Clockwise from left: Josh Riley Brown, Maria Arreola, Luke Slattery and Zoe Rhulen are among the 11 playwrights returning for Curious Theatre's Curious New Voices reunion and festival.
Denver’s Curious Theatre has been giving teenagers a deep dive into the world of playwriting every summer for two decades. And every year, adventurous audiences have had the opportunity to gather and watch snippets of what those promising writers have dreamed up.
But now, for the first time, we are about to get the truest sense of what 20 years of investment in tomorrow’s new voices for the American theater has collectively birthed.
The nationally renowned program, headed by retiring Curious co-founder Dee Covington, is called “Curious New Voices.” On Monday night, Curious will present “This Time,” a festival of 10-minute plays written by Curious New Voices alumni playwrights and performed by some of the area’s most acclaimed actors. Each story is a companion piece to Curious’ current mainstage production of “Alma,” a mother-daughter immigration drama by Benjamin Benne.
Because of Covington, dozens of student playwrights have been given limitless avenues to find the plays inside them. And as hard as this is to believe, writers from that initial CNV class are now approaching age 40. The alumni roster is impressive, including Jake Brasch, who will be one of four featured playwrights at the Denver Center’s 2023 Colorado New Play Summit next month. Bailey Williams has two plays running in New York right now. Max Posner, whose play “The Treasurer'' was glowingly reviewed by the New York Times, is writing a commissioned play for New York’s Lincoln Center Theatre. Colorado Academy grad Luke Slattery is a playwright and also a busy actor who is set to appear in George Clooney’s long-awaited adaptation of “The Boys in the Boat.” Josh Riley Brown is currently a staff writer on “Baby Shark’s Big Show.”
They and many more got their playwriting starts under Covington’s tutelage.
Monday’s playwrights all went through the program sometime between 2004 and 2022. To experience Monday’s festival, Covington said, will be to thrill at the creative growth of these young writers and witness the maturity of their writing voices over time. Monday’s lineup includes Williams, Slattery, Brown, Madeline Miller, Conrad Branch, Zoe Rhulen, Monterey Buchanan, Kevin Douglas, Mario Gonzales, Maria Arreola and Royce Roeswood.
Williams is being reunited with her 2009 summer playwriting mentor, Mare Trevathan, who will direct Williams’ 10-minute play “Floored” on Monday’s program.
Eleven writers spanning 20 years of Curious New Voices?
“I think that is pretty freakin’ phenomenal,” said Covington. “And I tell you, this reunion festival is going to be epic.”
Tickets are free. 7 p.m. at 1080 Acoma St. Reserve seats at curioustheatre.org.
Is Colorado film really a billion-dollar industry?
So … a report got dropped Wednesday that, if true, deserves to be front-page news. But that will require ... some further study. For now, I’m here to tell you that, according to Denver Arts & Venues and Colorado Creative Industries — two advocacy organizations that exist, in large part, to market and promote the arts in Denver and Colorado — the state’s film industry generated more than $1 billion in sales of goods and services in 2019. It just doesn’t say how it did it. The commissioned report goes on to claim that, “as of 2019, more than 15,000 people worked in the film industry.” It does not say for how long, in what capacity, or whether those were in any way sustainable jobs.
It also trumpets that, in Colorado, the film industry “grew 43 percent between 2011-19.” But that much of those gains were, predictably, wiped out by the pandemic. The whole report is cloaked in a call to action: That, if Denver and Colorado’s leaders only invest in Colorado filmmaking, the industry is poised to flourish.
All of which will be music to the ears of all of us who watched the Colorado film industry all but dry up and move to New Mexico and Canada (and apparently completely missed the comeback.)
More to come on all of this …
NEA sends $335,000 to Colorado
The National Endowment for the Arts has announced new grants to 23 Colorado arts organizations totaling $335,000. The windfall:
• $30,000: Motus Theater (Boulder)
• $25,000 each: International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management; Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins)
• $20,000 each: Central City Opera, Colorado Seminary at the University of Denver; Metropolitan State University of Denver; Museo de las Americas
• $15,000 each: Aspen Film; Center for Literary Publishing (Fort Collins); Santa Fe Ballet (Aspen)
• $10,000 each: A Child's Song (Thornton); Blue Sage Center for the Arts (Paonia); Boulder Community Media; Butterfly Effect Theatre of Colorado (Boulder); Brink Literacy Project (Elbert); City of Lakewood; Colorado Dragon Boat Festival (Wheat Ridge); Dance Boulder; David Taylor's Zikr Dance Ensemble (Erie); Ethiopian Community Television; Mirror Image Arts; Rocky Mountain Arts (Telluride); Theater Access Gallery; Willowtail Springs Nature Preserve and Education Center (Mancos)
Briefly …
On Tuesday, Denver Parks and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science will jointly break ground on “Nature Play,” a nearly $8 million, 4-acre “multigenerational and multi-sensory natural play experience” located just outside the museum in City Park. It’ll be completed by late 2024 …
Margaret Norwood, who has been serving as interim executive director of Vintage Theatre, Colorado’s most prolific theater company, has officially lost the interim title, making her the latest in an ongoing surge in artistic leadership positions for women in the local performing arts …
Third time’s the charm: The official rebirth of Theatre Esprit Asia as Insight CoLab Theatre — Colorado’s only company focused on Asian and Asian American stories — will finally take place this weekend. The world premiere of Pang Yuan Yuan and David Nehls’ musical “Say My Name,” about a woman who is met by ghosts on her path to citizenship, was twice wiped out by COVID surges in 2022. It plays Jan. 20-22 at the People’s Building, 9995 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora. Tickets at insightcolab.org …
And finally …
It’s not often a play goes out on a national tour, and it’s unfortunate it will have to be performed in a venue as oversized as the Buell Theatre, but Aaron Sorkin’s Tony Award-winning “To Kill a Mockingbird,” opening in Denver Jan. 24, is one of those theatergoing moments you can’t pass up. And it stars Richard Thomas, who you either loved from “The Waltons” or despised from “Ozark.”
Film and TV star Richard Thomas plays the iconic role of Atticus Finch in the national touring production of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' opening Tuesday at the Buell Theatre.