New theater seasons kick off in Colorado Springs | Arts & Entertainment
Autumn gifts us with many pleasures, including the start of new theater seasons.
Theater companies and venues are shining their stages and preparing playbills for hungry theater patrons who have starved themselves of the stage during the summer months.
Here are four promising productions to kick off the new seasons.
‘The Bluebird,’ by Theatre Artibus
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Millibo Art Theatre, 1626 S. Tejon St.
Tickets: $25-$28; 719-659-8748, themat.org
Most of us won’t experience living our lives in a foreign country.
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We’ll never know how it feels to go about our quotidian lives without knowing the language, without being able to communicate well, while also trying to understand and adjust to huge cultural differences.
But Buba Basishvili does know. And it’s been challenging for the theater artist, who moved to the U.S. a dozen years ago from the Republic of Georgia, a country at the intersection of Europe and Asia.
In his new solo show, “The Bluebird,” inspired by Charles Bukowski’s poem “The Bluebird,” Basishvili depicts the immigrant experience, as well as his own journey seeking a new life in a strange land. Produced by Theatre Artibus, the Denver-based company Basishvili founded with his partner, the show will run Thursday through Sunday at Millibo Art Theatre.
“The idea of it resembles my desire to express myself, to find a place where I could create, where I could be an artist,” Basishvili said.
“Some of it is my story, some of it is my images. There is an ocean crossing in the show, which when people saw it they thought it was not only for immigrants, but for every person’s journey in life. We all go through the difficulties. This story can be anyone’s, if they’re an immigrant or not.”
Basishvili, who spent more than 15 years as a performer and teacher at Georgian State Pantomime Theater, arrived in California in 2012 to attend Dell’Arte International — School of Physical Theatre in California: “An existential clown school,” he said.
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He and his partner moved to Denver in 2017 and founded Theatre Artibus, which has taken its original productions around the globe.
There’s no dialogue in the new 50-minute show; the storytelling is done solely through movement and original baroque pop music by the avant garde duo Homospouses, two real-life spouses from the Republic of Georgia and Colorado.
And it all stems from the first line of Bukowski’s poem: “There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out, I only let him out at night sometimes, when everybody’s asleep.”
“The storytelling is funny and simple,” Basishvili said. “It’s not hard to understand.”
‘Henry IV and V,’ by Theatreworks
When: Opens 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 13
Where: Ent Center for the Arts, 5225 N. Nevada Blvd.
Tickets: $12-$49; 719-255-8181, entcenterforthearts.org/theatreworks
Theatreworks combines the text and stories of “Henry IV, Pt. 1,” “Henry IV, Pt. 2” and “Henry V” into one core story that follows Prince Hal, the son of Henry IV, who leaves his regular life to take up a new position as King Henry V.
When we first encounter Hal, he’s a gadabout, spending his days in London with barflies and rogues, including Sir John Falstaff. Shakespeare’s historic plays show us how that young man transitioned from a life of ease into taking up the crown and waging a great war that solidified his role as king.
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‘Dial M for Murder,’ by Fine Arts Center Theatre Company
When: Previews 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, opens 7:30 p.m. Saturday, through Oct. 6
Where: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, CSFAC, 30 W. Dale St.
Tickets: $27-$66, free for students; 719-634-5583, fac.coloradocollege.edu
A former tennis pro wants to have his wife murdered so he can get his hands on her inheritance. After discovering she’s been having an affair, he comes up with a plan to kill her that involves blackmailing an old acquaintance. Naturally, things don’t adhere to plan.
Frederick Knott’s original play premiered on Broadway in 1952 and inspired the 1954 film adaptation directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Grace Kelly and Ray Milland. Jeffrey Hatcher’s new adaptation of Knott’s play premiered three years ago.
‘God of Carnage,’ by Springs Ensemble Theatre
When: Opens 7:30 p.m. Thursday, runs 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and Sept. 30, 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 6
Where: SET, inside The Fifty-Niner, 2409 W. Colorado Ave.
Tickets: $15-$25; 719-357-3080, springsensembletheatre.org
In Yasmina Reza’s 2008 play, two sets of parents get together for a conversation after one couple’s son has hurt the other’s at a park. They hope to discuss the problem in a civilized manner, but the meeting soon devolves into chaos and childish behavior.
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