“Theater of the Mind” is the brainchild of Byrne, the iconic former frontman of Talking Heads, and his writer pal Mala Gaonkar. It was conceived by a New York design team, it easily could have employed an entirely out-of-town talent pool, and it could have been staged in any city.
We can’t know yet just how David Byrne’s massive, immersive “Theater of the Mind” neuroscience freakout will play out until it opens to adventurous audiences – 16 at a time – starting Aug. 31.
But we do know that the mind-bending mind game that will take place in 12 intricately designed rooms over 15,000 square feet at the York Street Yards will be the largest immersive theatrical adventure ever attempted in Denver to date – and that it will be a boon to the city in a number of economic ways, including the inevitable boost to its national cultural profile.
“Theater of the Mind” is the brainchild of Byrne, the iconic former frontman of Talking Heads, and his writer pal Mala Gaonkar. It was conceived by a New York design team, it easily could have employed an entirely out-of-town talent pool, and it could have been staged in any city.
(But not really.)
Instead, the world of the play is being entirely built by the creative staff of the DCPA Theatre Company. And when the show officially opens, it will be entrusted to a huge collective of Denver Center and Denver-based talent that includes 14 actors, two local assistant directors, five crew members, 10 stage managers and technicians, three wardrobe supervisors, two box-office attendants and up to six more “experience attendants” who will keep things moving and organized. The public will never see the massive war room where the equivalent of air-traffic controllers will be monitoring everything on a bank of 13 TV monitors.
Byrne chose Denver to launch "Theater of the Mind" because, for the past decade, the city has been developing a national reputation as a leader in the emerging field of immersive, or “experience-based” theater – the kind that takes place anywhere other than a traditional theater space. And that all starts with DCPA Executive Director Charlie Miller, who has curated the Denver Center’s unconventional Off-Center programming wing since 2010. It was Off-Center’s growing reputation in the field that first attracted Byrne’s attention.
“They knew we have this incredible team of DCPA artists who would be able to pull off a project of this scale. They knew we have a very talented community of local actors. And they knew we have a loyal local audience that is hungry for this type of work,” Miller said.
As Byrne puts it: “For me, the level of the creative team here in Denver equals anything in the world that I have ever experienced. It is absolutely on the level of anything on Broadway. And the folks here are even more adventurous, even more willing to try new things out than people on Broadway are.”
“Theater of the Mind” director Andrew Scoville says the project requires a level of detail and finish that you can’t achieve in a lot of other places. “But the Denver Center is incredibly well set-up to be able to execute something of this scale,” he said.
And there was no need to bring in New York actors to perform the show, Scoville said, “because the talent pool here in Denver is incredible. I was totally floored in our auditions.”
That pool was so vast because unconventional theatermakers like Amanda Berg Wilson, founder of a group called The Catamounts, regularly present narrative stories everywhere from a golf course to a riverbed to an abandoned dairy farm.
“Denver is ‘it’ right now,” said Berg Wilson, who is both a “Theater of the Mind” actor and assistant director. “Because of the work being done by Off-Center, The Catamounts, Control Group Productions and others, we now have a whole body of actors who have not only done immersive work, they have a skill set that other national actors probably don’t. I think you would be challenged to find a community that has actors who can do this kind of work at the level that they can in Denver.”
The cast Scoville chose includes locals Wilson, Jessica Austgen, Annie Barbour, the intentionally lower-cased donnie l. betts, James Brunt, Janae Burris, Kristina Fountaine, Abner Genece, Steph Holmbo, Jenna Moll Reyes, Peter Trinh, Maggie Whittum and Lisa Hori-Garcia (of San Francisco).
So what is “Theater of the Mind?” Byrne describes it as “a deep dive into the human brain.” In short, it is a one-person play that will be separately performed by 14 different actors. Each audience of 16 will be assigned one “Guide” who will lead them through the entire one-hour experience. “They are not only facilitating this series of neuro-science experiments, but they are also telling a narrative story about one particular life as a template for how we might question our experience of our own lives,” said Berg Wilson.
Betty Hart, newly named co-artistic director of Boulder’s Local Theater Company, is the other assistant director. “Theater of the Mind,” she says, “is a wonderful opportunity for you to be able to bring questions about perceptions, your life, the world around you, and see how science actually answers some of those questions.”
The experience is scheduled to run at least through Dec. 18 at 3887 Steele St. Info: 303-893-4100 or theateroftheminddenver.com
A sneak peek inside one of the 12 rooms where 'Theater of the Mind' will play out.
Candlelight names Kate Vallee A.D.
We’ve been tracking the emphatic continuing trend of expanding opportunities for women in the Colorado artistic leadership ranks, and the latest example is at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Johnstown. The thriving, 320-seat dinner theater located 45 miles north of Denver has named widely admired director and choreographer Kate Vallee as its new Artistic Director. Vallee becomes the 19th woman to be appointed to an artistic-director position at a Colorado theater company since October 2017 (the fall of Harvey Weinstein). In that time, only nine men have been named to similar positions. Almost all of the women newly hired are now first-time artistic directors.
Vallee finds those numbers to be incredibly exciting.
Kate Vallee is the new Artistic Director fo the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse.
“I can’t help but celebrate that women are being given a bigger seat at the leadership table in Colorado theater,” she said, “and I am proud that Candlelight is a part of that movement.”
Vallee has directed or choreographed about 25 musicals across the country, including a national touring production of “42nd Street” and an off-Broadway staging of “A Christmas Carol.” Locally, she has helmed “Shout” at the Town Hall Arts Center and “Curtains” at Candlelight, among others. As a performer, she was a Radio City Rockette for four years and toured nationally with “42nd Street” and “Funny Girl.”
Owner Dave Clark said he considered six candidates for the position, but Vallee’s maturity and people skills set her apart. I have watched her working with actors and she is firm, fair and organized,” Clark said, “and that’s what I was looking for.”
Unlike most every other arts organization in Colorado, Candlelight is a for-profit business that does not qualify for public funding. Clark’s conservative, family-friendly programming philosophy has drawn criticism – and yet, the theater has been virtually 100 percent sold out in 2022 with productions including “Curtains,” “Murder on the Orient Express” and, through Sept. 4, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.”
Vallee says her No. 1 priority as artistic director will be supporting, informing and gathering community. And Clark admits, “We have to be better at that.” Vallee has worked as director or choreographer on seven Candlelight shows since 2017, and she says that has given her unique insight into the business, and the playhouse’s large and loyal following. She knows that one way meaningful change happens is when people see things from perspectives different from their own, which suggests a broader approach to future programming.
As part of a management restructuring, Candlelight parted ways with longtime Production Manager (and former Colorado Theatre Guild President) Pat Payne. While Clark was and will remain the final say on all major decisions, he now has assembled a leadership team made up entirely of women: Vallee, Director of Operations Cathy Salaymeh and Director of Sales and Marketing Jalyn Courtenay Webb.
Renderings of the pandemic-delayed Boardwalk By Candlelight Theatre planned for Fort Collins.
Boardwalk back on the boards
Clark said his focus now shifts back to financing (and building) the Boardwalk by Candlelight he first announced in late 2019 as a new 800-seat theater for central Fort Collins. That project, of course, was stopped in its tracks by the pandemic, and what was originally believed to be a $10 million home for live theater, concerts, conferences, weddings, events and theater education will now run up to $20 million, Clark said, because of rising construction costs as well as labor and supply shortages. But it will happen, he assured, at the corner of Boardwalk and Mason streets in central Fort Collins. He estimates that it will be two years before it will be open to the public.
'The Rocky Horror Show' Director Caitlin Lowans guides blind actor Don Mauck during a rehearsal this week.
Vin Scully helped blind actor see baseball
With a recent rash of celebrity deaths, some may have missed news of the death of legendary broadcaster Vin Scully, who died on Aug. 2 at age 94. But not veteran actor Don Mauck, who plays the Narrator in the disability-affirmative Phamaly Theatre Company’s “The Rocky Horror Show,” opening Friday at Su Teatro.
Mauck is blind, but he has long said it’s the rest of us who are visually impaired “because you see all the ugliness in the world, and I don’t.” He’s also been known to pop one of his glass eyeballs out of its socket and bounce it into a stranger’s beer glass, just for the laugh.
Mauck grew up “seeing” baseball because of Scully, whom he considered his friend, his hero “and the best damned baseball teacher you could ever hope for.”
Mauck didn’t have many friends growing up blind in Denver schools. But from the age of 6, he had a transistor radio – ”my only reliable friend,” he said. One night, when the radio signal traveled well outside of Denver, he first heard Scully’s voice saying, clear as day, “Pull up a chair; it’s time for Dodger baseball.” The voice hit Mauck right in the heart. “I felt like he was talking directly to me, this little blind kid in Denver, Colorado,” said Mauck, who listened from then on, as often as he could. He kept the radio hidden under his pillow to keep his parents from finding out he wasn’t sleeping.
“Scully didn’t just tell you about the game,” he said, “he truly made it a story. And in my heart, he was just talking to me.”
Mauck grew up not dreaming of playing baseball but wanting to be Vin Scully. “It’s hard to put into words just how much he touched my life as a sometimes very lonely blind kid in his room craving company,” he said. “His warm way would make a bad day seem like a really good day after all.”
When Mauck heard Scully had died after a long night of rehearsing, “I cried openly and unashamedly,” he said. “I had just lost one of the best childhood friends one could ever hope for. To me, he will always be my bigger-than-life hero.”
Columbine reunion canceled by threat
Award-winning actor Anna Maria High is also a member of the Columbine High School class of 2002, which was supposed to celebrate its 20th reunion on Saturday in Lone Tree. But months of planning went out the window when the whole thing was called off the day before because of unspecified threats that were made through an unidentified source. By then, dozens of alums had flown into town and once again, the freshman class at the time of the school massacre was re-traumatized.
High, who already had chosen not to attend in part because she is cast in BDT Stage’s current production of “The SpongeBob Musical,” said the news was triggering nonetheless. “It just goes to show, once again, that Columbine grads can't just have something normal like a reunion without someone jacking it up,” said High.
The 'South Park' 25th anniversary experience.
Wait. South Park is %^&*ing 25?
“South Park,” Comedy Central’s Colorado-based, foul-mouthed phenomenon, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a traveling exhibit showcasing props, memorabilia, artwork, collectables and never-before-seen scripts. The free exhibit, housed within a custom-fabricated shipping container, will be at McGregor Square across from Coors Field from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday (Aug. 12-13). Comedy Central has extended “South Park’s” run through 2027, through the show’s 30th season.
Briefly …
After a nationwide audition process, Opera Colorado has selected seven artists for its next year-round resident-artist program for 2022-23: Soprano Francesca Mehrotra, mezzo-soprano Joanne Evans, tenor David Soto Zambrana, baritone Steve Valenzuela, bass-baritones Keith Klein and Turner Staton, and returning collaborative pianist Oleg Bellini …
The CinemaQ Festival starts Thursday and runs through Sunday. Get more info at denverfilm.org and read our profile of founding programmer Keith Garcia here.