2020 True West Award

True West Award 2020

By John Moore (Senior Arts Journalist, Arvada Center)

With so many (many) lousy things to come out of the COVID shutdown, you have to appreciate it when something truly lovely comes out of necessity and innovation. Like taking in an early fall sunset at The Hudson Gardens listening to the lyrics of John Denver as birds fly overhead: “I guess he’d rather be in Colorado. He’d rather spend his time out where the sky looks like a pearl after a rain.” With other humans. During a pandemic. Under a sky that looks like a pearl after a rain.

And it was an experience that was never in the Town Hall Arts Center’s plans before the virus forced a creative shift in thinking.

“Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver” was scheduled to open inside Town Hall on April 3 when rehearsals were stopped. But rather than shut the production down altogether, Director Nick Sugar’s creative team scrambled for a solution that turned out to be good enough to be true: The re-imagined show eventually went on as an outdoor, botanic experience that perfectly matched the tenor of John Denver’s music.

And it took some heavy behind-the-scenes lifting to make it happen. The Town Hall team had to set up a 40-foot band tent, two trees of stage lights, speakers, other sound equipment and socially distanced audience pods before every performance. And then take it all down again in near total darkness. And do it all over again 18 times over the course of the next month for the enjoyment of 1,500 patrons who surely had no idea how much muscle it took to pull off.

“We had to leave it exactly as we found it every night so that The Hudson Gardens could operate as normal the next day. It was a Herculean group effort, for sure,” said Robert Michael Sanders, Town Hall’s Education Manager.

Note the title. It was the Education Manager’s job to keep the crew moving on schedule. And that nighty “crew” included several people with titles you don’t always associate with “crew”:

Mike Haas: Technical Director
Curt Behm: Sound Designer
Robert Michael Sanders: Education Manager
Matthew Kepler: Programming Manager
Willa Bograd: Volunteer Coordinator
Stacy Hanna: Marketing and PR Manager
Stephanie O’Malley: Development Manager
Kevin Chung: Carpenter
Greg Kendall: Carpenter
Dustin Hartley: Scenic painter and technician
Matthew Duggar: Sound board operator
Sarah Alexander-Wininger: Operations Specialist

Here’s how Sanders describes how the operation went:

“The whole staff would arrive at 5 p.m. to set up the tent and run power from the main building out onto the lawn. We set up the light trees and ran LED lighting strips into the tent, made sure the band had power, and then placed all of the speakers and subwoofers. Meanwhile, Matthew Kepler handled all of the set-up at the front gate for arriving patrons, as well as ticketing – and laying down pods in groups of four, each placed at least 6 feet apart and 25 feet away from the five performers. Hudson Gardens provided a dressing room for the actors, and costume assistant Mikayla LaMantia was there every night to clean and deliver the costumes.”

Because there was no actual stage in the gardens, performers Matt LaFontaine, Alison Mueller, Mark Middlebrooks, Zach Stailey and Tasha Waters sang for nearly two hours while standing in the grass. And the second the show was over, the entire crew jumped back into action, moving everything back into a large storage shed on the Hudson Gardens’ grounds. “We essentially reverse-engineered it,” Sanders said. “Except now it was all in the dark.”

That effort included band members Donna Debreceni, Mitch Jervis, Scott Alan Smith and Larry Ziehl lugging their keyboards, drum kits and guitars from the park back to their cars each night.

Sanders says the plan was masterminded along with Technical Director Mike Haas and Sound Designer Curt Behm, though it took yeoman effort from 11 full-time Town Hall staffers, along with another dozen volunteers and part-time box office workers (Kendra Pierce, Nannette Brown, Amy Calonder, Tamara Jarrett and Dave Johnson) to pull it off every night.

“It was all hands on deck for anything,” Sanders said. “We grabbed anyone who had knowledge in anything.” Even if that meant the Town Hall Marketing Manager learning how to plug in sound and set up lights.

Miraculously, none of the performances were lost by weather. “Although sometimes the cords were frozen because it was so cold,” Sanders said. “And there were two shows where crew had to run up and hold the tent up during a microburst.”

And in the end, was it all worth it?

“Absolutely,” Sanders said. “Even with that amount of work, we would do it all over again in a second. The quality of the entertainment was high, the safety was well thought-out, and audiences were desperate to be entertained in a reasonable, responsible environment.”

Review: Lessons from a summer of outdoor theatre in the time of COVID – John Moore

Almost Heaven - John Moore Review

by John Moore (Senior Arts Journalist – Arvada Center)

Those companies that got out of the box deepened relationships with grateful audiences. Those that grow stagnant do so to their own peril.

…Not every live offering was so limited by crowd size. The Littleton Town Hall Arts Center had big plans to present a late-winter indoor production of the John Denver biography “Almost Heaven” on an indoor set accompanied by a provocative, original video underscore. When the shutdown ended those grand plans, Town Hall moved the production outdoors to the picturesque environs of nearby Hudson Gardens, which can accommodate about 70 on its expansive grounds.

By the time the run ends on October 11, Town Hall will have managed to sate about 1,500 of its audiences’ theatre fixes. Yes, that only represents about half the crowd size for a single performance of any big Broadway musical downtown. But then again, there aren’t all that many theatergoers who have so far shown much willingness to venture out to any production right now (inside or out). But those who have are being richly rewarded. At such a lousy time, you have to appreciate the opportunity to take in an early fall sunset in a garden while birds fly overhead and you’re listening to lyrics like: “I guess he’d rather be in Colorado; he’d rather spend his time out where the sky looks like a pearl after a rain.”

In every case, the thing that made those efforts special is the very thing that only came about through active problem-solving. Each of those environments enhanced the storytelling experience, and our understanding of the language or the lyrics. I would not have wanted to watch any of them indoors…

Review: Pivoting with Nick Sugar and the Town Hall Arts Center – John Moore

by John Moore (Senior Arts Journalist, Arvada Center)

How a lovely outdoor musical experience grew out of necessity and innovation

‘Almost Heaven’ was scheduled to open inside the Town Hall Arts Center on April 3 when rehearsals were shut down by the pandemic on March 13. What a strange set of circumstances that allowed for the musical to be reimagined as an outdoor, botanic experience at sunset that perfectly matches the tenor of John Denver’s music. Director Nick Sugar talks about it.

What are you doing to pivot?
We were shuttered during our third week of rehearsal. When I realized this was going to be much worse than expected, my first conversation with Town Hall was that “Almost Heaven” was the show that needed to open our theatre back up when the time came. The music is inspirational. It is the spirit of our community at Town Hall. “Almost Heaven” is Colorado. This version at Hudson Gardens is not the theatrical production that we had envisioned. It is not being performed on the set that was designed and completed on our stage. However, being able to see and hear these amazing singers without their masks on is joyous. “Almost Heaven” gives us all hope.

Why are you doing it?
All of us at Town Hall were invested in the show physically and emotionally. The cast was committed to the show as well. If I had to re-cast several performers, or if the Town Hall team felt it weren’t appropriate material to be doing for our first venture back, “Almost Heaven” would not be happening. Putting up a production takes a lot of work. Getting “Almost Heaven” up at Hudson Gardens has taken even more hard work, dedication and determination, and that work will continue throughout the run. After every performance, the band, lights, tent and sound have to be set-up and taken down each night.

Is there a timeline for programming to return to the indoor theatre?
It’s pointless to even speculate right now. Town Hall was lucky enough to be able to pivot with “Almost Heaven.” Hopefully, we can continue to pivot successfully with our next production.

Words of encouragement for others who are now pivoting their way through 2020?
We as a theater community are hurting. We have lost wages and jobs. We are re-learning, growing and trying to survive. Be brave and stay strong. We are a creative group of people. Create. We will pivot.

“Pivoting With …” is a new, ongoing series talking with members of the Colorado theatre community about how they are adapting to changes in their creative and personal lives as the COVID pandemic continues.

Have you met Town Hall’s friends?

It’s good to have friends, and it’s especially good to have friends who like theater in Colorado. We regularly follow some folks that we thought you might want to check out too (we stole lots of this verbiage from their sites!):

John Moore, www.culturewest.org, was named one of the 12 most influential theater critics in the United States by American Theatre Magazine in 2011. We love to read John’s take on everything theater and the arts in Colorado, and see some of the great projects he is working on, check out his 2013 theater photo series: It’s Opening Night in Colorado.

He Said/She Said Critiques (http://milehighcritics.wordpress.com/) is another great source for theater information in Denver. They mostly provide reviews, like the in depth review they did on Town Hall’s production of RENT, but also have theatre news (local and otherwise), local audition notices, information regarding openings, music, videos, etc.

Colorado Theatre Guild  works to assist theatre companies, small and large, in cultivating and sustaining audience membership, while at the same time promoting new and emerging artists and providing comprehensive services to the theatre community and the public. If you love theater in Colorado consider becoming a member!

Eden Lane (http://www.cpt12.org/tv_schedule/program_details.cfm?series_id=28196673) is the host and producer of In Focus with Eden Lane broadcast on Colorado Public Television, we are not sure how much longer she will be able to continue to produce In Focus, as she is still seeking funding, but we find her to take on theater in Denver to be fresh and intelligent. Check her out!

We have many more friends and consider all of you blog readers, Facebook friends and Twitter followers our best resource for spreading the word about the great things we are doing at Town Hall Arts Center. Thank you!