Theaters, dance troupes and more will stage many world, regional and national premieres this year

By the Thirst Team

Last year, “Kimberly Akimbo” won five Tony Awards, including best musical and best original score. Now, the beloved show about a rapidly aging but unshakably optimistic girl will launch its national tour on Sept. 22 at Denver’s Buell Theatre.

It is perhaps the most high-profile entry in a long list of regional, national, and world premieres this season around Colorado. A Denver dance company presents a year of nothing but world debuts, theater companies across the state will stage regional firsts, and many other groups will break out new projects.

After “Akimbo” closes, the Denver Performing Arts Complex also will host the Colorado premieres of “Back to the Future: The Musical,” based on the revered movie; “Life of Pi,” based on the bestselling book; and “& Juliet,” a new spin on the Shakespeare classic.

Also at the DCPA, two crowd favorites that were read at the 2023 Colorado New Play Summit will make their world debuts as full-blown theatrical productions in 2025. “The Suffragette’s Murder” is a farcical whodunit, and “The Reservoir” is an intergenerational comedic drama hailed as “an emotional roller coaster.”

Logan Velaquez of Wonderbound in Garrett Ammon’s “Sam & Delilah” | Photo by Amanda Tipton

Dance premieres

Wonderbound, an acclaimed contemporary dance company in Denver, has sold out nearly every performance in its new space — and almost all of them were world premieres. Artistic director Garrett Ammon will debut four completely new shows this season.

In October, “Devil’s Crush” spotlights a Lucifer who has fallen to earth, then fallen in love. December’s “Jolly Moxie” is a madcap adventure set to classics performed by the Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra. Next spring, “Agent Romeo” upends Shakespeare’s classic with an FBI man named Romeo pursuing mafia heiress Juliet. Finally, “Space Cowboy” reunites Ammon with members of the Gasoline Lollipops and DeVotchKa for a show where the Old West meets the Space Age.

The Zikr Dance Ensemble in Littleton is another acclaimed, cutting edge dance group, with several unseen pieces as part of its fall “Secrets” showcase. Artistic director David Taylor said the show “explores the ancient, mysterious and transcendental aspects of the artform through a contemporary multi-media lens.” He said he has expanded and transformed “Ripples in the Sand,” his dance performance set to the “Dune” film score. And “Cham Mandala,” based on Tibetan mysticism and purification rituals, has new choreography.

The Colorado Ballet will present the regional premiere of “Casanova,” a new ballet by Kenneth Tindall, in January. The show “explores the decadent proclivities of the infamous, fabled romantic through bold choreography, iconic Venetian masquerades, and a passionate narrative set to the music of Kerry Muzzey.”

“Cinderella” at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities | Photo by Amanda Tipton

More dramatic debuts

The groundbreaking Curious Theatre Company in Denver is known for staging intense and topical shows. And several upcoming regional premieres are no exception. “Downstate” is an intense story of four convicted sex offenders sharing a group home. “Confederates” is a time-traveling story of institutional racism.

The season opens by bringing much-needed humor to election season. “POTUS” is billed as a “chaotically funny” all-female play. Next spring, Curious brings a new play by the writer of “The Whale.” Samuel D. Hunter’s “A Case for the Existence of God” is the story of two melancholic single fathers.

About a mile west of Curious, another troupe of creative Coloradans has been performing at the always creative and irreverent Buntport Theater. The Denver group’s next world premiere is as yet untitled but has a promising premise.

“The play will be a documentary-style show surrounding the 20th anniversary of the Dave Matthews Band Chicago River ‘incident’ in which one of the band’s tour buses emptied its blackwater tank on the Kinzie Street Bridge, dumping hundreds of pounds of human waste onto an open top sightseeing boat below,” said company member Erin Rollman. “In our iteration, the inanimate objects involved — boat, bus, bridge — will finally be able to tell their side of a comedic and completely horrifying event.”

OpenStage’s “The Book of Will” | Photo By Lynn Nottage

The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities will stage the regional premiere of “Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really” by Kate Hamill from Sept. 7 through Nov. 3. The show “drives a gleeful stake through the heart of the patriarchy itself,” said Sarah Kolb, director of marketing and communication for the Arvada Center. “This is a gory, funny, and really clever spin on an old story, and anybody who loves - or loves to hate on - classic novels will be surprised by this production.”

Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins will stage the Colorado premiere of “The School for Lies,” a David Ives farce set in Paris in 1666. The show runs from Sept. 20 through Oct. 13.

Also in Fort Collins, OpenStage presents the world premiere of “October Surprise” by local playwright Miguel Muñoz this fall.

“‘October Surprise’ is an emotional, harrowing, and twist-turning new play about family and morality through the lens of American politics, that asks the question ‘How far are you willing to go for what you believe in?’” said OpenStage managing director Jessica Kroupa.

Funky Little Theater Company in Colorado Springs “strives to bridge the gap between community and professional theater,” said producing artistic director Chris Medina. His company will present one world premiere. “Bootleg Jedi” is a comedy set in 1983 and written by Denver’s Josh Hartwell. Medina said it is “loosely inspired by a zany, true-ish story” of a misfit teen film thief.

Another Funky show is “Mockingbird” by Julie Jensen. This regional premiere revolves around an 11-year-old girl on the autism spectrum, and is adapted from Kathryn Erskine’s National Book Award-winning novel.