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

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 & 7^th 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

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