Name: The Great Debate- Simon Says VS Garfunkel
Start: 2026-04-21T19:30:00-06:00
End: 2026-04-21T21:00:00-06:00
Location: Buntport Theater

Denver Gazette – Buntport Theater, the ‘Glass’ is more than half-funny

Buntport Theater, an enduring ensemble of five wildly creative storytellers from Colorado College, has produced more than 50 full-length, original plays from scratch over the past nearly 25 years.

Know that it is exceedingly rare for any theater company to survive long enough to produce 50 plays of and kind. The kind that most produce have been written by somebody else and ordered out of a catalog. These people do it all themselves.

A recent highlight was a lovably odd 2023 play called “The Death of
Napoleon: A Play in Less Than Three Acts” – which imagined the tiny,
contemplative French emperor spending his final years in exile
playing solitaire, arguing with insects and refusing to get on his teeter-totter.

That is quintessential Buntport. (I want there to be a name for that. Perhaps “Kennebuntport.”)

Buntport never gets old largely because its often steps out of its nonexistent comfort zone by collaborating with other artists in the community. Tonight, they are opening “The Menagerist,” a new play they co-created with Regan Linton, former artistic director of Denver’s disability affirmative Phamaly Theatre Company. Linton, a graduate of Denver East High School, was paralyzed in a car collision while in college.

Buntport, Linton understates, “is one of the most unique theater companies in Denver.” Linton, in turn, “brings a level of professionalism to Buntport – finally,” ensemble member Brian Colonna joked.

In January, Warner Brothers Studios celebrated its 100th anniversary by
commissioning six contemporary short film adaptations of its most iconic films. Linton was one of them, and she chose ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,” now streaming on Max (formerly HBO).

”The Menagerist” is a satirical take on Tennessee Williams’ classic play and, not for nothing, Linton herself starred as Laura Wingfield in a 2012 grad-school production of ”The Glass Menagerie.” This, she says, is not that.

“‘The Menagerist’ is a comedy about being stuck in a tragedy with your annoying unicorn friend and a handful of imaginary spoons,” said Linton, who promises “an absurd, irreverent, delightful theatrical romp with a smidge of sentimentality.”

But there is a point to all this stillness. “Our whole starting point was talking with Regan about being stuck playing Laura in plays like ‘The Glass Menagerie’ as an actor with a visible disability,” Colonna said. ”The Menagerist” runs through March 29 at 717 Lipan St. with ASL Interpretation performances on March 22-23 and Audio Description performances on March 23-24. Go to buntport.com.

John Moore- March 6, 2025 The Denver Gazette

Two people face off, their hands up to the sides and they are both talking in a comically threatening way. One of them is in a wheelchair and wears black and white. The other wears a white body suit with an inflatable rainbow unicorn pool float around their body. In the background there are two people not paying attention to the center stage ruckus.

On Stage Colorado – Rinse & repeat with Buntport’s ‘The Menagerist’

The troupe’s new show partners with Regan Linton for a word or three about disability in theatre.

In its latest new work, Buntport Theater’s usual gang of five is joined by Regan Linton in a bizarro-world take on Tennessee Williams’ memory play The Glass Menagerie. In the original, the character of Laura is partially disabled, and that element is amplified tenfold in The Menagerist.

Linton, the former artistic director at Denver’s disability-affirmative Phamaly Theatre, takes to the stage in her wheelchair to portray Laura — as well as the actor portraying her in a series of rehearsals for a production of The Glass Menagerie. The conceit running through the script is that disabled actors are often pigeonholed in a narrow set of roles or, worse yet, disabled characters are played by abled actors.

While most Buntport shows are created and performed by the core group — Erik Edborg, Hannah Duggan, Brian Colonna, Erin Rollman and (off stage) SamAnThat Schmitz — they do occasionally partner with other artists. With Linton, they found the perfect collaborator for a play about disability and theatre — not to mention a fine actor to inhabit the role.

The action is centered around a continuous replay of a scene in the original where Laura receives a “gentleman caller,” played here by the ever-versatile Colonna. Edborg is Laura’s brother Tom, who acts as narrator while sporting a thick layer of T-shirts — each with a message of sorts about the next scene. Duggan, often the biggest presence onstage in any Buntport show, takes a bit of a backseat here as the mother Amanda.

(L-R) Erin Rollman, Hannah Duggan, Brian Colonna, Regan Linton and Erik Edborg in ‘The Menagerist.’ | Photo: Gail Bransteitter

Having the most fun is Rollman, who portrays one of the glass figurines in Laura’s menagerie. As the prized unicorn doomed to have its horn broken off by Jim, Rollman is the life of the party in a white bodysuit and unicorn floatie.

Buntport is never shy about in-your-face stage action, with inventive lo-fi effects, props and costumes to illustrate its comedic productions. That’s all part of The Menagerist, and there are indeed plenty of laughs along the way. But while the message about creating legit opportunities for disabled actors on stage and elsewhere is an important one, the repetition of that message is, well, repetitious.

Somewhat reminiscent of last year’s 125 No’s — where a Hollywood tale of Green Garson taking that long to get a one-word line just right — Menagerist is an exploration of a theme with many takes. The risk is always in taking something like this too far, and this one simply goes on for too long. At times it dips into screed territory, with the disability message being hit so many times that it loses impact.

Since the focus is only on the one scene with Jim, it doesn’t get into how disability representation has (or hasn’t) evolved. Had the script not been so married to the framing device of the repeated scene, there may have been more opportunities to expand on those questions while mixing up the action a bit. As the show inched past the hour mark, I found myself eyeing Edborg’s torso to see how many shirts he might have left under there.

For a theatre as lean, inventive and courageous as Buntport, I’m always willing to overlook some rough edges. There’s no doubt The Menagerist touches on some important questions not only for disabled actors but others who may not fit preconceived notions related to age, race, gender or whatever else. Combining all that with comedy is a lot to take on, and the execution isn’t quite there. But for admirers of the theatre, it still contains plenty of those Buntportian elements that keep fans coming back for more.

-Alex Miller, March 14th, 2025, On Stage Colorado