Colorado Explorer City Mile-high nights
Denver dazzles with nocturnal delights. By Brad Weismann
Center for the Performing Arts. The city’s old Theater Row on Curtis Street between
T
15th and 18th Streets was crammed back then with vaudeville theaters, movie houses, pool rooms, bars, arcades, and even houses of easy virtue. The marquees of the area were all studded so thickly with illumination that Thomas Edison, visiting in 1915, called it “the best-
hat Denver is a thriving, cosmopolitan city is not exactly news. It first sprang to national prominence during the Democratic National Convention of … 1908, at the present site of the Denver
lighted street in the world.” Nowadays, vibrant night life has spread beyond the con-
fines of the city’s diagonally skewed downtown street grid. The downtown theatre scene’s centerpiece is the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, which contains an opera house, concert hall, a cabaret and several stages, including the voluminous Buell for tour- ing shows. The Tony Award-winning Denver Center Theatre Company (1101 13th St., 303-893-4100, den-
vercenter.org) presents several productions in repertory from fall through spring. A perfect adjunct to its mammoth neighbor to the
north, the Curious Theatre Company (1080 Acoma St., 303-623-0524,
curioustheatre.org) had made a dispro- portionate impact on regional culture since it opened in 1997. This acclaimed troupe, which operates out of a renovated 1895 church, brings audiences the best in regional- and world-premiere productions, along with a slew of innovative collaborations and special projects with visiting artists and local luminaries. The key to the success of this enterprise is the support
of knowledgeable and enthusiastic audiences from across the region. Denver’s arts have benefited greatly over the past 20 years through the influence of a growing number of patrons whose time and money lift the region into one that can boast being in the Top 10 per-capita for cultural spending in the nation. The cheeky upstart among performing groups is Buntport Theater (717 Lipan St., 720-946-1388,
buntport.com). For 10 years, its sextet of collabora- tors has crafted challenging and satisfying seasons of original works and wry adaptations of classics (“Titus Andronicus! The Musical” and “Kafka on Ice,” for instance), as well as hosting children’s theater and special events. A strong sense of humor, linked to a profound familiarity with culture high and low, make this group’s creations a paradise for the educated observer. This is theatre in the raw – the space, a former ware-
The Denver Performing Arts Complex 44 EnCompass January/February 2011
house that has seen only minimal renovation, is simply a big box with a concrete floor and metal-and-brick
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© Visit Denver/Steve Crecelius
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