Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Denver DJ-producer Illenium likely set records at Empower Field at Mile High, from the most tickets sold for a weekend run (Swift), to the biggest, venue-based concert in Denver history (Sheeran) and the biggest-ever show from a Colorado artist (Illenium).

As state and federal legislators again failed to pass meaningful legislation protecting consumers from outrageous ticketing fees, prices soared. A nosebleed seat to one of Swift’s shows at Empower Field may have cost less than $50 if you were lucky enough to get one during the disastrous Ticketmaster pre-sale. But thousands were forced to buy them on the secondary market for prices ranging from $500 to $10,000 per seat.

The Wall Street Journal found that the average price of a concert had doubled in the past five years, increasing from $125 in 2019 to $252 in 2023. The story was the same with re-sellers such as SeatGeek, whose resale averages doubled from the previous year to roughly the same price.

Those secondary-market tickets were also sold on sites like StubHub which, it should be noted, was forced to refund $3 million to more than 8,500 Colorado consumers in 2021 after the Colorado Attorney General’s Office found it wasn’t honoring its refund guarantees. Senate Bill 60 — a.k.a. Consumer Protection in Event Ticketing Sales Act — easily passed the state legislature, but was vetoed by Gov. Jared Polis in June because it could upset “the successful entertainment ecosystem in Colorado,” he said after killing it. Supporters vowed to revive it.

Local notes, some off-key

Denver strengthened its hold on electronic dance music, with artists, fans and promoters reinforcing the Mile High City as the global capital of the bass subgenre. Transplants such as French producer and DJ CloZee notched crucial headlining spots on the way to bigger, better appearances at venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Provided you were willing to align yourself with mega-promoter AEG Presents Rocky Mountains, the path from support act to Red Rocks headliner had never looked clearer.

Even as massive concerts continued at the 18,000-seat Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, and heritage acts played their final Colorado shows (see Eagles, Dead & Company, Foreigner), festivals in metro Denver took a dip. The pause of this year’s Westword Music Showcase left a local music hole in June as the multi-venue event took the year off. Fortunately, South Broadway’s Underground Music Showcase got more equitable and community-oriented as it increasingly catered to all-ages, sober and BIPOC performers, such as the fast-ascending, R&B/hip-hop sensation N3PTUNE, amid a hundred-plus other acts.

The jazz world wobbled as Vail Jazz shut down after nearly than three decades, Denver Post jazz columnist Bret Saunders wrote. The free City Park Jazz series was also clipped by a series of June rainouts, denting its much-needed donations and attendance. The dearly departed El Chapultepec made a comeback of sorts with a legacy/archive project. The former owners sponsored shows at the nationally acclaimed Denver jazz club Dazzle — which itself reopened in a slick, more affordable space in downtown’s Performing Arts Complex. There, blockbuster Broadway musicals such as the jukebox-hit “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” wowed audiences at the nearby Buell Theatre, drawing people to an urban core that’s still hollowed out from the pandemic.

Icons such as the historic Denver Folklore Center changed hands to an equally capable owner in Ian Dehmel, while nearby folk-music hub Swallow Hill welcomed a new concert director in music veteran David Dugan, just days after executive director Aengus Finnan finished out his first full year at the nonprofit.

Immersive entertainment company Meow Wolf, meanwhile, continued making good on its promise to support local artists with diverse, thoughtfully booked shows at the 488-person capacity Perplexiplex venue, from drag showcases to up-and-coming queer singer-songwriters.

Meow Wolf also brought back a slightly reworked Vortex music and art festival to Live Nation’s new-ish JunkYard outdoor venue. Smaller festivals and block parties mingled craft brews and local music favorites. The Colorado Music Hall of Fame inducted progressive bluegrass legend Yonder Mountain String Band, which celebrated the achievement at Telluride’s 50th anniversary bluegrass fest. Hazel Miller, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and jazz pioneer George Morrison Sr. also got overdue spots in the state’s music hall. Alongside, jamgrass veteran The String Cheese Incident (already in the music hall as of 2022) celebrated its 30th anniversary of helping create and lead the genre.

Colorado Symphony dipped further into its pop collaborations with its Imagination Artist Series, which included not only local platinum-seller Nathaniel Rateliff but also a world premiere from Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA. (More were just announced with the same artists for 2024.)

But as venues and performers struggled to sustain comebacks in the face of cost-of-living and rent increases, every little bit of support made a difference. That included potentially career-changing shows at Levitt Pavilion Denver, which presented 50 free, quality concerts over the summer, and programs from the nonprofit Youth on Record and the state’s Take Note Colorado music education drive.

A garden of faceplants

In terms of national acts, Drake came up with perhaps the most lame excuse for a concert postponement in the history of Colorado music, blaming a last-minute ghosting on “the distance the road crew has to travel along with the magnitude of the production,” which made it “logistically impossible to bring the full experience of the show to Denver … .” The show was rescheduled for January at Ball Arena, with another date added, but one would’ve thought they figured out production details before putting tickets on sale and prompting more than 10,000 people to schedule their lives around it.

We also mourned the latest tour-dissing by Beyoncé, and wondered why current tours from Janet Jackson, Pearl Jam and Metallica snubbed Denver.

Bizarrely, and sadly, Royal Trux leader and indie rock veteran Neil Hagerty was charged with a trio of felonies in an alleged assault on a Denver police officer. The gloom also hung over some indie venues as HQ (formerly 3 Kings Tavern) flooded and closed after a devastating water break (it has since reopened), and workers at the Mercury Cafe — which hosts jazz, experimental music, poetry and comedy — pushed for a union after complaining of unsafe work conditions. Punk rock mainstay Carioca Cafe (a.k.a. Bar Bar) and Wax Trax Records grappled with the city over noise complaints and permits, while jam band Lotus and other acts lost crucial members to untimely deaths.

Broomfield’s troubled FirstBank Center shut down, and Loveland’s Budweiser Events Center announced a name change to Blue Arena. In Colorado Springs, the $55 million Sunset Amphitheater complex broke ground on its way to a planned June 2024 opening. And at a Louis Tomlinson show at Red Rocks in June, nearly 100 fans got cuts, bruises and broken bones after intense hail. Some concession stand workers reportedly laughed at them from their shelters, prompting calls for earlier storm warnings and more safety coverage at the city-owned venue. With climate change worsening, it seems to be just the tip of the extreme-weather risks for future outdoor concerts.

On the brighter side, salsa destination La Rumba marked its quarter-century milestone as Spanish-language concerts at venues ranging from Ball Arena to Levitt Pavilion and Aurora’s Stampede proliferated. That, along with supportive, sober and all-ages options, are a pair of trends we’d like to see continue into 2024.

Looking for a preview of the musical year ahead? Check out our updated list of 2024 Red Rocks concerts, plus music news, profiles and more at denverpost.com/tag/music.

But the arrival of King Henry VIII’s six wives to the Buell Theater (through Dec. 24) is proof that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

In what can be considered one of the best concerts of Denver’s fall season, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s blast-from-a-past, her-story lesson brings together Catherine of Aragon (Gerianne Pérez), Anne Boleyn (Zan Berube), Jane Seymour (Amina Faye), Anne of Cleves (Terica Marie), Katherine Howard (Aline Mayagoitia)  and Catherine Parr (Adriana Scalice) for a rock show. Or, as the opening song “Ex-Wives” so deftly and drolly introduces the sextet: “Divorced. Beheaded, Died … Divorced. Beheaded. Survived.”

The premise is simple, and seeks the participation of theatergoers. “Den-vvverrr! Make some noise!” Aragon shouts before launching into “No Way.” Although each woman was queen at some point, the audience is invited to decide which queen should don the evening’s crown. The ex with the best sob story wins. Naturally, Anne Boleyn, who infamously met her end due to the executioner’s blade, would seem to have a head start (pun intended). Throughout the show and in the “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” portrayer Zan Berube, with a quirky zest that calls forth Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, reminds us of that outrageous fate.

Over the next 80 minutes, each woman seeks to persuade the audience with numbers that are consistently winking, sometimes wise and biographically apt. There’s even a ballad. With show-stopping chops, Amina Faye as Jane Seymour — the one who was actually loved by VIII, who died shortly after the birth of son Edward — sings “Heart of Stone,” a tune that suggests that even for her, there was more to her story than the historical record captured.

Given the patriarchal vibe of the time (the Tudor past but also the #MeToo-ish present), the musical — with its (Spice) girl-power feminism — argues there was cause for hurt, outrage, even fear aplenty. But is this competition in misery the best way of going about historical comeuppance? “Six” asks, toys with and then answers that quandary.

As with a proper rock show, there’s a live band, directed here by Jane Cardona. And this being a work honoring queens, the nimble players — on keyboards, guitar, bass and drums — are the Ladies in Waiting.

The wild set (Emma Bailey) suggests a concert venue, one that allows for some measure of intimacy. Think the Fillmore, not Ball Arena. For Anne of Cleves and her tartly delivered tune “Haus of Holbein,” the action heads to Germany.  From start to encore, the light show (designed by Tim Deiling) plays off that conceit: twirling beams of light whirl; the dark, strobe-y energy of a dance club serving up electronica beckons; a cross, etched in glowing light bulbs, signifies piety with an attitude.

There are willfully LOL moments, intent on capturing the attention of the LOL generations. Cleves’s refrain of “I didn’t look like my profile picture” underscores who this lesson in European history aims for. Ditto its brevity.

Feminism lite, perhaps. Theater lite, maybe. This isn’t the sort of musical that bursts forth into song because regular dramatic language can’t contain the emotions. These are songs as biographical sketches, setting the record straight as pop confections.

For some theatergoers, the show might revive a familiar sticking point: Women who claim feeling sexy as a right and a pleasure often look like they’re delivering a mixed message when it comes to female empowerment. Just ask Queen Bey (a different monarch who gets a nod here) or the other pop figures the playbill tags as “Queenspiration,” among them: Adele, Avril Lavigne, Shakira, Britney Spears, Nicki Minaj and Alicia Keys.

Doubters will have to chew on the vivaciously delivered (it’s complicated) “All You Wanna Do,” by VIII”s other murdered mate, Katherine Howard (Mayagoitia). Or pay specific heed to Catherine Parr’s anthemic “I Don’t Need Your Love,” to rightly complicate matters — which makes this fleet, seemingly frothy show a perfectly spiked treat for a holiday month.

Lisa Kennedy is a Denver freelance writer who specializes in film and theater. 

IF YOU GO

“Six”: Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Directed by Moss and Jamie Armitage. Choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille. Featuring Gerianne Pérez, Zan Berube, Amina Faye, Terica Marie, Aline Mayagoitia and Adriana Scalice. The Ladies in Waiting: Jane Cardona, Sterlyn Termine, Rose Laguana and Kami Lujan.  At the Buell Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets. Through Dec. 24. For tickets and info: denvercenter.com or 303-893-4100.

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It was a surreal, unprecedented moment when Colorado Ballet canceled its entire 2020-21 season, given the COVID shutdowns and complications. But when the refreshed production debuted during the 2021 holiday season — it typically runs for a month, or about 25 performances — a Denver tradition was reborn.

This year’s 63rd installment is, as in the past, a boon for the state’s marquee ballet, as sales made up more than half of its annual revenue, which totaled $15.5 million last year. That’s one of the main reasons the pandemic was so devastating to arts nonprofits, and why “Nutcracker” and other holiday performances are so vital to nonprofit arts companies.

But with ticket prices rising for all kinds of entertainment options, how are they faring for this Christmas tradition?

The Denver Post took a look at tickets for the Colorado Ballet’s “Nutcracker” going back to 2000, and what we found was heartening: The cheapest tickets to the show have resisted inflation over the last quarter century, increasing only $22 in that time to a current price of $40. With U.S. inflation rates generally up — last year’s was 8%, a 3.3% increase from 2021, according to public data — that translates to actual value for fans of the state’s biggest holiday production.

U.S. consumers have seen a cumulative price increase for goods and services of 69.95% since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whereas the cheapest tickets to “The Nutcracker” have increased only 45%.

So how do they stay so relatively low?

“Our sales tax is included in the price of the ticket, whereas many other performing arts organizations and concert/performance venues and businesses charge sales tax on top of the ticket price, in addition to many fees,” wrote Rachel Perez, Colorado Ballet’s marketing director, in an email.

“We have very minimal fees,” she said, “and if patrons purchase tickets online with mobile delivery options there’s absolutely zero fees, so they will literally only pay the listed price of the ticket — which in today’s world of excessive ticket fees and service fees — is a very nice benefit.”

This year’s run of 28 performances began Nov. 25 and continues through Dec. 24. The cheapest tickets were $40, while the most expensive were $175.

Leaders set prices by looking at the number of years at the current price without changes or increases; relevant comparable ticket prices; other shows in the Denver Performing Arts Complex, economic trends, and supply-and-demand, Perez said.

Yes, ticket prices for the ballet and other top-tier performing arts events can run above $100 (and much more on the after-market), but so can those for concerts and sporting events. To watch “Nutcracker” prices stay low, even as metro area cultural demand and population have ballooned, feels like some kind of miracle.

“Last week, we ran our first pay-what-you-can for a limited number of tickets to our Sunday night performance of ‘The Nutcracker,'” on Nov. 26, wrote Perez, who also noted the ballet’s student-pass discounts (see coloradoballet.org/student-pass). “They were available on a first-come, first-served basis. We plan to make a pay-what-you-can program a part of our initiatives in the future again and promote it broadly.”

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While clearing out the priest’s room at a church in Nagasaki, Japan, Melody came across the cache of letters that Suresh sent Hashimoto over the years and wonders if he’d like them back. She also wonders who this relative she never knew — her mother’s uncle — was … and sometimes she just wonders.

“I don’t remember the last time I wrote a letter … . I don’t remember the last time I wrote anything,”  Melody, a writing teacher, writes to this unknown Suresh, tapping on her laptop and aware of the wincing irony.

Although “Letters of Suresh” is an epistolary work — with missives and a few texts traveling between the characters — not all the letters get sent. There are drafts. There are also completed letters stowed away because they didn’t say precisely what the writer had hoped; the writer had second thoughts; or that the very act of writing is really a form of musing or introspection.

With Suresh (Hossein Forouzandeh), Joseph revives a character from his 2008 play, “Animals Out of Paper.”

He also returns to that play’s guiding conceit: origami, the art of making objects out of intricately folded paper. The meaning of the yellow origami bird that Melody finds amid her great-uncle’s belongings will gain force over the course of the play. So will the folding of time.

The audience meets Suresh via the first letter he wrote to Father Hashimoto. He was 18. Over the course of the play, he will be 23 and then 28 as writes other letters. The two met at a ceremony at Nagasaki’s Hypocenter, or ground zero. Suresh was in the city where the second atomic bomb was dropped by the U.S. for an origami convention. Hashimoto lived at a church nearby. The way the playwright handles the World War II history of Nagasaki is one of the playwright’s most subtle, humane gestures.

An origami whiz since his early teens, Suresh may be deft with shapes but he’s emotionally clumsy. Sometimes his letters are vulnerable. At other times  he’s angry, as when the priest offers to pray for Suresh’s mother. He had written that Nagasaki made him think of his dead mother. But he’d also written that he was in love with his married origami mentor. Hashimoto’s silence on that made him all the angrier.

Melody’s early letters to Suresh have a few starts and stops and plenty of revelations: Her mother likes to be read to; her father can be a “prick”; her sister, who lives in London, is estranged from their parents. After letting Suresh know of Hashimoto’s death — he was 93 — she continues her lopsided correspondence because, in one sense, it allows her to share secrets and regrets. Should it really come as a surprise that a play in which a priest is a central figure has notes of confession?

And though Father Hashimoto has already died at the start of the play, he will make a vivid and vital appearance late in the four-character play. In addition to Suresh in Boston, Melody in Seattle and Hashimoto in Nagasaki, there is Amelia (Anne Penner), a woman Suresh first saw at the exhibit of a blue whale’s heart in a children’s museum in Boston.

When Suresh writes Amelia, audience members might surmise that this is the woman Suresh was in love with as a teen. Wondering about that and the play’s other muted connections speaks to the playwright’s delicate and eloquent folding of time, space, character.

The closest the actors come to occupying the same space at the same time might be the smartly staged video chat Amelia and Suresh have, rife with hurt and fondness, old shame and yearning.

Scenic designer Markus Henry and props designers (Krystal Brown and Wayne Breyer) keep things spare but expressive. The few pieces of furniture — a sofa, a desk, a chair — are geometric in shape, mimicking origami’s elegant edges. Three floor-to-rafter panels upstage are sheer enough to see a letter’s addressee through and opaque enough for the projections of excerpts from the letters and texts. The lighting (Miriam Suzanne) and sound and projection designs (Brian Freeland) only add to the production’s understated beauty.

As if to upend expectations, Curious’ artistic director, Jada Suzanne Dixon, followed the theater’s season opener (“The Minutes,” a production that brimmed with company familiars) with a play in which nearly all the actors are new to the Curious mainstage. So is director Julie Rada, whose work around town is often experimental and always intriguing

The ensemble has chemistry. Trinh and Penner are particularly tucked into their characters, yet wonderfully present to the moment and to the play’s often beautiful language. (“You’ve already lived this day,” Amelia says to Suresh when he calls her from Nagasaki.)

Rajiv’s play and this production make scene partners of the audience. As the characters “write” their letters, their bodies most often face the audience. Eavesdropping is nudged aside to make space for more demanding listening. This is not an always easy ask, but it turns out to be a deeply rewarding task.

IF YOU GO

“Letters of Suresh”: Written by Rajiv Joseph. Directed by Julie Rada. Featuring Hossein Forouzandeh, Desirée Mee Jung, Anne Penner and Peter Trinh. At Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St. Through Dec. 9. boxoffice@curioustheatre.org or 303-623-0524

Lisa Kennedy is a Denver freelancer specializing in film and theater. 

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Some of the metro area’s biggest productions are easily topping $100 for the best seats — we’re looking at you, Colorado Ballet (“The Nutcracker”) and Denver Center for the Performing Arts (“A Christmas Carol”) — but you don’t have to break the bank to feel jolly.

Here are 10 affordable shows — which in this case means under $50 per ticket — that are worth every cent you spend. Prices do not include online fees. All shows are family-friendly unless otherwise noted. See more holiday-fun ideas at denverpost.com/things-to-do.

“Santa’s Big Red Sack”

Feeling more naughty than nice this year? We can all relate to dark irreverence during the holidays. Fortunately, another local tradition is providing the snarky humor that our souls crave — in this case, “Santa’s Big Red Sack,” a comedic show of “nonstop sketch comedy, music and technology bursting at the seams,” according to producers. It’s celebrating its 21st year of offensive glee, so buy a shot to celebrate.

(Note: This is not, as you may have already guessed, a kid’s show.) Through Dec. 23 at The People’s Building, 9995 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora. Tickets: $30. rattlebrain.vbotickets.com/events

“Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum”

The 32nd year of “Granny” boasts the music, dance and spoken-word performances that the acclaimed Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble and its partners are known for, with new tales and twists each year. If you haven’t seen this multicultural pageant yet, you’re missing an actual Denver tradition.

Various shows, including matinees, Dec. 2-17, at Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Theatre, 119 Park Ave. West in Denver. All ages. Tickets: $35-$45. cleoparkerrobinsondance.org

“Winter Soulstice”

In his first year as artistic director of Denver Gay Men’s Chorus, Johnny Nichols Jr. will lead the choral group through “music that honors the Earth, celebrates diversity, and dances to the festive rhythm of soul music,” producers wrote. Expect some classics, as well.

Friday, Dec. 1, and Saturday, Dec. 2, at Central Presbyterian Church; Dec. 8 at Boulder’s First United Methodist Church; and Dec. 10 at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Highlands Ranch. Tickets: $38-$50. denverchoruses.org

“Santa and the Slay”

The creators of the ’60s-themed Motones & Jerseys show are coming to Northglenn’s Parsons Theatre with this variety show, which features “an array of musical performances, ranging from classic Christmas carols to modern pop hits, and side-splitting comedy. Santa’s mischievous elves and other special guests ensure that there’s never a dull moment …”

Dec. 8 at 1 E. Memorial Parkway in Northglenn. Tickets: $23-$30. northglennarts.org

“A Winter’s Eve”

Grammy-nominated guitarist David Arkenstone and his musical friends are playing University of Denver’s Hamilton Recital Hall for the holiday-themed “A Winter’s Eve,” which features “a lively candlelit concert” blending “neo-classic crossover, new age, Celtic progressive rock, orchestra and world music,” according to promoters. Phew!

Friday, Dec. 1, at 2344 E. Iliff Ave. in Denver. $22-$35. bit.ly/3sOJiLE

“The Miracle at Tepeyac”

Denver cultural treasure Su Teatro, one of the only theaters that regularly performs bilingual stage shows, is back with its “Miracle at Tepeyac” holiday play. Written and directed by artistic head Anthony J. Garcia, “Tepeyac” is a folk drama that tells the story of “the apparition of the Virgen de Guadalupe to the Indio Juan Diego. The play’s parallel storyline explores contemporary issues such as homelessness and the plight of immigrants,” Garcia wrote.

Dec. 10-17 at Su Teatro Performing Arts Center, 721 Santa Fe Drive in Denver. Tickets: $17-$20. suteatro.org

“Amahl and the Night Visitors”

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” tells the story of “a magic star, a shepherd boy, and how unselfish love can work miracles.” Rendered with a full orchestra, this show is a rare, family-friendly opera being performed by Central City Opera — with a full orchestra in tow.

Dec. 23 and 24 at Central Presbyterian Church, 1660 Sherman St. in Denver. All ages. Tickets: $12-$42. centralcityopera.org

“Carols Around the World”

This harmony vocal show from Mile High Barbershop choruses brings out “enchanting carols from the far corners of the globe followed by a soul-stirring set of sacred favorites, such as ‘Silent Night,’ and ‘Ave Maria.’ ” If that sounds like a fresh breeze after too many canned radio playlists, you’re not alone.

Dec. 9 at Gates Concert Hall, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. in Denver. Tickets: $19-$47. bit.ly/3TlNs8H

“Fiestas Navideñas”

ArtistiCO’s annual holiday show features original choreography based on Mexican dance traditions, filtered through this Denver folk-dance ensemble, and directed by acclaimed dancers and choreographers Jose Rosales and Alfonso Meraza Prudente. You may not find this much vivacious holiday pageantry outside of downtown’s Parade of Lights.

Dec. 6-7 at Gates Concert Hall at the Newman Center, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. in Denver. Tickets: $19-$42. bit.ly/46I4QXT

“Evergreen”

Denver’s 48-member, note-perfect Ars Nova Singers are bringing back “Evergreen,” described by artistic director Tom Morgan as a winter solstice celebration, featuring cellist Charles Lee and mixing “mystical melodies of the Dark Ages, cherished traditional carols, and splendorous compositions by 21st-century composers.”

Various shows, Dec. 9 at Longmont’s United Church of Christ; Dec. 10 at Denver’s Saint Paul Lutheran Church; Dec. 14-15 at Boulder’s Mountain View United Methodist Church. Tickets: $10-$35. arsnovasingers.org/buy-tickets

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The nonprofit, Denver-based theater giant on Monday announced a ticket lottery for the popular musical, whose Dec. 5-24 performances have already hit the “limited capacity” phase. That means each scheduled show has only a handful of seats left for sale, ranging from $45 to $155 per ticket.

In most cases, it’s literally one or two close-to-stage seats per show, as well as a few dozen in the back three or four rows of the balcony at the Buell Theatre.

Here’s how you can get a leg up, according to the show’s producers:

• Make sure you’re eligible: you must be 18 years or older and have a valid, non-expired photo ID that matches your name to enter.
• Make a Lucky Seat account if you don’t already have one; visit luckyseat.com to sign up. Producers will use that site to choose winners.
• Watch your inbox carefully, since winners have a limited window to claim and buy tickets. Entrants who have been selected can buy one or two tickets at $30 each.
• The entry window for each week will close at 9:30 a.m. five days before the performances. That means entries for Week 1 shows (Dec. 5-10) need to be in by the morning of Dec. 1, with Week 2 (Dec. 12-17) on Dec. 8, and Week 3 (Dec. 19-24) on Dec. 15.

DCPA materials describe “Six” as a modern take on the wives of Henry VIII: “From Tudor queens to pop icons, the SIX wives of Henry VIII take the microphone to remix five hundred years of historical heartbreak into a Euphoric Celebration of 21st-century girl power,” according to press materials.

The musical has won a pair of Tony awards and is currently touring the English-speaking world, including dates in the U.S., Canada, England and Australia. The show is recommended for ages 10 and up, DCPA officials wrote; children under 5 are not permitted in the Buell.

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Braun, born and raised in Boulder and an alum of the university, was appointed the executive director of CU Presents in 2001 and will retire in June after a 30-year career at CU Boulder.

“We were not CU Presents before (2001), so to come together and have that organization be successful and of value to the partner organizations is absolutely a legacy that I’m really proud of,” Braun said.

Sabine Kortals Stein, the senior director of communications for the College of Music, said Braun’s passion for the arts led to her vision for CU Presents.

“She really single-handedly built this entity that is now CU Presents,” Stein said, adding, “She had the vision and foresight and knew who to collaborate with.”

John Davis, dean of the College of Music, said Braun brought art to people who didn’t have prior exposure to it and created a culture of attending diverse events by bringing worldly artists to Boulder.

For example, in the Artist Series, CU Presents brings the best music and dance performers to Boulder from around the world, including Yo-Yo Ma and the Martha Graham Dance Company.

“In the Artist Series, you see (Braun) and the work she’s done for decades,” Davis said. “In that way, she’s impacted CU Boulder on many levels … and she’ll be remembered at CU Boulder for many years to come.”

Braun said she’s had a wonderful career with work that’s been personally very meaningful.

“One thing that I’ve learned in this work is the value of a shared experience that one gets by being in a performance with other human beings in the moment, is really effective in creating community and bridging differences,” Braun said.

“It’s also a really wonderful way to open doors in terms of educating people or understanding things about different cultures. That’s something I really enjoy being able to do and bring to our stage.”

Braun said even though Boulder doesn’t have a lot of ethnic diversity, the community is interested in it. Through CU Presents, Boulder County residents are able to experience artists they wouldn’t otherwise, unless they travel to Denver or beyond.

“It’s an opportunity to understand somebody whose life and background and cultural experiences are very different from yours,” Braun said.

Braun said the performing arts are uplifting, beautiful and uniting.

“There’s inspiration and different lessons people come away with,” Braun said. “It’s been immensely enjoyable and gratifying.”

Stein said Braun exemplifies CU Boulder’s mission to create universal musicians, or musicians that are multifaceted in their skills and careers. Braun is a broadly-based professional, Stein said, who started in music and had a flexible career that remained rooted in the arts.

“We’re also really proud of her because she exemplifies what we’re trying to do for our students,” Stein said.

Davis said Braun is an empathetic leader and makes her team feel heard. He said Braun encourages her team to be the best it can, and the results speak for themselves.

“She’s one of those people you aspire to be, especially as a leader,” Davis said.

Braun said she’s looking forward to enjoying life in retirement. She’s close with her family and wants to spend more time with her 2-year-old grandson. Braun loves to be outside, and wants to spend more time hiking, traveling, gardening and skiing.

“I’ve brought what I see and my unique abilities and talents to this job, and I’m intrigued to pass the torch, in a way, to see what somebody else can do at this point,” Braun said. “And they’ll take it further.”

Davis said Braun will be missed, but her fans in the CU Boulder community are also delighted that she gets a chance to enjoy her children and grandchild and take time for herself.

“It’s both a sad time for us but also cause to celebrate, and celebrating Joan is an easy thing to do,” Davis said.

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Take the recent Netflix biopic “Rustin” — starring Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin. He was the architect of 1963’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Martin Luther King Jr. declared he had a dream. He was also gay and a close friend of MLK, and in telling his story, the movie expands on the history of those who contributed and shaped a movement.

Closer to home, there’s Vintage Theatre’s production of “Cadillac Crew” (running through Nov. 26). Directed by ShaShauna Staton, Tori Sampson’s involving drama is an act of recovery and discovery, of connecting dots and tracing lineage. It also delivers some fine laughs thanks to the snappish interactions of its four central characters.

The play begins in a Virginia civil rights movement office in 1963; it unexpectedly but sagely ends with a podcast from today.

Rachel Helen Christopher (Kenya Mahogany Fashaw) is readying the office for the arrival of Rosa Parks. “JUDGE WOMEN AS PEOPLE NOT AS WIVES,” “REGISTER NOW, FREEDOM NOW!” demand two posters on the walls. Thanks to Rachel’s efforts, the icon who didn’t relinquish her seat to a white man on a bus in Alabama is due in town to deliver a speech that while still centered on rights will also address sexual violence against women.

If all you know of Parks is her catalyzing act of defiance, the fact that she was also an advocate for women who’d been raped may come as news. What won’t come as a surprise is the play’s notion that the local movement leaders who Rachel had been working with on the event — all male, many of them clergy — want Parks to stick to the script for racial equality.

Fashaw’s portrayal of this dynamo gets at the ego, the ambition but also the vision that that may require. An admirer of the speeches of King and others and intent on being remembered by history, Rachel is constantly rehearsing her own grand calls to action. Rachel gets things done but can also be insufferable. Just ask her fellow activists — Abby, Dee and Sarah — who also want to ensure that the rights of Black women move forward.

Abby (Shadiya Lyons) displays a haughtiness that comes when youthfulness meets privilege. When Rachel calls her “spoiled,” she corrects her with the first of the many tart lines the playwright has supplied her. “Not spoiled, accustomed,” she says. Dee is a proper middle-class wife and mother whose depths and internal conflicts are nicely suggested by Zeah Loren. Sarah (Katelyn Kendricks), the lone white woman in the office, has a kind of muted tension with Rachel that Abby and Dee note but can’t quite figure out.

While doing the legwork for Park’s appearance, Rachel shrugged off phone calls from Dorothy Height, head of the National Council of Negro Women. When it becomes clear her efforts to include Parks’ anti-rape speech have been upended, Rachel changes course and rallies the other three to join in Height’s plans to have teams of Black and white women travel south to deliver talks to groups of Southern women on racial equality and voting rights.

The play’s title, “Cadillac Crew,” comes from the nickname given the squads of proper ladies participating in the council’s Wednesdays in Mississippi (WIMS) program. (Before the end of the program, 11 states would be included.) Height wrote in her memoir that the purpose of WIMS was to “establish lines of communication among women of goodwill across regional and racial lines … and to lend a ‘ministry of presence’ as witnesses to encourage compassion and reconciliation.”

In the play, compassion and reconciliation are directed at the four very different characters. The banter and tensions in the office provide the means to reflect on differences in conscience, class and political consciousness. The dialogue is often pointed; it’s also packed with history. The playwright nods to the violence encountered by the genteel WIMS crusaders but also to the deaths of civil rights workers John Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Before the women hit the road, news comes that four Cadillac Crew participants — one of them a friend of Abby’s — had been murdered.

If the play’s most amusing writing takes place in the office’s pointed banter, its most revealing takes place once this Cadillac Crew hits the road. Initially, Dee bows out at the behest of her husband. She later joins Abby, Rachel and Sarah on the road to Mississippi.

In the play’s most eloquently staged scenes, having headed South, the four of them begin keeping journals of their journey. Rachel and Sarah’s entries are mindful of the notion they are living history. (To whom it may concern,” begins Rachel. “We’re still alive after our troubles in Georgia.”) Abby and Dee’s observations are more quotidian. (“The car smelled like a dumpster … after Sarah burped and Abby pooted,” Dee records.)

When the foursome is forced to split up because of car trouble, Dee and Abby stay together with the car — Dee’s gotta gun — and Sarah follows Rachel, who insists on walking to find a phone. Director Staton and the playwright juxtapose the two pairs’ conversations and arguments. Dee and Abby start off prickly, then share their concerns about parenting and motherhood. Rachel and Sarah also speak of family in revealing and hurtful ways. In a brilliant piece of stagecraft, each pair stops talking when a car arrives.

It’s a conclusion, both poignant and chilling, of the journey but not of the play.

In a radio studio, a podcast journalist and host (Kendricks) interviews the three women who began the Black Lives Matter movement for her show, “Uncovering American Herstory.” What the characters Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi (portrayed by Fashaw, Loren and Lyons respectively) share is its own compelling act of reclamation — of a movement’s intentions, its roots and the place of women within that social justice work. Dee, Abby, Sarah and Rachel would be proud.

IF YOU GO

“Cadillac Creek”: Written by Tori Sampson. Directed by ShaShauna Staton. Featuring Kenya Mahogany Fashaw, Shadiya Lyons, Zeah Loren and Katelyn Kendricks. At the Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St., Aurora, through Nov. 26. For tickets: 303-856-7830 or vintagetheatre.org

Lisa Kennedy is a freelance writer in Denver. 

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They are awaiting their chance to express the anguish they suffered in one of the deadliest mining disasters in the last century. Only, they will not get their day in court. They will not be allowed to make victims’ statements because, according to the letter of the law, they are not victims. This, despite each of them having lost a loved one (in the case of one man, more than one) in a mining explosion in Raleigh County, West Virginia.

On April 5, 2010, the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County experienced a series of explosions starting 1,000 feet down the deep coal mine. Mining giant Massey Energy had disregarded the concerns of its miners while amassing a raft of safety violations concerning the buildup of methane gas and coal dust and inadequate ventilation. Twenty-nine miners were killed; two survived.

Although the mendacity of the company and the tender righteousness of the families would make for a gripping and rending courtroom procedural, “Coal Country” isn’t that.

Instead, once Judge Berger (Simone St. John) tells the victims that they won’t be able to speak at the sentencing of the company chief executive Don Blankenship, the play — by Erik Jensen, Jessica Blank and singer-songwriter Steve Earle — lets them hold forth. What follows is a wrenching but also restorative act of witness and remembrance.

When the Public Theatre in New York premiered the show in 2020 (before the pandemic ended the run), Earle portrayed the musician whose songs bring rootsy force and touching twang to the heartache. For this production, Joe Jung (Earle’s one-time understudy) strums his guitar, setting a mournful tone that honors the pain (but also joys) like a West Virginia troubadour.

The language comes from interviews that Jensen and Blank conducted with the family members. (They edited and molded the many monologues into this fluid work.) The beauty of the characters’ early stories is that they recover what was alive and special about their loved ones; they make who was lost real. They were fathers and sons, brothers and, in the case of Patti Stover (Anastasia Davidson), husbands.

The stories shared just as often attest to a family mining legacy that could go generations deep. There’s pride in that, but it can be a complicated pride. Affable miner Stanley “Goose” Stewart (a terrific Mark Collins) and wife Mindi (Lyndsey Pierce, equally appealing) make clear a fact of a region shaped by mines and wooded hollows: The dangerous jobs have often been the only ones available. If Massey’s seeming rapacity doesn’t put the audience on notice that contained within this play is a labor rights moral, Earle’s song “Union, God and Country” should.

Class is an issue that Judy Jones Peterson, a doctor (portrayed with a formal and thoughtful awareness of that division by Martha Harmon Pardee) touches on. One of her brothers was in the mine, but when she arrives at the waiting room that the company has set up for families, she describes having gotten a chilly welcome. That response may have also been because, as she mentions in passing, a family member was a Massey exec. But it is her account about insisting on seeing her dead brother’s body that seals her kinship with the others.

Director Jessica Robblee has summoned a deep bench of local talent for this production. Last spring, the BETC board handed the reins of the theater company over to Robblee and Mark Ragan, artistic director and producing director respectively. Both are actors, and their regard for the power of performance shines in their and the new season’s first production.

Jason Maxwell vibrates with fury as miner Tommy Davis, whose son, brother and nephew were below him that day. He just barely made it out, living to describe the hurricane-force gales the explosion churned. For four days there was hope that the other Davises had survived by holing up in one of the mine’s underground rescue chambers.

There’s a sweet joy and exhausted sorrow to the account from Roosevelt Lynch Jr. (Cajardo Lindsey) of the workday ritual he and his father had. They’d stop on the same road from the mine — son heading into work, father heading home. He knew something was amiss when he didn’t see his father that terrible Monday.

Massey was slow to release the names of those killed, recovered and identified, so families congregated in a company-provided warehouse away from the media were kept waiting and waiting.

Chris Kendall portrays Gary Quarles, whose description of an exec walking toward him and his wife as they sat in that room is gutting. (Advisory: bring tissues.) They’d been waiting to hear news of their son.

The drama’s action takes place on scenic designer Tina Anderson’s stunning yet spare set. An archway of broad wooden beams, lights strung along its walls and a planked path tapering into the darkness, suggests a mine entrance and its tracks leading down and down and down. The show’s production — lighting by Erin Thibodaux, sound by Jason Ducat, costume by Sarah Zinn — accentuates the no-nonsense beauty of the play and its people.

IF YOU GO

“Coal Country”: Written by Erik Jensen, Jessica Blank and Steve Earle. Directed by Jessica Robblee. Featuring Joe Jung, Simone St. John, Jason Maxwell, Chris Kendall, Mark Collins, Lindsey Pierce, Anastasia Davidson, Cajardo Lindsey and Martha Harmon Peterson. At the Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. Through Nov. 19. For tickets and info: betc.org or thedairy.org

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If you haven’t ever watched Hulu’s series about a high-end chef and the family restaurant he returns to, all the better. Having premiered on Broadway in 2021, “Clyde’s” is very much its own wonder.

After her Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Sweat” — about a group of Pennsylvania factory workers — Lynn Nottage pulls the curtain back on another complicated workplace (aren’t they all?). This time the workforce consists of sandwich maestro Montrellous (Sekou Laidlow), Letitia (Katherine George), Rafael (Sebastián Arroyo) and the tattoo-festooned newbie, Jason (Quinn M. Johnson). Each had been incarcerated prior to Clyde (Brianna Buckley) giving them a break.

Before you get all misty-eyed, you should know that Clyde is not a tender soul — not even close — which makes the play simmer, crackle and occasionally threaten a consuming grease fire. Her interest in her workers seems purely transactional: She needs a cover for the money laundering she is doing for an outfit down south.

Montrellous stands as a competing force. If Clyde is fine serving up “ham-and-cheese-on-white” fare, he is in search of the “perfect sandwich,” the sort of creation that could change the truck-stop restaurant into something more.

There’s mindfulness to Montrellous’ approach to the work; there’s humility and devotion.

The notion that a sandwich can be so much more than slices of bread and filling, that it can be elevated, made sacred and transformational is essential to him, his co-workers and to the play.

In truth, there is no curtain to pull back at the Kilstrom Theatre’s in-the-round space. Instead, in the middle of the stage stands the kitchen of the titular sandwich joint. With its shiny if worn stainless steel griddle, its prep stations, its unglazed clay tile floor, scenic designers Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay have served up a spot-on set.

Ready to dive into another commanding play, director Jamil Jude has returned to the Denver Center for this show. (His work on “Choir Boy” in 2022 remains indelible.) He and his ensemble keep this kitchen hopping. Costumes (Samantha C. Jones), lighting (Charles R. MacLeod) and a sound design (Chris Lane) that picks up the hiss of food searing add to the illusion of a working kitchen.

But before the house lights dim, a man — Montrellous, we’ll learn — comes into the kitchen, turns the gas on the griddle, turns the dial of the radio.

He is the guru, a master maker of sandwiches. Twentysomethings Letitia and Rafael are his acolytes, always trying to concoct sandwiches worthy of his praise but even more of his hopes in them. The trio’s banter is fluid, and their friendly game of do-you-one-better on the ingredients of the “perfect sandwich” should keep the theater’s nearby restaurants busy post-show. There’s a deep camaraderie and maybe some sincere affection hanging in the pungent air (that griddle is for real).

Into this groove arrives Jason, baring the face tats of a prison yard white supremacist. (Depending on where you sit, you may catch the swastika etched on the nape of his neck before he puts on his apron.)

Jason is wiry, tautly wound and prickly about the attention those markings draw outside. Rightly needled by Letitia about his gang affiliations, he barks defensively, “I want a paycheck and peace.”

These people have lives. They also have crimes for which they did time, and not one of them is innocent. We’ll learn each of their stories over time — and thyme. Yeah, that’s just the kind of herb that might be put into the sandwiches prepared for the restaurant’s trucking clientele.

We’ll even learn about the boss lady. With her high heels, vivid pant ensembles and an open beer that she points and takes swigs from as she teases, harasses and bullies her staff, Clyde is a force. Buckley’s performance resides in her character’s swagger, her condescension. At one point, Letitia comes to her defense as a fellow Black woman. But has Clyde donned cultural armor or, as Jason gathers the gumption to say, is she just plain mean?

This past Saturday evening, it was right before Clyde replies to that accusation that the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex and Boettcher Hall experienced a brief power outage. The moment was so well timed that the lights going out (except for those on a generator) seemed like part of a heightened moment. The cast handled it beautifully before leaving the stage for a spell. They picked up the way a record might after a skip: oh-so smoothly.

Indeed, this ensemble flows. George and Sebastián as Letitia and Rafael are the heart of the show, finishing each other’s thoughts, laughing and sparking. Sparring ethically and philosophically, Clyde and Montrellous and their portrayers are playing for higher stakes: the possibilities for the sandwich, sure, but even more for the former inmates working at Clyde’s.

Years ago, actor Michael Fassbender shared that he was drawn to acting after watching the flow of his family’s restaurant in Killarney, Ireland. The work in the front of the house and the kitchen is performative. Director Jude gets that flow and more. Nottage stirred into “Clyde’s” with the blues of the formerly incarcerated and Jude infused the play with rhythms of food service work.

Clyde may leverage her staff’s meager paychecks to keep them in line, but Montrellous feeds their hearts and minds. The final scene captures what that kind of sustenance can cook up — and it’s perfect.

IF YOU GO

“Clyde’s”: Written by Lynn Nottage. Directed by Jamil Jude. Featuring Sebastián Arroyo, Brianna Buckley, Katharine George, Quinn M. Johnson and Sekou Laidlow. At the Kilstrom Theatre in the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex, 14th and Curtis St. Through Nov. 26. Denvercenter.org or 303-893-4100.

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