Author: John Moore
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Boulder International Film Fest draws Baldwin, Bardem
You’ve heard of famous last words. Boulder film buff Kathy Beeck’s famous first words were: “How hard can this be?” That was 18 years ago, when Beeck and her sister, Robin, first imagined an international film festival for Boulder that has since grown into a four-day celebration of cinema that attracts more than 20,000 film…
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Life in a time of COVID chaos calls for grace – and popcorn | John Moore
When I recently accepted an offer to join the staff of The Denver Gazette full-time, ending two years of COVID-induced underemployment anxiety, I found myself awash in warm and wonderful feelings I hadn’t experienced in two years: Calmness. Clarity. Confidence. A way forward. A celebration was in order. But I may have overdone it. I…
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Rise up! ‘Hamilton’ is bringing history, theater back to life in Denver | John Moore
It’s impossible to overstate just how much it means to have the national touring production of “Hamilton” back up and rapping to sold-out houses at the Buell Theatre after the economic devastation of the pandemic shutdown. To the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. To those who work on or around the show. To culture-starved…
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Colorado actors are on a roll across national theater stages
In 2008, Denver actors Jenna Bainbridge and Regan Linton shared a wheelchair in a seminal staging of the musical “Side Show” for Phamaly Theatre Company, which exists to provide performance opportunities for actors with disabilities. Bainbridge, then just a junior at Castle View High School in Castle Rock, and Linton, a graduate of Denver East…
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Prolific actor Harvy Blanks, who died Sunday at the age of 73, made history in Denver, on Broadway
In 2009, actor Harvy Blanks helped make theater history in Denver. In 2017, he helped make theater history on Broadway. Blanks, who appeared in 37 plays for the DCPA Theatre Company over 25 years, “was a crucial part of the maturation of the Denver Center Theater Company,” former Artistic Director Donovan Marley said of Blanks,…
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She’s no Slaughterback, but who is? | John moore
At first glance, former Lumineers cellist Neyla Pekarek and pioneering Colorado frontierswoman Kate McHale Slaughterback seem about as alike as a cello bow and a rifle. Slaughterback was a fiercely self-reliant woman who made her way a century ago farming her own land east of Fort Lupton. Who had a short-attention span for men —…
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CU honors diverse women composers
It was something of a miracle when Florence Price shook up the classical world by becoming the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major U.S. orchestra in 1933. And it was something of a travesty that it received only one play from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “I think a lot of…
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Looking ahead at the Oscar candidates
The pandemic changed movies forever. Not only what films we see and how we see them, but when the seasonal national discourse blissfully shifts from head-splitting partisan politics to something far more partisan — and far more fun: The debate over the best films of the year. After about two decades with a consistently late…
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Civility is dead in Colorado: COVID stress is bringing out the absolute worst in human behavior | John Moore
Last month, an elderly volunteer usher for the Arvada Center got pushed to the ground when she told a theater patron he would have to keep his mask on throughout the performance, per current Jefferson County Public Health orders. Another got called a Nazi for doing the same. At that point, for the health and…
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A COLORADO LIFE: Roger L. Simon: Attorney by day, actor by night
Roger L. Simon – “Shorty” to his friends – was a softie of an attorney by day and a hardscrabble actor by night. Take, for example, the time he was hospitalized in the hours before a 2008 performance of “Twelve Angry Men.” “We were going to cancel, but Roger insisted on doing the show,” said…