Special to The Aspen Times
Kalonjee Gallimore catches big air in front of the cast of Theatre Aspen s Rock of Ages during a rehearsal for the 1980s jukebox musical.
Timothy Bates Photography/Courtesy photo IF YOU GO …
Where: Hurst Theatre, Rio Grande Park
When: Through Aug. 21
Tickets: theatreaspen.org
Jukebox musicals such as “Rock of Ages,” now running at Theatre Aspen through Aug. 21, rely heavily on audience participation for their success. Character, plot and intricate lyrical score the fulcrum around which the traditional musical turns is simply not the point. Nostalgia, rather, is. The audience’s collective memory of a different time and place, a youthful, often more innocent-seeming period is the glue that holds the jukebox musical together. Familiarity trumps originality every time.
Where: Hurst Theatre, Rio Grande Park
When: Through July 22
Tickets: theatreaspen.org
Few industries have been harder hit by the pandemic than the performing arts, and none more so than the theater. Theater needs a live audience for survival the way a deep-sea diver needs an oxygen tank. So when the curtain went up Thursday night on “Chicago: the Musical” launching Theatre Aspen’s 38th season it was as if 15 months of bottled-up talent, passion and longing all came rushing out in one big jubilant wave. For the next 100 minutes (the show runs sans intermission) a rapt, audibly gleeful audience was swept aloft by this air-tight production of Broadway’s iconic, Tony Award-winning musical.
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