[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.]
I’ve been saying for ages – well, for the better part of two years, anyway – that I’m going to do a blog post “one of these days” ranking all the plays and musicals that I’ve seen in the last 2+ years in Denver, as I have emerged from the “fog of diapers” (i.e., the isolation from cultural activities that tends to come with parenthood of young children) and dived into our city’s surprisingly robust theater scene. (Seriously – theater in Denver is awesome, you guys.)
I said it again last night after watching the Denver finale of Wicked at the Buell Theatre with Becky. Gotta do that blog post!
Alas, I keep procrastinating this item on my to-do list. And with each new play I see, the task gets a little bigger, and it feels a little more like I’ll never actually get around to it. Well, screw that! I’m gonna do it! Right now, sort of!
The idea, of course, is not merely to make a BuzzFeed-style listicle, but also to write a little blurb about why I’m ranking each show where I am. However, the “blurb” part is what makes this task feel increasingly overwhelming, as the list of required blurbs gets longer and longer. So, I’ve decided I’m going to do this in stages, starting with this post. Ergo, below is my first-draft, unelaborated listicle, ranking the shows I’ve seen in Denver over the past 27 months. This way, if nothing else, I’ll get all the plays and musicals written down before I forget what they are. And hopefully, this will spur me to come back and add the blurbs later. (And when I do that, I reserve the right to tweak the order.)
Anyway, without further ado…
(All shows at the Denver Center unless otherwise noted.)
JAW-DROPPINGLY AWESOME
1(a). Mary Poppins
1(b). Book of Mormon
3. Wicked
(Yeah, I haven’t figured out how to rank my top two yet. So sue me. In my defense, it’s really hard to meaningfully compare a show featuring “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” with one featuring “Hasa Diga Eebowai.” It’s sort of like asking: “Which is a better magazine, The Economist or Playboy?” They aren’t really comparable! But, I’ll come back to this issue when I do my final list. Hopefully, I won’t wuss out and keep them tied for the top spot.)
UNEXPECTEDLY AMAZING
4. Black Odyssey
5. Appoggiatura
GENUINELY EXCELLENT
6. The Legend of Georgia McBride
7. Sense and Sensibility
8. The Unsinkable Molly Brown
9. One Night in Miami
REALLY GOOD SHOWS THAT I FEEL BAD RANKING THIS LOW
(but the Top 9 were so great, it can’t be helped)
10. Death of a Salesman
11. Annie
12. The Singing Room (by Horse & Cart Productions at the Brooks Center)
13. Hairspray (by the Aurora Fox on the Stapleton Green)
GOOD, IF KINDA FORGETTABLE
14. Peter and the Starcatcher
15. Midsummer Night’s Dream (by Three Leaches Theatre Company on the Stapleton Green)
16. Fawlty Towers (by Equinox Theatre Company at the Bug Theatre)
FLAWED, BUT STILL ENJOYABLE
17. Just Like Us
18. Animal Crackers
19. Pippin
THE ONLY TWO THAT WERE ACTUALLY BAD
20. The 12
21. Evita
I think that’s all the shows I’ve seen since “Sense and Sensibility” on April 18, 2013. If I think of any others that I’m forgetting, I’ll add them. And, like I said, stay tuned for the lengthier post explaining (and possibly tweaking) these rankings. Eventually! Maybe! Hopefully!
P.S. I almost forgot: a bonus ranking of children’s theater shows that I’ve seen in the last 27 months! I’m giving these their own list, since comparing them to the grownup-theater productions wouldn’t be fair (though I’d put them all ahead of Evita).
CHILDREN’S THEATER PRODUCTIONS
1. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Aurora Fox Theatre)
2. The Emperor’s New Clothes (Heritage Square Music Hall)
3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Aurora Fox Theatre)
Side note: if you count the children’s theater plays, and you consider that I saw Molly Brown twice (first with Fourth Wall, then with Loyette and Loyacita), I’ve been to a live theater production 25 times in the last 27 months!!