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Arts news | Denver students taking pandemic musical to Scotland

By June 2, 2022 | updated 4 years ago

DSA Going to Scotland.jpg

Denver School of the Arts students performed ‘re:ACTION’ for friends and family last month before taking the original musical to Scotland this summer.



Sixty-five Denver School of the Arts students are heading to Scotland this summer to show the world a timely new musical of their own making at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Since 2003, DSA Theater Director Shawn Hann has sent her students to Scotland every four years to experience the largest arts festival in the world first-hand. But this year will be different. This year, the students will be performing “re:ACTION,” their own original musical shaped by their fraught experiences over the past 2½ years.

“re:ACTION” uses three-time Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown’s 2018 song cycle “How We React and How We Recover” as inspiration to explore COVID, lockdowns, mass shootings, Black Lives Matter, the police murder of George Floyd, homelessness, sexuality and more through the eyes of students.

“Each piece on Jason’s album was a reaction to something he was grieving or recovering from,” Hann said. As she listened, she added, “The idea of doing a show with teenagers coming out of the pandemic really spoke to me.”

Denver School of the Arts

Denver School of the Arts in rehearsal for the original musical it will take to Scotland this summer.



Courtesy Shawn Hann


Hann created a plotline and list of characters with gender-fluid names. Students then submitted proposed scenes based on that plotline, and seven students then worked together to craft all of the material into a script. The resulting production “delves deeply into love, loss and grief — and explores how we react to upheaval and how we recover,” said Hann, whose students have worked to raise $90,000 to make the trip, even while traditional fundraising opportunities have been limited by the pandemic. As thanks, they performed the show for family and friends two weeks ago.

“I hope the audience walked away with an idea about the impact all these things that have happened in our world has had on our youth,” Hann said. “They are not only grieving the loss of their last two years of school, and the social and emotional development they missed out on, but they are also still reacting to the major events that happened in the pandemic. While we did live through all of these things, we haven’t really dealt with George Floyd, the King Soopers shooting and the Capitol riot. Those incidents rocked the foundation of American culture, and our kids didn’t get to process things fully. They had to come to school on a weird schedule and be afraid of COVID, with their heads down and their masks on.

“Fear of COVID, I think, kept some of the other tragedies from landing. But now they are landing, and no one wants to talk about them.”

 ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ cabaret canceled

UPDATED: The late-night cabaret that had been planned for tonight (Thursday, June 2) featuring cast members from the national touring production of “Dear Evan Hansen” at The Denver Improv Comedy Theatre in Northfield has been canceled.

Colorado arts COVID watch​​

Four positive tests among cast and crew prompted BDT Stage to cancel four opening-weekend performances of “The SpongeBob Musical,” a responsible decision that cost the company thousands of dollars. “The main thing we want is for our company to feel safe when they are performing the show, and for our audiences to feel safe watching the show,” said Producing Artistic Director Seamus McDonough. “You can’t have a creative space unless it feels safe. We took a major hit, but it was the right thing to do.” …

Meanwhile, the Springs Ensemble Theatre canceled its opening weekend of Lauren Gunderson’s “The Revolutionists,” which now opens June 9 and runs through the 26th at 1903 East Cache La Poudre St. in Colorado Springs.

'Rockin’ and Rollin’ with Miss Rhythm: The Story of R&B Legend Ruth Brown,' first presented at the Miners Alley Playhouse, is moving to the DCPA's Galleria Theater for two weekends June 3-11.

Galleria to spotlight ‘Miss Rhythm’

McCallum, Sheryl

Sheryl McCallum will play Ruth Brown.



Ruth Brown – that’s “Miss Rhythm” to you – dominated the R&B charts throughout the 1950s, but is no longer a household name like Etta, Aretha and Diana. But she had a string of No. 1 hits including “Teardrops from My Eyes” and her signature tune, “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean.” So much so that Atlantic Records was deemed “The House That Ruth Built.” For two weekends starting June 3, Denver’s Sheryl McCallum and David Nehls will present “Rockin’ and Rollin’ with Miss Rhythm: The Story of R&B Legend Ruth Brown,” a concert performance in the Denver Center’s Galleria Theatre. “People know different parts of Ruth Brown, or different sections of her life … but she had this wonderful catalog that is awesome,” McCallum said. Added Nehls: “It didn’t matter what age she was – she was having the best time.”

2022 Colorado Poetry Out Loud Champion Aidyn Lorin Jai Reid recites “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman. Watch Reid compete in the Poetry Out Loud National Finals on Sunday, June 5, 2022 at 5 p.m. MDT atarts.gov/poetry-out-loud.

Colorado Proud, Poetry Out Loud

Aidyn Lorin Jai Reid

Aidyn Lorin Jai Reid



Colorado will be represented in Sunday’s “Poetry Out Loud” national finals with Aidyn Lorin Jai Reid of Fountain Valley School of Colorado Springs among the nine finalists. The event, hosted by bestselling author Kwame Alexander, will feature recitations and interviews and the announcement of the 2022 champion on a one-time-only webcast starting at 5 p.m. Mountain time. Since the national “Poetry Out Loud” program began in 2005, more than 4.1 million students and 68,000 teachers from 17,000 schools have participated.

Highlights from the Bobby G Awards spotlighting the best high school musical theater.  (Video: John Moore/Denver Gazette) Read more:https://denvergazette.com/arts-entertainment/bobby-g-awards-high-school-thespians-night-to-shine/article_c5390888-dd45-11ec-9117-33b5c831341f.html

Bobby G Awards lineup change 

You may have read here last week that Overland High School senior Madison Manning was named Outstanding Actress at last week’s regional Bobby G Awards, which earned her the chance to advance to the national Jimmy Awards competition on June 27 in New York City. But Manning will be representing Colorado in the national finals of the Distinguished Young Women Scholarship competition at the same time in Mobile, Ala. That’s kind of a big deal: Last year, the DYWS awarded more than $1 billion in scholarships nationally. So instead, Valor Christian High School’s Ella Plourde, who also was nominated as Outstanding Actress for her performance in  “Anastasia,”  will attend The Jimmy Awards in Manning’s place.

Watch the DU Prison Arts Initiative's "These Walls" in full above.

Catching up on the week’s news

Idris Goodwin, who was named the first person of color to lead the century-old Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College just one month before the pandemic shutdown, resigned effective May 27 … The Black Actors Guild announced it is disbanding after 13 years … ​​Denver Arts & Venues is bringing back the Five Points Jazz Festival, and it’s continuing the Five Points Jazz Activation Grant program that replaced the festival during the pandemic …

If you saw our earlier report on DU Prison Arts Initiative’s “These Walls,” an original short film written and performed by 16 inmates at the state’s oldest prison, you can now watch the film for free on YouTube … Cherry Creek High School grad Julian Rubinstein’s new documentary “The Holly,” which asks troubling questions about Denver’s anti-gang efforts in a section of the Park Hill neighborhood, won the Audience Choice Award at its premiere screening last weekend at a documentary film festival called Mountainfilm in Telluride.

Play Crawl 2019

A scene from a micro-play at the 2019 Play Crawl.






Put the fun in the fundraiser

Phamaly Theatre Company, which exists to provide performance opportunities for actors with disabilities, is taking its annual gala outdoors tonight (Thursday) for a concert at the amphitheater at Civic Center Park. The self-described “Krip Hop” band Wheelchair Sports Camp will be headlining, led by MC Kalyn Heffernan. The evening starts at 5:30 p.m. Tickets $30-$125…

Susan Lyles’ And Toto Too is Colorado’s only theater company dedicated exclusively to telling stories written by women. And they get no public funding. And they throw the most creative fundraiser of the year. It’s “The Play Crawl,” where you move in groups into various Tennyson Street retailers, where you encounter nine original short “micro plays” written by a local non-male playwright. Followed by a party. Everybody wins. Gather by 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday (June 8), at Local 46, 4586 Tennyson St. Tickets $40.

Briefly …

Max Ramirez KUVO

Max Ramirez



Max Ramirez has been named the new Program Director at KUVO Jazz 89.3 FM. He comes to Denver from Indianapolis, where he served as assistant program director and music director for WICR. Ramirez replaces Rodney Franks, who held the job for 10 years. General Manager Carlos Lando has announced a new program lineup as well  … 

Béla Fleck and wife Abigail Washburn, aka “The King and Queen of the Banjo,” will return to Boettcher Concert Hall to perform their song cycle with the Colorado Symphony next Feb. 3-4. Tickets are already on sale ….

Youth on Record’s 8th annual day-long, youth-led music festival and block party, will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 11 at 1301 W. 10th Ave. and neighboring streets. The free event will include student performances and workshops including art-making opportunities with Beats by Girlz and Meow Wolf, live yoga and meditation with Better Buzz Yoga, and a career advancement panel with the University of Colorado Denver College of Arts and Media …

Rangeview High School graduate Andrés Quintero, originally from Caracas, Venezuela, plays Baby Doll in the national touring production of “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” that visits Denver from June 9-26.

PHOTOS: 2022 Bobby G Awards

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at john.moore@denvergazette.com

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