Denver Actors Fund in Action: Faith Angelise Goins-Simmons

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Patrick and Melissa Sawyer

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Cody Schuyler and Jacquie Jo Billings

  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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Asad Clinton

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Bailey Walton

  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 […]

Denver Actors Fund announces statewide expansion

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, […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Robert Larson

  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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Angela Mendez

  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 […]

Denver Sonnets Project, No. 98: Maggy Stacy

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Jihad Milhem

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Joey Wishnia

‘Thank you so much for your invaluable help to me.’ 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 […]

Introducing the cast of ‘Waiting for Obama’

  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 […]

DAF: Footloose, All About Eve and 1st Annual All-Colorado Theatre Picnic

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund names Will Barnette Interim President

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, […]

Donor launches $10,000 Brenda Billings Match Campaign

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: ShaShauna Staton

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Kevin Lowry

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, […]

‘Legally Blonde’ director, screenwriters to join DAF screening

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 […]

Evening of songs to honor Brenda Billings at Hard Rock Cafe

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 […]

Denver Actors Fund in Action: Eric and Jenny Mather

Financial-aid recipients: Eric Mather is one of Denver’s most gifted comic actors, most recently having played Inspector Hans Kemp in Town Hall Arts Center’s “Young Frankenstein.” Denver Post Theater critic John Moore once wrote of Mather: “Here’s a guaranteed formula for staging a successful comedy: Cast Eric Mather, wind him up like a child’s toy, […]