A treasure of Colorado creatives are heading to Idaho | John Moore | Arts & Entertainment

A contingent of Colorado-connected creatives are in Idaho this week, in part to amplify a quintessential Colorado stage story.

In 2021, before I came to work at the Denver Gazette full-time, I directed the Colorado premiere of a play called “The Treasurer” at Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden. It’s written by Denver-born Max Posner, who got his start as a writer through a youth playwriting program at Denver’s Curious Theatre and subsequent training at Denver School of the Arts.

This little gem of a play focuses on the difficult, late-in-life conflict between a 60-year-old man and the mother who abandoned him at age 13 but is now financially dependent on him in her old age. Now the man just has to admit it: He doesn’t much like his mom, or the burden her encroaching dementia has put on him. It’s based on a story Max saw play out in real life between his own father and grandmother.

“The Treasurer” was rapturously received in its 2017 off-Broadway launch at the estimable Playwrights Horizons, with the all-powerful Ben Brantley of The New York Times praising Posner for having “a sharp and original ear for the tension between what is spoken and what is not.” American Theater Magazine printed the entire script in one issue. It was a big deal. 

When I saw it, I knew Colorado needed to see it, too, and Len Matheo at Miners Alley Playhouse made it happen. I think the all-local cast of Augustus Truhn, Billie McBride, Peter Trinh and Jasmine Jackson did a pretty fantastic job. We sold every available seat – though, this being the first play back from COVID, meant capacity at each performance had to be capped at a socially distanced, ugh … 32.

Posner’s star continues to rise. He’s a Heideman Award recipient and a Lortel Award nominee, and now he’s begun a month-long stay at the prestigious Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency, a nonprofit that gives writers time and resources to create in an inspired Idaho setting.

Posner was introduced to the local community on Wednesday with a public conversation that included taking questions from the audience. On Monday, Sun Valley will present a public reading of “The Treasurer” featuring two Coloradans in the cast. Playing the son is 1988 Colorado Academy graduate (and Tony Award nominee) Jeremy Shamos, who played a key role alongside Meryl Streep in the last season of “Only Murders in the Building” (and before that, on “Better Call Saul”).

Playing the mother is Denver legend Billie McBride, at Posner’s invitation (and insistence!). McBride is surely the only creative artist who has ever served as both an assistant stage manager and performer in the same Broadway production (“Torch Song Trilogy”). Now she is a Colorado Theatre Guild Lifetime Achievement Award winner. As a director, she also gave young Posner his big break by casting him in a local production of “Lost in Yonkers” in 2003, when he was 13. 

When I asked to direct “The Treasurer” in Golden three years ago, Posner had just one request – he wanted McBride to play the mother in my production. He asked her to join him for this reading in Idaho months ago.

Monday’s reading is already sold out. And leading this post-show conversation will be none other than Idaho’s own Samuel D. Hunter, whose play “The Whale” was developed and premiered by the Denver Center Theatre Company in 2012. Its adapted film was a spotlight film at last year’s Denver Film Festival, and won an Oscar for Brendan Fraser.

“I am such an admirer of Sam,” Posner said. “He has been very supportive of me since I was just starting out in New York, and the opportunity to chat with him is amazing.” 

Posner is joined by his wife, Sarah DeLappe, whose play “The Wolves” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. They will be conducting a workshop for local Idaho writers on the art of the monologue on Oct. 12.

Curious makes way for its queen

Curious Theatre has taken the extraordinary step of canceling two performances this week of its season-opening comedy, “POTUS” (subtitled “Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive”). Why? To support one of its cast members.

The play is a lighthearted farce about the mayhem that plays out behind an inept man’s presidential throne. Natalie Oliver-Atherton, who plays a take-no-prisoners first lady, is in Atlantic City taking part in the 2024 Ms. Seniors National Pageant – and this just in … she won!

You might wonder why Oliver-Atherton, a longtime Coloradan, represented Louisiana in the pageant, and she addressed that question on a Facebook post “This pageant system has several states that don’t yet have state pageant organizations, so one can get sponsored and take an open state to represent,” she said. “I was offered several choices, and I chose Louisiana.”

Oliver-Atherton has competed in pageants for much of her life. This one takes her back to where it all began for her 43 years ago.

”The Miss America Pageant started it all for me, and helped pay some college tuition bills,” she said.

Oliver-Atherton caught a late-night flight to Philadelphia after two performances of “POTUS” last Saturday. The show resumes Saturday and plays through Oct. 13. Info at curioustheatre.org.

Tax relief for performers?

A bipartisan effort is underway in the U.S. Senate to provide tax relief to working artists. The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act of 2024 would update and expand a stringent tax deduction that allows certain performing artists to deduct the cost of some work-related expenses.

The deduction, which has not been updated since its inception in 1986, is currently only available to those making less than $16,000 a year – meaning that very few artists qualify.

This legislation would increase the income ceiling to $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for married joint filers, allowing more lower- and middle-income performing artists to receive tax relief for work-related expenses. It’s sponsored by U.S. Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who said the proposal “simplifies the path for artists to pursue their creative endeavors.”

The act could positively affect millions of working artists around the country, and is being endorsed by … pretty much everyone.

“The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act is a needed bill that affords hardworking artists tax fairness so they can continue producing art despite the ever-increasing cost of living and supplies,” said Nina Ozlu Tunceli, executive director of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund.

‘Hamlet’ hometowners

The Denver Center Theatre Company’s season-opening production of “Hamlet” is a visually gorgeous approach to an otherwise straightforward take on Shakespeare’s profound rumination on … rumination.

There’s some Denver in the Denver Center cast, including Shannan Steele, more often cast in “Christmas Carols” and musicals, in the role of the Player Queen. Brian Vaughn, who has proven to be the quintessential Bob Cratchit in several DCTC productions of “A Christmas Carol,” makes for a surly Claudius. And relative Denver newcomer Brik Berkes (he starred in Miners Alley’s “I Hate Hamlet”) is all over the place (and not just as Hamlet’s ghost!) 

But for those of us whose hearts swell when we see casting that truly connects the audience with the company’s past, it was especially sweet to see Mark Rubald in the dual role of Voltemand and the Priest. Rubald was a fixture with the DCTC from 1992-2006 and last appeared here in “The Lady of the Camellias.”   

“Hamlet” runs through Oct. 6 at the Wolf Theatre. Info at denvercenter.org.

‘Smartless’ finally lands Linney

Fans of the wildly popular “Smartless” podcast got a payoff four years in the making when Jason Bateman introduced “Ozark” castmate Laura Linney as this week’s celebrity guest. (I will cop to more than one goading text.) A highlight was Linney recounting meeting her husband of 15 years, Marc Schauer, ​at the 2004 Telluride Film Festival. Schauer, who grew up in Telluride, was assigned to be Linney’s handler, and sparks eventually flew. The takeaway from this adorable rom-com? “Everybody, go to film festivals. That’s all I can say,”  Linney said. Here, here!

We want this!

Last week’s mention of three Colorado-connected actors having big roles in three currently streaming TV series has yielded a (major) fourth: Justine Lupe-Schomp, a 2007 graduate of Denver School of the Arts, is following up her time on “Succession” with a significant role on the new Netflix show “Nobody Wants This,” which dropped on Sept. 26. (My excuse: I don’t have access to Netflix.) Lupe-Schomp is billed third, behind only Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. And she told People Magazine, she was pregnant for the last five months of filming – and nobody knew. Lupe-Schomp’s maternal grandmother, Kay, was a prominent civic leader who helped start DSA …

And this: Desirée Mee Jung, a veteran of several local companies including Curious, the Denver Center and Colorado Shakespeare Festival, plays a reporter in the Netflix series “Monsters” (about the brothers Menendez). She will appear in the ninth episode of the second season, titled “Hang Men.”

And finally …

“This national touring production isn’t even attempting to mask how much the lead actor, Gavin Creel, looks like a 19-year-old Mitt Romney …” 

When I wrote that in 2012, as “The Book of Mormon” was launching its first national tour in Denver and Romney was (again) running for president, Creel got the joke. He reposted it. Creel was an inordinately popular star of TV and stage who died Sept. 30 of cancer at age 48. RIP to a very sweet soul.