Yeehaw! Many of Colorado's annual summer events are restarting this weekend, but the more traditional lineup will be joined by a number of innovative entertainments that were forged during the pandemic.
Westminster s Shoenberg Farm was opened as a dairy operation in 1912 by philanthropist Louis D. Shoenberg. At the time, Denver’s National Jewish Health was among the sanatoriums throughout the country serving tuberculosis patients. Many had flocked to Colorado for the clear mountain air, and Shoenberg wanted to find a way to provide food for these people.
It’s an unusual theater director who would see this kindly piece of history as artistic inspiration, but Amanda Berg Wilson, founder of The Catamounts, is an unusual artist.
“At the beginning of this whole COVID shitshow, I was thinking, I don’t know if I want to do Zoom theater, ” Berg Wilson recalls. “We say we’re dedicated to the reinvention of artistic forms. I originally created the company ten years ago to figure out ways to do theater that are not traditional. So I thought, I guess I have to figure it out.”
Jeffrey Neuman of Kendallville has earned a masterâs degree in education from Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska. Concordia University, Nebraska, founded in 1894, is a fully accredited, coeducational university, which currently serves over 2,500 students.
Tressa Hodge of Kendallville, a student at the University of Evansville, earned deanâs list honors for the spring 2021 semester. Hodge is studying exercise science at the university.
To be named to the semester deanâs list, a student must carry a full academic load of 12 hours or more and earn a grade-point average of 3.5 or above. The University of Evansville is a private, liberal arts and sciences-based university located in Evansville, Indiana.
Where there was once a bustling Denver theater scene becoming more interesting by the year more experimentation, funkier musicals, explorations of race, sex and identity, immersive events featuring food and drink there has been a long silence, despite some outdoor performances and a fair amount of video streaming. One of the most intriguing and so far most silent Front Range companies has been Benchmark Theatre.
Rachel Rogers, co-founder with Haley Johnson, left in January. Johnson herself gave birth last fall to a son. Scheduled plays were canceled; there were no outdoor performances or streaming videos. So we couldn’t help wondering whether Benchmark had gone dark for good.
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.