Buntport Theater

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A woman dressed in 15th Century clothing with a giant t-shirt over it kneels with a basketball in front of a screen showing a picture of the crooked skeleton of Richard III.

Westword- Buntport’s 50th Production Takes on England’s Murderous — or Innocent? — King Richard III

Some twenty years ago a group of ex-students from Colorado College founded Buntport, a unique Denver theater company that is opening its fiftieth group-created original production, Richard, this weekend.

The troupe has held innovative productions from the start. The earliest Buntport offeringincluded visiting fellow student Thaddeus Phillips presenting two Shakespeare plays, King Lear and The Tempest, in a solo, one-evening performance. Lear’s daughters were represented by inanimate objects — a plastic flower, a high-heeled shoe. The ocean at the heart of The Tempest was a kiddie pool. The theater’s cavernous warehouse home was bitterly cold, but when someone cranked up the heat, the sound drowned out Phillips’s words.

The prevalent viewer response to the production was a mixture of bemused admiration for a brilliant and entirely original evening, as well as a persistent question: “How long could this crazy organization survive?”

A long time, it turned out.

Richard will take place in a cleverly configured and decently heated and/or cooled space in front of an ever-expanding audience of Buntport devotees. The play was inspired by England’s Richard III, a king whose image has been indelibly shaped by Shakespeare’s play, named for the king. Richard III depicts the king as a physically and mentally twisted goblin of pure evil, guilty of the murder of two young princes who stood in the way of his succession to the throne, along with many others. Not everyone buys this characterization, however. There’s a dedicated group called the King Richard III Society that’s been struggling for decades to clear the monarch’s name, and whose dedication helped lead to the discovery of Richard’s corpse — missing its feet — buried under a parking lot in the town of Leicester.

What Buntport will do with this strange history is anyone’s guess. The program description is typically brief: “Richard is a comedy about Richard III enthusiasts, Victorian undergarments, and the lying liars that make theater.”

Buntporter Erin Rollman adds a touch more: “It’s a comedy that explores art as propaganda and the tenuous relationship we seem to have with history. It takes place at a meeting of Richard III enthusiasts and hopefully reminds people that there is an agenda in storytelling — including in our own.”

After watching Buntport’s productions through two decades, most of us have some idea of what we’re in for. These artists are experimenters, influenced by Eastern European theater, among other forms, and intensely creative in their use of props and fluid arrangement of sets. They are also often inspired by some odd tidbit of news or observation: Are there really people paid to deface your books so you’ll look well-read, and who are they? What was Tommy Lee Jones doing standing in line for the opera Turandot in Santa Fe? Why was a well-known clown imprisoned in London for saying the words “roast beef” on stage? Famous literary names often appear in the plays — Mary Shelley, Alexandre Dumas, James Thurber, Franz Kafka. And there has also been a mystical, beautiful rendition of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, sans kiddie pool.

The group is comprised of Erik Edborg, Brian Colonna, Rollman, Hannah Duggan and SamAnTha Schmitz, who doesn’t appear onstage but is involved in every aspect of the work — financial, managerial and artistic. We know by now that all the actors are terrific performers, each with their own particular and eccentric style. Duggan tends to carry a hilarious sense of aggrieved injustice with her onto the stage, mixed with a crazed originality. No one who saw her as Lavinia in the company’s insanely comic version of Titus Andronicus trying to speak while her severed tongue — represented by a strip of red felt — dangled from her mouth. Brian Colonna is as convincing playing an aristocratic Englishman as a singing lab rat. We’ve seen Edborg portray a pedantic art critic, a sadistic hare and a puppet. In every role he tosses aside convention to create someone or something both completely fantastical and fully embodied. As for Rollman, she can inspire gusts of audience laughter as easily as she can stun everyone into a deep sad silence or a profound realization.

We asked each of these creatives what they felt they’ve achieved during their years together.

“I think I’m drawn to shows that include moments of magic,” says Colonna. “When the unexpected happens and it’s truly transporting or even transformative for the audience.”

Asked to describe Richard, he says, “It’s about art and making it, and the effect it has on the world.” He pauses, then asks, “Are all our productions about that?”

As for Duggan, “The purpose of any entertainment is to give people a second to live a life outside of their own heads.”


Looking back on twenty years of close collaboration and experimentation, problems and successes, grants, awards and critical praise — followed by over two years of dealing with COVID — we wondered what the Buntport folks would tell their younger selves now.

“Take care of the people around you,” says Colonna. “The journey isn’t really about you. It’s about everyone else.”

“I would tell myself that expectations only lead to disappointments, and have fun,” comments Duggan.

Rollman says, “I’m not sure I have any more clarity on life or theater now than I used to. Sometimes, no matter how much experience you have, it feels like you are reinventing the wheel. I guess that’s a good thing to tell my younger self: Try not to get frustrated; it’s all part of the process.”

For Schmitz, the question brings up a memory. “I wrote a letter to the other members of Buntport when I was graduating college to ask for a job,” he recalls. “It said I couldn’t think of any job I’d rather have than making theater with them. I still feel that way. To my younger self, I might explain that it will at times be exhausting, and sometimes she’ll want a regular job that stops at 5 p.m., but that twenty years later we will still be showing our work to audiences that love it, and that was the goal.”

Edborg adds, “I would tell my younger self, ‘Be patient! You’ve got a good thing going.’”

-Juliet Wittman April 6th, 2022 Westword

A blond woman in a black sparkly dress smiles, holding a glass of wine. A mustachioed man in a white suit and glasses sits next to her, at a piano. In the foreground is half of the piano, littered with wine glasses and book. Above is a crystal chandelier. The curtain behind them is lit in greens and blues.

The Young-Howze Theater Journal- Grief Is Flexible: Cabaret De Profundis Is A Real Trip

There are two kinds of plays in the world that we take great interest in watching: The ones that make us Google things and the ones that “print” something in our head like they were tattooed onto our cerebellum. For the first part without “Cabaret de Profundis” we would have never gotten to Google Artemisia of Halicarnassus who is like a feminist icon version of Leonidas. Also without that same show we would have the word Brusband (a brother husband) permanently etched into our brains where we can’t get it out. So thank you for giving us something to latch on to in this otherwise fun and lighthearted show.

This play was brought into being by Brian Colonna, Erik Edborg, Erin Rollman, Hannah Duggan, Nathan Hall, Samantha Schmitz.

New Rule: Everyone doing digital theatre must now tape a go pro to their foreheads. Sometimes people are afraid to show the empty space that they’re currently in but this production benefited from showing off the empty audience space around them. Don’t be afraid of all that space you can move around in guys. I must applaud their use of coverage from about a hundred cameras that caught everything. Even a wine camera that Dana found particularly hilarious. Thanks to them I now can say I know what it’s like to be on the business end of someone crying me a river.

I don’t know that we one hundred percent connected to this style of crazy cabaret action. However, there was so much going on that I don’t think many people could. In my mind I think that it was a lot like one of those very decadent sculptural wedding cakes: I know that the person making it is insanely talented, I know that this is most likely the best version of this I have ever seen, but it was all a bit too rich for my taste. I think it’s a case of there being too much of everything and if the creators went in and trimmed a few things out I’d be able to dig in.

If you cut through a few of the layers you get to this idea that grief is really different for everyone else. This year has seen a lot of grief and a lot of us choosing to process that grief differently. No one really wants to know how to go through grief because we don’t ever really want to feel it. This past year we’ve even been grieving live theatre. It’s great that there are shows out there showing us a fun way to miss live theatre and doing it in style. Great job everyone!

In a weird way this was a very fun show. We can’t put our finger on exactly what makes it fun but just like the aforementioned cake wherever we do is tasty. There’s some kind of secret ingredient that we just love but can’t identify. We really hope they invite us over for another show just so that we can try to find it again. However with people as talented as this I don’t know they won’t have something even more crazy next time.

Ricky and Dana Young-Howze January 15th 2021 The Young-Howze Theater Journal

Westword- Buntport Theater’s Back With Opera Criticism, People in Boxes and Ugly Crying

Five creatives have been surprising Denver with original plays and performances at Buntport Theater for over twenty years, and the four members who perform (the fifth, SamAnTha Schmitz, collaborates on all aspects but doesn’t appear on stage) are diverse and eminently watchable.

Happily, the company survived the pandemic, so far, and has just announced its 21st season lineup, which includes: Cabaret De Profundis, or How to Sing While Ugly Crying, October 28 to November 13; Middle Aged People Sitting in Boxes, December 10 through 12; Tommy Lee Jones Goes to Opera Alone, January 28 through February 19; and Buntport’s fiftieth original play, yet to be named, April 8 through 30.

Buntporter Hannah Duggan will launch the season with a solo performance in Cabaret De Profundis, or How to Sing While Ugly Crying. The production is a typically imaginative Buntport riff on Artemisia, the Greek queen whose grief at her husband’s death was so intense that she drank his ashes. Duggan heard about her from an artist friend and immediately felt the story would work perfectly as inspiration for a new play.

“The only way we could imagine a woman grieving constantly would have to be in a cabaret-type setting,” she says. “That’s how it started, and then evolved to a bigger thing. The premise is that Artemisia’s grief is so big that her soul continues to live on in the bodies of other people. It’s set today, now, and she has taken over the body of a lounge singer from Indiana.

“I didn’t think the role had to be me at first,” she continues, “but I wanted to do it. I mean, I’m the loudest.” She laughs. But there were concerns: “I generally try to avoid lines. I have a horrible memory.” Still, Duggan won’t be entirely alone on stage. She’ll be accompanied by Nathan Hall, who has composed original music for the play. According to his impressive biography, Hall uses music “as an artistic medium to explore a variety of fields including science, nature, the fine arts, history, and sexuality.”

Cabaret De Profundis was set to open last year on March 13, “and that day we just sat and talked and realized we couldn’t open,” Duggan recalls. “I’m always so nervous every opening night that part of me was happy. I thought, well, we rehearsed, and that’s good enough. We don’t have to actually do it in front of anyone. But when time went on and I realized there might never be a chance to stage it, I felt really bad.”

With the play opening in October, Duggan has reminded herself that “no matter what happens, it’ll be okay. If I completely forget the show, I’ll just start talking about something else and hope to get back to it.” Given the always surprising nature of Buntport’s scripts, Duggan would certainly get away with this.

Duggan has her own entirely unique approach and has created many unforgettable characters, bringing to those roles a mixture of fierceness, vulnerability and a kind of furious humor.

She played the supposedly reluctant tech for A Knight to Remember some years back. While fellow actor Brian Colonna reprised his childhood, she flumped herself sulkily on a giant beanbag attached to her bum, and the fleeting expressions of annoyance, boredom and incomprehension that crossed her face as she dealt with lights and visuals came close to stealing the show (though you can’t really steal a show from Colonna).

In Shakespeare’s gory Titus Andronicus, Lavinia is brutally raped and mutilated, and her tongue is cut out. No one who saw Buntport’s hilarious musical version will ever forget Duggan’s tongueless exasperation as Lavinia fields her father’s insistent questions and attempts gurgled responses.

Best of all, perhaps, was Jane, the cocky waitress she portrayed in Tommy Lee Jones Goes to the Opera Alone, which will be revived this season. Jones plays Puccini’s Turandot for Jane in the diner where she works, explaining its depths and complexities in detail. Jane is neither intimidated nor impressed. She sings happily along with the soprano and interrupts the music to explain how she would have plotted the whole thing better.

Like every other theater in the area, Buntport is keeping its fingers crossed as it looks forward to the coming in-house season. Over the break, the company premiered two brief original pieces shown in the parking lot and fielded some virtual content.

Buntport has always had a strong sense of community, and the group is determined to make its work widely accessible. The support the members received from funders and individuals means that the price for all shows this season will be pay-what-you-can — even if all you can pay is nothing.

“It’s important to offer this up so people who can’t afford to go to live entertainment have an opportunity to do that,” says Duggan.

Buntport will also waive rent for other artists “who have art but not the space or the means to show it,” says Duggan. “We want to allow people to tell their own stories. It’s a good way to ease into a possible new normal.”

-Juliet Wittman August 18th, 2021 Westword

Three space people wearing huge black space helmets are in a parking lot in front of a wall that has been painted to look like outer space. The two people in the foreground look as if they are trying to look like they are floating and a third space person is laying on their belly on a bench as if they are floating.

GetBoulder.com- Space People In Space

I don’t want to lie to you.  I just told you above that there were tickets available, but the truth is that the current performances are sold out.  But if you call and put yourself on the wait list  you might be able to get in at the last minute if there are cancellations.  OR if the kids at Buntport get enough interest, they might be able to add performances.  Trust me, it’s worth it.

This little bit of nonsense involves the four people that are the tour guides/flight attendants for a group in a spaceship (the audience) on their way to Mars.  The audience is like Elon Musk’s tenth shipload of people going to the Red Planet to colonize a new community.  Unfortunately, not all the spaceships make it through the gauntlet of asteroids and space junk that now surrounds Mars.  Most of the crew tries to hide these frightening facts from their passengers, but hints and random remarks slip out that make the situation more obvious.  As usual and as expected, the show is full of the twisted sense of humor and hilarious special effects we have come to expect from this group . . . . from a visual monitor of the flight path to a floating cemetary outside the ship.  Did I mention that this foolishness all takes place in the parking lot of the Buntport space? 

We find ourselves in the no man’s land halfway between Earth and Mars before we are informed that there is no full service meals.  The flight attendants have pretzels secreted in their space suits,  The passengers have nothing.  In order to prepare us for our neighbors on Mars (in case we actually make it), they have a Martian on board that pops up out of a trunk.  Brian Colonna’s character Shirley (I know – don’t ask) misses his father and feels the need to be truthful with the passengers.  Erin Rollman’s character Mindee is her usual bossy self, taking control and trying to keep order.  Erik Edborg has perfected the bumbling awkward Shep while Hannah Duggan gives us a somewhat confused but determined and optimistic Rosie.  They make the most of the parking lot setting and ad lib their way through whatever unexpectedly happens in the outdoor venue.

You never know what to expect with a Buntport show EXCEPT that it will be exceedingly clever, much more intelligent than most scripted comedies, funny in a way that makes you think while laughing out loud, and always too short.  That you can count on.

A WOW factor of 9!!

-Beki Pineda May 31st, 2021 GetBoulder.com

A close up of a space person wearing a huge black space helmet who is bending over and giving a thumbs up to the person viewing the picture. In the blurry distance we can see another space person waving to whoever is looking.

OnStage Colorado- At Buntport, a trip to Mars fuels one wacky ride

Coming this fall on a streaming service near you: Join the crew of the Marinara 7, the latest interplanetary spacecraft from X-Space, as it rockets into the solar system with a nutty crew of flight attendants desperately trying to keep the passengers entertained on the seven-month journey to Mars.

There’s Mindee (Erin Rollman), the exasperated rule-follower fruitlessly trying to keep the rest of the batty crew in line. Meet Shep (Erik Edborg), the bug-eyed nervous Norman always on the watch for pending disaster. And there’s Rosie (Hannah Duggan), the zany singing “stewardess” who takes the mission about as seriously as the next Lauren Boebert Tweet. And don’t forget Shirley (Brian Colonna), the cynical doomsayer unafraid to call out the insanity and inanity of the whole enterprise. In the background, SamAnTha Schmitz is running sound and arguing with the space center about Colonna’s headband wardrobe malfunction.

That’s what Buntport Theater’s latest offering reminded me of: a sitcom in the not-too-distant future capitalizing on the rush to recruit untrained rubes into some billionaire’s ego-driven space project. There are a few differences: The performance isn’t on Netflix or Hulu; it’s in the parking lot of Buntport’s space on Lipan & 7th in Denver — y’know, between the RTD maintenance yard and Movemasters. The special effects aren’t quite George Lucas, but the troupe did manage to scare up some fairly legit space suits. (Although do they need to wear them inside the spacecraft? No matter.) Everything else is bargain-basement – just as Buntport fans like it.

If you’ve never been, Buntport is one of the Denver theatre community’s gems: a group of five fearless, inventive creatives who want to do theatre on their own terms. (Juliet Wittman has a great recent profile of the company in Westword.) With all this talk of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Richard Branson looking to send lesser rich folk to Mars in the next few years, it was only a matter of time before Buntport took a run at such rich material.

It’s fun stuff, with lots of laughs and just the kind of goofy ride we can all use nowadays. My guest said her cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling — what better endorsement is there than than? From the moment the four crewmembers came out the front door of the theatre in slow-mo (The Right Stuff, get it?) until the end when … OK, no spoilers. But it all comes together in an hour-long dork-fest that everyone should see – twice. (Although the small, er, house might make for scarce ticket availability.)

Throughout the pandemic, Buntport has done solid work presenting shows. From the gloriously wack-a-doo Grasshoppers last June (another parking lot extravaganza) to the online Duggan-driven production of Cabaret Profundis, they’ve kept the lights on anyway they could.

So thanks, Buntport, for blowing more on the flame of live theatre in Colorado. You may be thinking you’ll move back into your fancy indoor space sometime soon, but is the parking lot really so bad?

-Alex Miller May, 31st 2021 OnStage Colorado

Close up of a man and woman standing outside of a building. They are both wearing black and huge black spaceman helmets. They look concerned and a bit confused.

Westword- Buntport Theater Makes a Case for Space…and Creativity

No theater company in the country is quite like Buntport. This group of five local creatives — Brian Colonna, Hannah Duggan, Erin Rollman, Erik Edborg and SamAnTha Schmitz — stages entirely original productions. The troupe’s members create those productions through discussions, improvisation and eventually writing scripts. Each of the five writes, directs, produces and worries about business matters, though Schmitz prefers not to appear on stage.

Buntport has been in the same converted warehouse on Lipan Street from its beginning in the ’90s. At the time, the cavernous space was so cold that audiences, usually pathetically sparse, were forced to either shiver through a winter evening or strain to hear the dialogue because the available heating was so loud and cranky. In recent pre-COVID years, faithful followers thronged Buntport openings and found the place comfortable and configured in new, different and interesting ways for every show.

On March 13 of 2020, Buntport was scheduled to open a piece called Cabaret De Prefundis, or How to Sing While Ugly Crying, starring Duggan and local musician Nathan Hall.

“That week was very hard,” says Schmitz. “We were rehearsing and getting ready. I think it was Wednesday night the NBA stopped playing. That seemed like a big thing.”

Agitated company discussion ensued. Would spacing the seats for the audience be sufficient? Could they sanitize the building, jigger the script, provide only pre-packaged snacks for the opening party? By Friday, everyone realized that cancellation was inevitable, but “it still seemed maybe we’d open in a couple of weeks,” says Schmitz.

The set for Cabaret remains up. At some point Buntport will doubtless mount the show, but at the moment, the troupe is working on a performance piece called Space People in Space to take place outside in the parking lot from May 26 to June 13. Colonna describes this as “a silly comedy about people traveling to Mars. It also explores the idea of colonizing planets in our solar system.” A previous parking lot play, The Grasshoppers, was put on in September. At the same time, company members are thinking hard about what they’ve learned during a forced year off and how newly acquired insights will help shape the next full-length, in-house production.

Rollman says, “It doesn’t feel like anything is opening up with a bang, and I would say the process of making Space People also falls into that category. It’s a fun show — and I am deliberately not using the word ‘play,’ because I think the most apt comparison to our own work would be a stand-alone episode of one of our live sit-coms. I’m excited to have people come see it and to be performing live for the first time in ages, but it doesn’t fully scratch my theater-making itch.”

The members of Buntport have been together for twenty years, having met in drama classes at Colorado College, and they have somehow managed to keep their anarchic sense of humor, delight in surprise, and fascination with words and ideas intact over those two decades.

Scripts can arise out of almost anything: a phrase, an incident, an anecdote, an experience a member thinks is worth exploring. Kafka on Ice, one of Buntport’s most memorable productions, came about because someone had given the company a sheet of fake ice. Naturally, they all learned to skate. Just as naturally, they decided skating would be the best way to communicate Franz Kafka’s absurdist mournful ethos.

It seems significant that folks around town still refer to Buntporters as “the kids,” though as Schmitz points out, they’ve all now reached their forties, a phenomenon they explored a few years back in Middle-Aged People Sitting in Boxes.

“Everything partly starts when we’re writing,” says Rollman. “We can create the characters’ voices and have some understanding of the overall intention. But it still mostly happens through the rehearsal process, with playing around and bouncing things off each other.” Sometimes the original intention simply fades away, she adds.

“There’s always someone who has the initial idea,” says Edborg. “Sometimes people can’t remember later whose idea it was. The strength of how we work is so many minds coming up with new ideas — given that the brains are all on the same page, to some degree.”

No concrete decisions have yet been made about the next full-length production, though the actors expect it will in some — doubtless elliptical — way reflect the times we’re living through.

“Even these little parking lot shows are largely about isolation,” says Colonna. The new show may be “about obstruction, limitations that force you to make creative decisions. Any creative process requires constant self-evaluation. It’s an organic and always moving thing.”

Over the past year, Schmitz has been occupying herself with thousand-piece puzzles and some gardening. She also joined Black Lives Matter protests. Duggan lost her beloved dog and moved in temporarily with her mother and aunt to help out.

“When the pandemic started, it felt very weird, but there was something novel about it — everybody in the world was navigating something together,” Edborg says. “But by the time winter rolled around, hospital numbers were rising, and it felt pretty dark.”

Rollman, who “used to have a million things to do in a day,” found it hard to adjust to an open schedule — and now says she has “an enormous amount of anxiety about getting back to normal. It feels so overwhelming.”

What everyone says they missed most was their time together.

“It was shocking for a group of people who’ve collaborated for years almost every day,” says Colonna.

“I spent more time with these people than I’ve spent with other people in my entire life,” adds Duggan.

As for arguments and disagreements, Colonna explains that the group has mellowed over the years and abandoned “the dramatic and loud fights we had in our twenties.”

Schmitz agrees: “The show and our art take precedence over our individual egos now.”

“We were friends first,” says Edborg. “We all met in college. We all chose to like each other then. I couldn’t feel luckier that these people decided to like me, even before starting a company. And we were able to do it and watch it grow over time.

“I get to act, but I don’t have to do the awful process of auditioning,” he continues. “My self-esteem wouldn’t be able to take it. I feel for theater people who aren’t in such a secure and loving environment.”

Everyone agrees that the company is pretty secure because of an understanding landlord, along with grants and donations and the fact that all of them took pay cuts over the past year. But there are still some doubts and fears about reopening. Will health restrictions change further? How threatening are the virus variants?

Still, says Colonna, “it’s very exciting, because for the first time in a year, we’re all working together in the same room. We’ve all been vaccinated, and a few days ago, we were able to remove our masks. It all just made me feel more powerfully that there is something magic that happens when people are together.”

“I’m thrilled to be working on something,” says Rollman. “Oh, we’ve got a list of to-dos that’s incredible. On some level, all of us dreamed about this moment in time when we’d be able to have these huge openings, and really, it’s more like we’re going to take baby steps to get there. We have to think about what that means, how to let people slowly back into our space in a way that seems fun and celebratory.”

Having watched many online videos during his year off, Edborg says he understands the value of live presentation more acutely than ever before.

“I feel so lucky,” he says. “I can’t imagine what people do who aren’t family with people they work with. And I’m excited to perform again, even rehearsing. Laughing. No one laughs more at their job than I do.”

-Juliet Wittman May, 25th 2021 Westword

A blond woman in a black sparkly dress makes a goofy face. In one hand she has a crumpled kleenex, in the other a glass of wine. Along the back is a large lit up sign that says “Artemisia” with a tiny lit up sign underneath that says “and Nathan”. On a stand near the back curtain in a picture of a man in front of a building.

OnStage Colorado- A grieving satrap from ancient Greece walks into a cabaret …

Buntport releases video version of its dark comedy ‘Cabaret De Profundis or How To Sing While Ugly Crying’

Imagine you have a batty aunt who fancies herself an accomplished cabaret singer. Who knows, maybe she got a gig at some dive off the strip in Vegas a few decades back and lives off that memory. At family gatherings after a few too many glasses of wine, she commandeers the living room and recruits one of your uncles to play the piano. She then stumbles through a bizarre collection of songs, half songs, and random observations in service to grieving her long-deceased “brusband” as her alter ego, Artemesia.

That’s the vibe from Cabaret De Profundis or How To Sing While Ugly Crying, a recently released video performance from Buntport Theater. Originally set to play live at the theatre last March, you-know-what put the kibosh on that. Instead, Buntport forged ahead and recorded a performance in October, recently releasing it on Vimeo.

Hannah Duggan plays the reincarnated Artemesia, a real historical character from ancient Greece who succeeded her brother (and later husband) Mausolus as the satrap of Caria — a region in modern-day Turkey. (WTF?) Accompanying her on piano is her long-suffering, eye-rolling partner Nathan (Nathan Hall).

“I’m miserable to be here,” Artemesia announces, describing herself as “the greatest mourner on earth” who’s been moving from body to body over the centuries and is now inhabiting a zaftig woman from Indiana. Dressed in a black, spangled caftan and spilling her guts into a golden microphone, she’s an emotionally raw trainwreck careening from songs to wacky observations, to puns and corny jokes as Nathan plays the straight man trying to keep up. Dressed in a white tuxedo and initially sporting a GoPro on his head and a mustachioed covid mask, Hall is an accomplished pianist who wrote most of the music for the show (most of the lyrics are simply attributed to Buntport).

The ever-inventive Buntport crew paid a lot of attention to the filming, with a variety of camera placements ranging from the aforementioned GoPro (underused, IMO) to one sitting in the bottom of one of Artemesia’s wine glasses. Facebook Live is also employed in a few different scenes, providing an unlikely link to ancient Greece. It’s nicely done, lending both an air of intimacy alongside some jarring closeups and other off-kilter camera angles.

Artemesia tells us that “de profundis” means “from a deep state of anguish,” and as she staggers from one bit to the next, she never loses sight of the main mission of mourning her brusband (even adding some of his ashes to her wine glass, as the real Artemesia apparently did).

Given the freewheeling nature of this show, it’s not easy to discern any kind of plot or easy summary of “what it’s about,” but a few of Artemesia’s lines may offer some clues:

  • “It felt Melissa Etheridge-y to me.” (Nathan shakes his head)
  • Something about starting a Go Fund Me page for the free masons.
  • A capsule review of a Dan Brown novel.
  • “If you’re going to be cremated, please have your silicone breast implants removed.”
  • “Damn you Verizon!” (This after a Facebook call with the ghost of Mausolus [guy in a sheet] is dropped).

A force of nature

Duggan is a force of nature, making up for her lack of singing skills with the ability to own the stage and keep us on the edge of our screen wondering what non sequitur she’ll serve up next. Hall is an excellent partner, both loyal to the mission and equally dismissive of most of her flights of fancy.

While some might have a hard time sitting through an hour and 40 minutes of the trash-glitz deliberate awfulness of Cabaret de Profundis, others will no doubt enjoy watching an actor put it all out there as Duggan does. Utterly shameless and unconcerned what others might think (Can you really have a cabaret if you’re not going to say things like ‘balls’ and ‘pubes’ once in a while?”), she plows through the performance like a tipsy troubadour determined to keep all eyes on her wherever she goes (including, at one point, gone from the stage altogether, leaving Nathan to ad-lib with ancient music until she returns).

What’s missing, of course, is the audience that this type of show truly requires. Artemesia laments this on several occasions, and there’s little doubt a live audience would provide a good deal of laughter to propel this show forward. Never fear, though: Buntport does plan to mount a live production when it’s possible.

-Alex Miller January 17th, 2021 OnStage Colorado

A blond woman in a black shiny dress and sunglasses sits on the edge of the stage, flowers on either side of her. She is scowling and holding a glass of wine. In the background, a man's head peeks above a white baby grand piano with a chandelier over it. The stage is lit in bright reds and pinks.

Marlowe’s Musings- Cabaret De Profundis or How To Sing While Ugly Crying

Buntport Theater Company’s 49th full-length original play, “Cabaret De Profundis or How To Sing While Ugly Crying,” was supposed to open last March in their space over at 8th and Lipan. Like the other theaters in town, Buntport’s doors were closed at that time due to the pandemic.

     Lucky for us the award-winning troupe has filmed the stage production so we can all see this cabaret-style show streamed in the safety of our own living rooms.

     Comic genius Hannah Duggan plays Artemisia II, Queen of Caria. She’s that lady who commissioned the building of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, back in 350 BC. She’s also known to have mourned her “bruhsband,” (brother/husband) Mausolus’ death by drinking his ashes in her wine. 

     Identifying with the stages of grief outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the actor bemoans the fact that she has become “the Queen of Grief, the Madame of Misery, the Diva of Distress.” 

     Duggan is a brilliant actor, whose performance is as endearing as it is hilarious. Able to turn on a dime from hysterically grieving widow to zany little girl, her blissfully naughty grins will enchant you. 

     The show also features Nathan Hall, who, outfitted in a dashing white tux, accompanies Ms. Duggan on the gorgeous white grand piano with a mix of old standards and new compositions. The deadpan Nathan also serves as the butt of many of Ms. Duggan’s sly jokes.

      This monologue with musical numbers is being described as “a dark comedy with the emphasis on comedy.”

     The scenic design and its accompanying lighting design are eye-pleasing indeed.

     Ms. Duggan’s costumes dazzle us with their eye-popping sparkle and shimmer.

      True, the piece could be improved by a small trip to the editing room.

     Nevertheless … this is a welcome gift in this time of shuttered theatres and house-bound theatregoers. 

     Just FYI the production’s sound recording, and visuals are of the highest quality imaginable. Bravo! 

-David Marlowe January 15th, 2021 Marlowe’s Musings

In the foreground, on a strip of grass, two people in bright green grasshopper costumes are sitting in green chairs with their backs to the camera. They are facing a row of cars parked in a parking lot in front of a white building. It is rainy.

New York Times- Beyond Broadway, the Show Does Go On

Photo: Members of Denver’s Buntport Theater, thinking drive-in theater would be pandemic-proof, tried to imagine what kind of creatures belong on a lawn. Their solution: “The Grasshoppers.” Credit…Rachel Woolf for The New York Times

Inside a former firehouse in Richmond, Va., a lone actor performs “The Picture of Dorian Gray” for audiences as small as two. In a Denver parking lot, theatergoers in cars watch, through their windshields, four performers costumed as grasshoppers. On a 600-acre property in Arkansas, a cast of about 130 re-enacts the story of Jesus for several hundred ticket-holders spread across a 4,000-seat outdoor amphitheater.

The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered Broadway through the end of the year (at least), and the nation’s big regional theaters and major outdoor festivals have mostly pivoted to streaming. But even as infections surge in the United States, many theaters are finding ways to present live performances before live audiences.

Of course, there is social distancing. Also, in some places, masks. Temperature checks. Touchless ticketing. Intermissionless shows. And lots of disinfectant. At the Footlights Theater, in Falmouth, Maine, actors will perform behind plexiglass.

But these precautions mean there is dinner theater in Florida. Street theater in Chicago. Drive-in theater in Iowa.

“Our commitment is to do live theater — there’s a huge difference between that and seeing something on a computer screen,” said Susan Claassen, managing artistic director of Invisible Theater in Tucson, Ariz., a state that has emerged as a Covid-19 hot spot. The theater, which has been running a four-character play called “Filming O’Keefe” indoors, installed an air ionizer, allowed patrons in only one-quarter of its seats, mandated that they wear masks, and put on a show.

“Our theater got its name from the invisible energy that flows between performers and the audience,” Claassen said. “Even with 22 people in the audience with masks on, that energy is so strong.”

There are also financial reasons for continuing: Some theaters say they cannot survive a year without revenue.

“We’d rather go down creating good theater than die the slow death behind our desks,” said Bryan Fonseca, the producing director of Fonseca Theater Company in Indianapolis. The company plans to stage “Hype Man,” a three-character play by Idris Goodwin, outdoors, for 65 mask-wearing patrons. “I am hopeful and also very cautious,” Fonseca said, “careful that I don’t create a problem.”

By putting on shows, some theater artists are, in effect, making the case that it is a mistake for the industry to wait for New York to lead the way, given the risks there. “Someone has to be the first to take that cautious step into the dark to see what works and what doesn’t,” said Phil Kenny, a sometime Broadway producer who has a role in “Willy Wonka” in Orem, Utah.

But even in New York City there are signs of theatrical life. Food for Thought Productions, a company that presents staged readings of one-act plays, is planning to restart in a private club on July 13, with Louise Lasser and Bob Dishy performing and attendees required to have taken coronavirus tests.

“If we can prove that we can do this safely, maybe other groups can do safe theater as well,” said Susan Charlotte, the founding artistic director.

The pandemic remains a concern for any of the planned productions.

In Fort Myers, Fla., the Broadway Palm Dinner Theater postponed “The Sound of Music” as the number of confirmed cases surged in that state. In Houston, Theater Suburbia canceled “Daddy’s Dyin’ Who’s Got the Will?” citing a local stay-at-home advisory. And in Salt Lake City, where the Grand Theater was planning a run of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in which all the performers were masked, the theater scuttled the production just four nights before it was to begin, citing rising local caseloads.

But many are persisting. In Jacksonville, Fla., even as the mayor imposed an indoor mask order, the Alhambra dinner theater is continuing to stage “Cinderella.” The theater is selling only 50 percent of its seats; it has installed plexiglass between its seating tiers; patrons must wear masks after they eat; performers wear gloves and face away from each other during any partnered dancing; and, at the end, Cinderella and the Prince share an elbow bump instead of a kiss. (The audience invariably laughs.)

“I feel very comfortable, and I’m definitely not worried about my health,” said Olivia Zeisloft, 18, who is playing the title role (and whose grandfather is the director). “It’s been an amazing experience.”

Actors’ Equity Association has barred its members from performing onstage, and the Alhambra is one of several theaters that have adjusted as a result, deciding for the first time in years to use nonunion actors.

The Salt Lake City production of “Mockingbird” recast the role of Atticus Finch after an Equity actor would not perform. And in western Virginia, the American Shakespeare Center, which normally has both Equity and non-Equity companies, is planning to use only its nonunion performers this summer.

Equity is not happy, and warning that “moving forward, we will shine a spotlight on theaters that decide to make the reckless and irresponsible choice to put the safety of their audience and workers at risk,” according to Mary McColl, the union’s executive director.

Summer is beautiful. But this summer is strange.

Denver’s Buntport Theater, which usually presents work in a 100-seat warehouse, decided to create outdoors, and, like several other theater companies around the nation, looked to the drive-in for inspiration. The result: “The Grasshoppers,” in which four actors wearing adapted onesies perform an isolation-themed piece for patrons in cars. “It both feels like you’re doing theater and not like you’re doing theater,” said Erin Rollman, a company member.

Then there is street theater, getting a new look from artists idled by the pandemic. In Chicago, the ad hoc collective Random Acts of Theater dons costumes to perform for passers-by some weekends. They dressed as seniors, carrying babies, in a work called “The Future is Watching Us,” and marked Juneteenth in oversized masks. Up next: something involving large bird puppets.

“This is a time when everyone feels frightened and weird,” said one of the organizers, Jessica Thebus, who runs the graduate directing program at Northwestern University. “Bringing art to people walking down the street feels really important.”

But there are also pageant-scale productions — big casts, lots of seats — underway in outdoor venues, including the Medora Musical in North Dakota, the Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Dramain Branson, Mo., and the Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Ark.

“It’s been a bit of a challenge to do a play in the middle of a pandemic,” said Kent Butler, who stars as Jesus on Friday nights in Arkansas, and who also leads tours and serves as the production’s spokesman. Attendance, he said, is down, reflecting a decline in tourism and the disappearance of large travel groups.

The Great Passion Play, which has been running seasonally since 1968, takes place on a 500-foot-wide, three-tiered stage, making social distancing easier for actors; all but Jesus are also costumed with face coverings whenever their characters are not speaking.

“When I was playing Jesus last Friday night, a little girl, probably age 3, came up to me and wanted to be picked up,” Butler said. “It doesn’t look good if Jesus ignores a child, and I knew that, but also knew that for her health and safety and my own, it is very wise to use hand sanitizer. So I grabbed her hand in mine and walked her off the set all the way to where I knew there was hand sanitizer available, and was able to clean my hands and made her clean hers as well.”

The American Shakespeare Center will rotate “Othello” and “Twelfth Night” between indoor and outdoor stages, so audiences can choose where they are most comfortable. The acting company has agreed to an “isolation covenant.” And there are few virus cases in the theater’s Shenandoah Valley region.

“We got lucky in terms of geography,” said Ethan McSweeny, the theater’s artistic director. “That gives us an obligation to see if we can try and chart a course.”

There are clearly willing audience members. “Theater is something you crave,” said Jackie Schmillen, an Iowa television anchor who went to see a drive-in production of “Love Letters” in the Des Moines Playhouse parking lot. And Joel Bassin, the producing artistic director of the Firehouse Theater in Richmond, said his productions of “Dorian Gray” are selling out — albeit for audiences of only two, four or six people. “People do want to go out if we can assure them we’re controlling the risk,” he said.

A clutch of actors, draped in white, ran, leapt and danced around an outdoor basketball court in Claverack, N.Y., one recent night, recounting their dreams and re-enacting their visions.

Instead of footlights, there were the beams of headlights surrounding the makeshift stage. Inside the cars were audience members, listening to dialogue and music over their cellphones and radios.

That scene was near the end of a particularly ambitious example of pandemic-prompted experimentation: The director Michael Arden, a two-time Tony nominee, brought 33 theater artists together in New York’s Hudson Valley to develop a piece called “American Dream Study.”

For a few invitation-only run-throughs, masked audience members traveled by car and on foot from scene to scene — watching a woman in a floating canoe, a couple at a condemned mill, dancers at an abandoned oil tank, and the whole ensemble emerging from the woods to sing around a fire pit. They remained distant from the actors and one another.

The company, including the Tony winner Nikki M. James (“The Book of Mormon”), developed the piece while quarantining, with a nurse, at an inn; they remain hopeful but uncertain about whether the show will have a full production.

“We were finding a new mode of storytelling out of an obstacle,” Arden said, “and it really felt incredible.”

Michael Paulson July 4th, 2020 New York Times

Two people wearing bright green grasshopper costumes are sitting on a curb. On the ground in front of them is a tape measure showing that they are six feet apart. They are reaching a had towards each other. Both of them have a light green handkerchief covering their mouth and nose.

GetBoulder.com- Grasshoppers

THE GRASSHOPPERS – Written, Directed and Acted by the Members of Buntport Theatre Company.  Produced by the Buntport Theatre Company (performed in their parking lot at 717 Lipan, Denver) through July 19.  Tickets available at 720-946-1388 or stuff@buntport.com

I saw a play tonight!!!  Do you realize what I just said??  I SAW A PLAY TONIGHT!!  And it was so much fun.  Leave it up to the creative folk that make up the Buntport team to come up with a safe and creative way to bring entertainment to their followers.  As you pull into the parking lot, you are directed to park against the building with your headlights pointing out.  A tiny disinfected speaker is provided for each car and you are entertained with “Bug Music” as you wait for your fellow audience members.  Four green stools sit across the parking lot on the grass next to the sidewalk.  When the show starts, Brian, Hannah, Erin and Erik don their green onesies and transform into the grasshoppers in front of us.

THE GRASSHOPPERS is a kind of mockumentary about this particular “cloud”  of grasshoppers full of “fun facts” about these little insects that survive by keeping their six legs six feet apart.  We learn random and authentic information about the amazing creatures that perform in front of us to the voice of the Narrator.  In addition to much factual information, our grasshoppers illustrate their jumping techniques and explain the process by which they turn into a swarm of locusts.  They demonstrate their feisty natures and their jump to anger when confronted by giant humans.  But their bottom line is that all creatures will survive if they stay apart, protect their own and that there is power in the swarm by working together.  Take a leap of faith and keep hope in your heart.

Just as the beautiful people at Buntport have done by finding a way to entertain an audience starved for live theatre.  God bless you everyone.  This first round of shows is sold out already – but call or write in and get your name on the waiting list as they are planning to add performances as soon as they can.

A WOW factor of 9!!

-Beki Pineda June 14th, 2020