Financial aid recipient: Actor Abner Genece performed last season in Curious Theatre’s Water by the Spoonful and has been cast as a full member of the Arvada Center’s Black Box Theatre Company for its upcoming second season. Artistic Director Lynne Collins has cast Genece to play Sir John in Sense & Sensibility, Ambimbola in […]
Financial aid recipient: Katherine Paynter is an actor who just performed in Performance Now Theatre Company’s “The Wedding Singer,” which closed Sunday. Paynter, who hails from Minnesota, studied theatre arts through a dual-college program within both Minnesota State and North Dakota State universities. She is now a Denver-based flight attendant with United Airlines and made […]
Christopher Dyer, a longtime executive with the Denver-based premium cable TV network Starz/Lionsgate, has been unanimoulsy appointed to the Denver Actors Fund Board of Directors, President Will Barnette has announced. The 4-year-old Denver Actors Fund makes financial and practical assistance available to members of the Colorado theatre community facing situational medical need. Last week, The […]
Financial aid recipient: Meghan Ralph has been heavily involved in the Denver theatre community since 2004, working as actor, stage manager, assistant director, run crew, box office, photographer and anything in-between. She is one of the founders of Equinox Theatre Company and has worked with Spotlight, Firehouse, Vintage and many others. Most recently, she […]
Financial aid recipient: Sasha Fisher, recipient of two London Time Out Critics’ Choice Awards for her work in classical theatre, is an instructor in the education department of the Arvada Center, where she teaches master classes, coordinates a World War I humanities project and conducts four-week salons in conjunction with stagings such as Harvey, A […]
Financial aid recipient: Longtime actor and 20-year vocal coach Traci J. Kern has appeared in productions for many local theatre companies, including as the Narrator in both “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” for Cabrini Productions and “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” for Ben Dicke Productions at the Aurora Fox. Recent productions as Music Director have […]
About Nick Thorne: Actor, director and producer Nicholas Thorne died on Feb. 8, 2017, of complications from a severe asthma attack. He was 25, and a graduate of Denver School of the Arts and the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley. He was the Artistic Director and a co-founder of the Black Actors Guild, which […]
About Daniel Langhoff: Popular actor Daniel Langhoff most recently appeared as Cervantes, the playwright who defends his life through storytelling, in Performance Now’s production of “The Man of La Mancha.” Other recent roles include Tateh, the immigrant single father in the Performance Now’s epic musical “Ragtime,” for which he won a 2016 True West Award. […]
Financial-aid recipient: David Ballew has been an active actor in the Colorado theatre community for nearly two decades, with credits at local theatres ranging from Theatre Group to Equinox Theatre to Vintage Theatre and more. Memorable productions include Southern Baptist Sissies, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Jeffrey and Evil Dead The Musical. Most recently, […]
Financial-aid recipient: Lara Maerz has been an active Stage Manager in the Colorado theatre community for many years, including stints at The Edge Theatre, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Colorado Springs TheatreWorks, Theatre Aspen and Parker Performing Arts School. Most recently she ran The Addams Family Musical for the Northglenn Players.She is a graduate of Jefferson County […]
Financial-aid recipient: Maggie Sczekan has been performing in the Colorado theatre community for the past six years, most recently as Fiona in Colorado Springs Arts Center’s “Shrek The Musical” (billed as Maggie Davenport), and in the Arvada Center’s “Sister Act.” Of her performance as Fiona, The Gazette wrote: “Maggie Davenport deserves an action figure – […]
Financial-aid recipient: Aurora native Faith Angelise Goins-Simmons is playing Lily in the Aurora Fox’s Porgy and Bess. The daughter of Pastors Verdale and Jane Goins is a graduate of Aurora Central High School and the University of Denver, where she was the first person of color to graduate from the Lamont School of Music. She […]
Financial-aid recipients: Patrick and Melissa Swift-Sawyer are longtime contributors to the Colorado theater community. Patrick’s roots go back 40 years, from performing in melodramas at the historic Imperial Hotel in Cripple Creek (where he grew up) to The Crystal Palace in Aspen, Boulder’s Dinner Theater, The Carousel Dinner Theater (now Midtown Arts Center) in Fort […]
Financial-aid recipients: Cody Schuyler and Jacquie Jo Billings are longtime performers in the Colorado theater community and engaged to be married next year. The couple recently appeared together in Miners Alley Playhouse’s “You Can’t Take it With You” as Essie Carmichael and Tony Kirby Jr. Schuyler was nominated for a 2015 Henry Award for his […]
Financial-aid recipient: Littleton actor, dancer and choreographer Asad Clinton was an ensemble member in Breckenridge Backstage Theatre‘s recent production of “Chicago.” He was called “commanding” by The Denver Post when he played a tagger named Graffiti Pete in Vintage Theatre Productions’ “In the Heights.” He appeared in both “Aida” and “The Wild Party” for Ignite Theatre […]
Financial-aid recipient: Bailey Peyton Walton is part of the well-loved local theatre family that includes her brother, Burke Walton, and father, Kevin Walton. Bailey studied English at the University of Colorado-Denver and is a graduate of Cherry Creek High School. Recent roles have included Tracy in Hairspray with both the Evergreen Players and Candlelight […]
In the video above, new parents Rebecca Joseph and Daniel Langhoff present Denver Actors Fund President Will Barnette with the Colorado Theatre Guild’s first Community Impact Award at the 2016 Henry Awards. The Denver Actors Fund, which in three years has directly distributed more than $55,000 to metro-area theatre artists in situational medical need, […]
Financial-aid recipient: Robert Larson is a graduate of Cherry Creek High School and serves as the music director of Hope United Methodist Church. As an actor, he most recently appeared in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at the PACE Center in Parker. He is also a singer with the Original Dickens […]
Financial-aid recipient: Angela Mendez is a longtime local performer most recently seen in the New Works Festival at the Historic Elitch Theatre. She will be traveling with Director Christy Montour-Larson and her all-Colorado cast of the Armenian massacre musical “I Am Alive” for a special performance on Sept. 10 at the Alex Theatre in […]
By John Moore CultureWest.Org is endeavoring to make short films out of all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, each featuring actors with Colorado connections. The artistic intent is primarily to further CultureWest’s mission to spotlight the local theatre community and their current or upcoming productions. It’s also an attempt to promote Shakespeare education in a fun […]
Financial-aid recipient: Jihad Milhem is a Denver actor who this summer played King Priam’s son, Paris, in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s “Troilus & Cressida.” Previous Denver roles include James St. James in K: The Rise and Fall of the New York Klub Kids for Denver’s Pandemic Theatre Collective; and Happiness is a Warm Gun for […]
Financial-aid recipient: Joey Wishnia, who won the Colorado Theatre Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, was educated at Rhodes University and received a teaching diploma in Speech and Drama from Trinity College in London. He came to the United States in 1993 and quickly established himself in the local theatre community as an actor and […]
Director Brian Freeland has announced the cast of Denver arts journalist John Moore’s new play ‘Waiting for Obama,’ an official selection into the 2016 New York Fringe Festival. The play will presented by the new Wild Blindness Productions, in partnership with the Bas Bleu Theatre Company. ‘Waiting for Obama’ is the story of one […]
The Denver Actors Fund has a variety of exciting, family-friendly events planned for this summer, and we hope you will join us as we continue our mission to build community while building funds for our nonprofit, which provides financial and practical relief for members of the local theatre community facing situational medical need. MORE INFO […]
In the video above, Will Barnette announces the $10,000 Brenda Billings Memorial Match. The Denver Actors Fund Board of Directors has voted unanimously to name Will Barnette Interim President through 2016, Executive Director John Moore announced today. Barnette, 30, succeeds his mother-in-law, Brenda Billings, who died of a brain aneurysm on April 13. Barnette, […]
Last night, The Denver Actors Fund announced a $10,000 gift from an anonymous donor in memory of the non-profit organization’s late president, Brenda Billings. It represents the largest gift in the nearly 3-year history of the organization, which provides financial and other relief to local theatre artists in situational medical need. The announcement was made […]
Financial-aid recipient: ShaShauna Staton is an actor, director, wife, mother and daughter of the beloved late founder of Shadow Theatre founder, Jeffrey Nickelson. Most recently, Staton appeared in Vintage Theatre’s “Ain’t Misbehavin” at the very same theatre her father opened in April 2008, about 16 months before his death at 53. Staton played Armelia alongside […]
Financial-aid recipient: Kevin Lowry is an actor, improviser, teacher and photographer whose recent credits include “12 Angry Men” for the Cherry Creek Theatre, “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” for The Edge Theatre, “The 39 Steps” for the Breckenridge Backstage Theatre and “Juliet and Romeo” for the Betsy Stage. Other credits include the Arvada Center, […]
As Elle says in the 2001 cult classic film Legally Blonde: “Happy people don’t shoot their husbands. They just don’t.” We are so not shooting any husbands, because we are very happy people. The Alamo Drafthouse Denver has just announced that Legally Blonde director Robert Luketic and screenwriters Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah will come […]
The Denver Actors Fund will present an evening of songs on Tuesday, May 10, in honor of its late President, Brenda Billings. Billings was the co-Artistic Director at Miners Alley Playhouse, President of the Denver Actors Fund and a longtime contributor to Colorado’s non-profit community. She died April 13 of complications from a sudden brain hemorrhage […]