While music and sports are already back to live events at full or almost-full capacity, the theater world is still easing its way back. This week, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts launched a new podcast that combines history and storytelling, and allows audiences to participate at their comfort level.
In honor of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, the Boulder Chamber Players commissioned an intriguing theatrical-musical event:
Incessant Hum: Beethoven 2020, featuring the later works, which were composed after Beethoven became deaf. Artistic director Barbara Hamilton enlisted the aid of award-winning actor-director Mare Trevathan and playwright Jeffrey Neuman, himself profoundly hearing impaired, to create the piece. The task was daunting, Neuman says, “because I wanted to serve Beethoven well both the music and the man and because I’d never really written about hearing loss, a subject that seemed a bit too close to home.” The result features acclaimed actors Chris Kendall as Beethoven and Chelsea Frye as Elise a name familiar to every piano student who ever attempted Beethoven’s lyrical Für Elise (Bagatelle No. 25 in A Minor) . The stream is $25 for families, $10 for individuals and $5 students/unemployed; sign up at coloradochamberplayers.org.