day to plodding day, way out in Space, Patrick & his new Russian colleagues watch sunrises & sunsets on earth fly by in a matter of minutes.
Patrick is also losing contact with his very earthy wife, Samantha [Megan Byrne], who is trying to hold the family together Offstage Children with Food & Prayer, which alienates Patrick when he is back on Earth between Shuttle Flights.
Patrick is falling in love with the cool & lovely Elena [Jessica Love], a Soviet Cosmonaut. But can this love be consummated? Especially in the cramped confines of the Mir Space Station?
Yuri Gargarin was Elena's cousin: Laika was no relation. But they are both out there, floating around in Space, visible only to live Astronauts, who may be doomed to die.
Elena's father was also an early Astronaut, but he was eliminated from the Program when the KGB discovered that he was essentially Homosexual. This was forbidden in all Warsaw Pact Nations, not only the Soviet Union.
Added to the problem of American Cosmonauts learning to live & work side by side with their former Communist Enemies is the potential for inter personal Disaster if they are trapped out in Space, with no more food or fuel…
While Patrick [Ian Merril Peakes] is on his way to becoming a kind of "Space Alien," back on Earth a (Retired) Young Communist & a (Retired) Young Capitalist appear from time to time, but they seem to be in a different, if minor & distracting, play.
Apparently, playwright Martinez wanted these roles played by young actors, but this makes no sense visually, if they are supposed to be Retired, especially in Florida… There is an odd homosexual undercurrent to their scenes, signifying what…
What makes this production really interesting is the use it makes of revolving stage rings & podium up thrusts from stage center, along with NASA space projections ringing the upper level of the arena stage conformation.
Designers James Kronzer [Set], David Kay Mickelsen [Costumes], Charles R. MacLeod [Lighting], & Jason Ducat [Sound] are to be congratulated on their Audio Visual Solutions to the problems of producing this play.
Terrence J. Nolen directed a fine cast that also included Randy Moore, R. Ward Duffy, Richard Thierot, & W. Scott McLean.
When Tang Met Laika is a challenging, imaginative drama, with more Potential than is actually realized. It should still be In Development, but unfortunately it is already In Print, along with Eventide & another World Premier from the Denver Theatre Center.
This could mean that the script is effectually now Frozen. Unless Rogelio Martinez has some Second &
Third Thoughts about some Revisions he may want to make…
Considering the commercial success of Star Trek & other Outer Space Franchises, anyone who tries to write a serious but also interesting Space Play faces Major Challenges.
Years ago, the Swedish composer, Karl Birger Blomdahl whom I interviewed afterward created Aniara, the first Space Opera.
It had a number of impressive, imaginative European Productions long ago, but, to my knowledge, it has never had a Major Staging here at, say, the Met. Peter Gelb might want to consider introducing this now even more timely exploration of Life & Death in Outer Space.
Warned of the imminent Destruction of Earth, Scientists like Noah with his Ark construct the Space Ship Aniara, so a very limited number of Humans can escape, to find a more hospitable Planet in the Beyond…
The Rocket Ship even has its own Voice, a kind of Shriek Band, which ultimately dies out, as the fuel for the ship begins to run out. Aniara's doomed passengers can never return to Earth, now exploded, but they cannot long survive, floating in Space…
Such a situation is certainly Serious, even Terrifying, but, for most modern audiences, it also needs a Human Dimension. Martinez is almost there…
Eric Schmiedl's EVENTIDE
When I retired, way back in 1991, I stopped reading the New York Times, to prevent the Daily Anguish it engendered, detailing Disasters, Deceptions, Corruptions, & Pollutions around the World.
Thus I had no way of knowing that author Kent Haruf's novels Plainsong & Eventide were National Bestsellers! Had I known that & had I bought & read copies of both books, I would have had a better "Handle" on Eric Schmiedl's dramatization of the latter Colorado Small Town Panoramic Epic.
One of the Dramaturgic Questions for audiences at the play reading of Map of Heaven asked whether you could identify a Lead Character.
I guess it must be Rancher McPheron, the surviving member of a Colorado duo of old bachelors, who eventually seems to find love at last in the fictional small town of Holt, in Holt County.
But there are a number of interesting characters in this small town Slice of Life rather like Thornton Wilder's Our Town, but not so well inter related.
The dim witted Luther & Betty June Wallace, neglecting their two children, while living in squalor & on Food Stamps in their wretched mobile home, are worthy of their own play…
The stage director, Kent Thompson, has said: "The danger with a piece that is so sprawling in terms of the number of scenes and locations is that you can lose focus." [Italics added…]
Exactly!
Dramatic effectiveness is not increased by having as many as four Narrators to let the audience know what has happened & what they are about to see. This is rather like having not one, but four, Wilderian Stage Managers…
There are two major set pieces: the McPheron Bros. Kitchen & Luther & Betty June's messy, smudgy house trailer. Although it's clear this trailer will never hit the road again, in the actual produciton, it keeps scooting on & off stage. As does the Kitchen setting…
As in Hamlet: Look where it comes again!
Smaller set pieces & over heads for other scenes have a distracting habit of frequently popping up out of the floor, dropping down from the flies, or inching out of the wings.
Never have I seen such frenetic activity of Set Props! They almost seem to have a Life of Their Own!
Maybe Plainsong & Eventide should be a TV Series, to get in all the Characters & their Story Lines, as well as the Colorado Scenery, which is somewhat suggested in this production by a painted scenic wall with doors in it…
Vicki Smith designed all the set pieces & the back wall. Western & Small Town 1980s Costumes were the confections of Susan Branch Towne. With Lighting & Sound by Don Darnutzer & Craig Breitenbach.
Although this play was produced in Colorado, there was Dialect Coaching. Do they talk different in Denver?
I've been in small town Colorado & didn't detect speech much different than in my own home town of Grass Valley [California]. Maybe New York trained actors are too Sophisticated?
Colorado Springs is something else, altogether…
Rather than single out a few members of this excellent cast too many key strokes! I'd suggest you find them on line at the Denver Theatre Center's website!
Not To Be Reviewed Scripts & Performances…
Reviewers & Bloggers it may be too much to call all of them Critics, after all were warned that they should not review the Play Readings. These are considered Works in Progress.
Two of the scripts seemed already fully formed, but that effect may have been owing more to what the actors did to develop their roles physically, emotionally, & spiritually than what was simply in the lines, as written…
But then even rehearsals for Play Readings without the visually limiting sets & costumes of a full production can be viewed as Voyages of Discovery.
I have no idea how many rehearsals each of the four scripts received, but most of the actors' performances had the effect of fully realized characters.
With the added advantage that without specific & defining settings or elaborate & defining costuming & lighting viewers could concentrate on the Characters in Action!
Most of the performers as also in the World Premiere Productions seemed to INHABIT their Characters in their various Worlds.
Some elements of Costume & a few Props awkward when actors were working with a script were OK, but really unnecessary, thanks to what the totally energized actors brought to their roles.
I look forward to seeing these plays again in Full Production. Some still need work, as they say, but their present forms may well be exactly what the playwrights intended…
Having recently devoured Isabel Allende's hypnotic evocation of an almost Dynastic Family Chronicle, The House of the Spirits, while in Skeletal Rehab at Mount Sinai's Klingenstein Pavilion the only Patient Abandoned Volume worth reading there I was especially intrigued by the way Caridad Svich had compressed so much painful quasi Allende family history into a playable drama.
So I am looking forward to The House of the Spirits, fully fledged, ready for flights across America's stages…
Each of these Workshop Readings was accompanied by a Question Form for audiences.
Not Did You Like the Play?, but possibly helpful to the playwright queries such as: Which characters stayed with you? Or What emotional connections do you make to characters and their journeys in the play?
For Michele Lowe's Map of Heaven in which a Woman Artist [if you are a Woman, apparently you cannot be known simply as a Poet, a Novelist, or a Painter] paints Maps, fanciful & otherwise we were asked: Is there a lead character, and if so, who is it?
Obviously, if I was understandably not allowed to review the Reading, I could hardly suggest to the playwright that she had or had not succeeded in focusing on a one character in particular.
But if Conflict as has often been taught is the Heart of Drama, might there well be at least two central characters in contention?
Of course, with Hamlet, there's no question about the Lead Character, even if Polonius is the finest performance in the production… Nor did the Bard title this drama Ophelia…
Next Question: No, in an actual production, I wouldn't want to actually see Lena's paintings: Too Limiting!
I'd rather imagine what they might look like, rather than see some Prop Shop mock ups…
We were also asked why Ian lost Gail's Mammogram. We were offered three choices: "He puts a note on it & files it," "He threw it away," & "I don't know."
Out in Denver, audiences really have to Pay Attention! The Big C is nothing to dismiss lightly!
Or the playwright has to make these actions clear, rather than vague. Unless Ian's Motives are also ambiguously conflicted…
As for The Catch, by Ken Weitzman, Candlestick Point in SF is pretty windy, so it's amazing that Gary Zipnik caught that potentially Big Bucks Baseball at all, even if he later lost it in the surge of the Madding Crowd.
But we were all asked in the Post Play questionaire: "What feeling were you left with at the end?"
As I could never hit the ball & thus find Baseball totally boring to watch, my "feeling" was how much I admired the actors who brought this drama of Blustery Dreams & Angry Failures to Life.
Notably Ian Merrill Peakes, who the previous evening had been completely different as a NASA Space Cadet on the Soviet Space Station.
As for the disparate scenes in Jason Grote's Civilization (All You Can Eat), I was intrigued by "What is your favorite food & why?" as well as "What, in your life, do you regret?"
I tried being a Playwright, but that didn't work.
Being a Critic has never paid me any Money or garnered any Thanks… But just think what we critics will have to pay for in the After Life, if there is one: Being tormented by Playwrights & Tallulah Bankhead, with Red Hot Pitchforks in Don Juan in Hell!
Did Dramaturg Doug Langworthy sometimes at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival draft these questions? The final one for Grote's opus was: "Where would you like to travel & why? Why don't you?"
I wasn't sure if this query meant: "Right Now, at this Very Moment!" Was this an Invitation to Leave Denver or an Order?
So I flew back to New York City & another Blizzard…
Commissioning Playwrights at the Denver Center Theatre Company:
After the Friday evening's Reading, both Public & Critics were invited to a PLAYWRIGHTS' SLAM in the intimate Jones Theatre. Most of the audience appeared to be Company Members, Tech Staffies, & supportive Fellow Playwrights.
But some Good Stuff by young Commissioned Playwrights is obviously In Development!
In addition to names already cited, other Denver Commissions have gone to Lee Blessing, Michael Mitnick, Connie Congden, Julie Marie Myatt, Otavio Solis, Lisa Loomer, Ami Dyan, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder, Steven Dietz, Steven Cole Hughes, Marcus Gardley, José Cruz Gonzáles, & the admirable Theresa Rebeck.
Some of these talents are also seen at the Humana Festival of Actors Theatre Lousiville, as well as at Regional Theatres around the Nation.
New Yorkers are also familiar with the works of some, notably Lee Blessing, Theresa Rebeck, Lisa Loomer, & Constance Congden…
ACTA Panel on American Critics Helping New Playwrights Emerge & Develop:
It should come as no surprise that American Theatre Critics generally are very supportive of New Playwrights & New Plays. No one wants to be endlessly reviewing revivals of Hedda Gabler & Candida!
Nonetheless, no one is getting a Free Pass just because he or she has decided to Write a Play. Playwriting in its varied developing forms is Not That Simple.
But especially with Young Playwrights Beginners may find it difficult to dramatize effectively a Narrative or a Conflict that seems very clear in their imaginations.
If they are determined not to fall back on the proven Structural Formulas of Sophocles or Noël Coward, desiring to create a totally New Dramatic Form, they may well need the advice & possible approbation of experienced Theatre Critics.
Reviewers who have Seen It All…
The ACTA Panel was moderated by Jim Steinberg, a great friend of New Plays & Playwrights, who through his family's Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust has funded various Playwriting Prizes & Productions, notably the annual ATCA Steinberg Award for the Best New American Play. This rewards & encourages its Winner with a check for $25,000!
The Three Chris es Christopher Rawson of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Christine Dolen of the Miami Herald, & Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune provided a lively exchange of advice & opinion.
As this was video recorded by several operatives, the proceedings or at least their High Points are sure to be on line, either on the Denver Center website or the American Theatre Critics handsome new website, or both, there's no need for Your Reporter, who does not take notes, to reprise the panel here…
Audio Video Recording Novice Efforts:
Intending to interview the Bayreuth Festival's stunning young Intendant, Katharine Wagner the Master's great granddaughter this summer in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, Your Reporter has just purchased a compact vertical blue object that records both audio & visual.
What he did not realize is that recording a panel or a group with the object held horizontally to get a Panoramic View rather than vertically, the image apparently cannot be Rotated to appear on this report as a vertical.
If, by the time of filing, my trusty colleague Scott Bennett has not found a way to rotate the interviews I made in Denver, the Audio will have to suffice.
The first interview is with Sylvie Drake, for years a mainstay of the Denver Theatre Center, but, before that, the head of the Drama Desk at the Los Angeles Times, for which I was then a Theatre & Music "Stringer" from New York.
The second interview couples two of the most influential critic personalities in ATCA, Chris Rawson & Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, among other hat wearings, the Editor of the Best Plays series.
Sponsors & Patrons of the Colorado New Play Summit:
Among the Sponsors, Donors, Patrons, & "Providers" for the Denver Theatre Center & its New Play Summit or specific play productions are the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, MaxFund No Kill Animal Shelter & Adoption Center, NASA, the Denver Post, Gay & Lesbian Fund, Channel 4, Terry & Noel Hefty, Jim Steinberg & Karolyn Lestrud, the Helen G. Bonfils Foundation, the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, United Airlines, Checkmate Entertainment, Allan & Margot Frank, Judi & Bob Newman, Leo & Susan Kiely, CEO Daniel L. Ritchie, & others…
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