It’s a staggering creative achievement: One collaborative theater ensemble conceiving, writing and staging 50 wholly original new plays for the American theater over just 24 years.
To put the Buntport Theater canon into context, let’s consider some of the more prolific playwrights of all time. Lope de Vega is said to have written as many as 1,800 plays during Spain’s Golden Age, but few of us have ever heard of him. One who has is Emily K. Harrison, founder of Boulder’s intentionally lower-cased square product theatre. She was forced to read de Vega as part of her doctoral studies, and to be clear, she said: “I prefer Buntport.”
Shakespeare, we’ve heard of. He’s dubiously credited with writing 37 plays. Neil Simon wrote 30. August Wilson wrote 10. But 50? At roughly 80 minutes each, that’s about 70 hours of original material emanating from the creative brainstems of Brian Colonna, Hannah Duggan, Erik Edborg, Erin Rollman and Samantha Schmitz since 1998. Not to mention about 120 additional original episodes of two popular live sit-com serials they have staged over the years. That’s another 90 hours.
The mind boggles.
“Buntport has created an unreal and unrivaled body of work,” said Denver native Thaddeus Phillips, himself a singular, internationally recognized original theatermaker. “Buntport is, without any question whatsoever, one of the most unique and vital ensembles in the U.S."
Frankly, 50 ordinary plays wouldn’t be all that remarkable. But Buntport consistently produces plays that are imaginative, smart and funny. And No. 50 might be a No. 1: It’s perhaps the first new play to have an emoji in its title. It’s called “♥️ Richard,” and it bowed in April.
It’s always difficult to describe a new Buntport play with any degree of accuracy. But here goes: “♥️ Richard” is loosely based on the actual 2012 discovery of King Richard's body under a parking lot in Leicester, England. The story itself is set in a Denver high-school gymnasium that is hosting a local meeting of the Richard III Society – a real-life group dedicated to reclaiming the sullied reputation of the humpbacked king.
What starts as a quirky gathering of nerdy, present-day Richard III enthusiasts goes a little “cray” with the cosmic arrival of none other than a raucous Queen Margaret of Anjou, who died back in 1492 but has popped in to dish about what really went down during The War of the Roses. OnStage Colorado editor Alex Miller described Rollman’s outrageous hairdo as “Princess Leia caught in a pair of fishing nets” and her Carol Burnett-worthy performance as one with “trashy panache.”
The Buntport Theater ensemble turned its warehouse space into a life-like high-school gymnasium for '♥️ Richard.'
And every bit from the script to the stage was conjured from the smart, twisted brains of five Colorado College pals who have somehow spent their entire adult lives together.
“There really isn’t any other place in Colorado where this kind of original work is being done,” Miller wrote. “The pure joy evident in the creation and presentation of “♥️ Richard” is a heartwarming reminder that it’s still possible to keep a theatrical freak flag flying.”
Here’s to 50 more. No. 51 is coming next month: “The Death of Napoleon: A Play in Less Than Three Acts,” runs Jan. 27-Feb. 18. (All we know now is that it involves a teeter-totter.)
Whether they make it to 100 remains to be seen, but here’s one truth Edborg is happy to bomb: “We’ve done something that is pretty frickin’ rare,” he said.
Note: The True West Awards, now in their 22nd year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community by revisiting 30 of the best stories from the past year without categories or nominations.