For the third time, Boulder’s venerable BDT Stage has been given a reprieve.

The Michigan company that bought the building and the land it sits on in north Boulder last June has given its OK for BDT to offer up one final encore presentation – and it will resurrect the company’s greatest tradition.

BDT Stage, which had planned to leave its Anatevka behind on Aug. 19 – closing day of “The Sound of Music” and the 46th anniversary of the dinner theater’s opening date in 1977 – will now reprise the most popular and most-produced musical in its history with its most popular actor in the starring role.

“Fiddler on the Roof,” starring Wayne Kennedy, will run Sept. 9-Jan. 13. BDT Stage has offered ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at least once in every decade of its existence.

Gene and Judy Bolles sold BDT’s 12,000-square-foot property and its building at 5501 Arapahoe Ave. for $5.5 million to Quad Capital Partners, a real estate company that builds upscale housing in university towns. Last June, CEO Seth Martin put the Bolles on a lease that has now been twice extended while Quad Capital works through its demolition and construction process with the city of Boulder. 

“Gene Bolles was contacted by the new owners and was asked if we would be interested in continuing through the end of the year, and beyond,” said Producing Artistic Director Seamus McDonough, who jumped at the opportunity to go out fiddling.

Martin said he never really expected to be turning dirt before 2024 anyway, but he couldn’t be sure how the process was going to play out until he jumped in first-hand. Martin said he recently called Bolles and said, “This is taking a little bit longer than we expected, so if you want to do another show – have at it,” Martin told The Denver Gazette. “Who knows? They may come back to us and say, ‘Hey, let’s do another one after that.’”

To which McDonough quickly states without equivocation: “‘Fiddler’ will definitely be the end of BDT Stage as we know it – at our current location.”

Wait. … What?

“If someone wants to purchase the company from the Bolles and take it elsewhere, they can,” McDonough explained. “But we are not going to continue to drag our patrons along. We told them we were going to close, and we are going to close.”

In the unlikely event someone does choose to buy the business and move it, McDonough predicts it won’t be anywhere in Boulder. “For-profit theater,” he said, “is an oxymoron.”

BDT Stage, like many area theater companies, began to enjoy a surge in attendance at the start of the last holiday season, and the company is now on a winning streak that’s almost sure to last all the way to the end.

McDonough said the company’s just-closed Shakespearean musical comedy “Something Rotten” sold at about 85 percent capacity – and 100 percent over the final three weeks. BDT hasn’t seen numbers like those since before the pandemic. McDonough attributes that to nostalgia and loyalty.

“Sometimes people just need a reminder that things they take for granted can go away,” he said. And now, he added, “The Sound of Music” and “Fiddler” are both selling briskly.

“Given the support our audiences have shown us over this final season,” he said, “giving them one last encore just felt like the right thing to do.”

Nature museum cancels Goodall exhibition

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science has canceled its upcoming multimedia Jane Goodall exhibition just two weeks before it was set to open on May 19. In a statement, the museum said “Becoming Jane: The Evolution of Jane Goodall” was being canceled “due to damage to exhibition components discovered upon arrival.”

The exhibition, organized and traveled by the National Geographic Society in partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute, was to feature a life-size hologram of Dr. Goodall, a replica of her research tent, and an immersive look at her role as a leader in conservation and research on chimpanzees.

Despite not having the exhibition, the museum will still screen the film “Jane Goodall’s Reasons for Hope” in its new Infinity Theater on June 3. “This film is an uplifting journey around the globe to highlight good news stories that will inspire people to make a difference in the world around them,” the museum said. Info at dmns.org

Massive donation for MCA Denver

This doesn’t happen every day: The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has received a $2 million donation from Minyoung Sohn, the museum’s treasurer and founder of Blue Room Investing. It is being called “among the largest individual donations” in MCA Denver’s 27 years.

Outdoor museum at Fiddler’s Green

A new era has begun for the Museum of Outdoor Arts, which was founded in 1981 and is now relocated to Marjorie Park at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre. That’s a private sculpture park and events venue that now hosts more than 40 artworks from the MOA’s permanent sculpture collection. Info at moaonline.org.

Buntport delays ghostly new tale

Buntport Theater has postponed the opening of its newest original play, “Best Town,” but not because of COVID. Rather, technical problems. The show will now run May 26-June 11, with only 10 performances. Inspired by real events, the story imagines Kitsault, a real mining town on the north coast of British Columbia that was abandoned in the early 1980s. (For the first weekend, masks will be required. That’s to give maskers – and anti-maskers – a choice over when to most comfortably come.) Info at buntport.com.

Briefly …

As reported here back in December (sorry, didn’t know it was a secret!), the Lone Tree Arts Center has publicly announced it is returning to producing its own original theater productions (as opposed to simply “presenting” other organizations’ work). First up will be “Dreamgirls,” directed by Kenny Moten. Next April, former longtime Denver Center Theatre Company actor Sam Gregory will direct “The Mousetrap.” Info at lonetreeartscenter.org …

That was Denver recording artist Such singing the national anthem before the Denver Nuggets’ home playoff game on Tuesday. Such was killing it as a stage actor a decade ago in the Aurora Fox’s “The Color Purple” before going national as a vocalist. She has a concert June 10 at the Stapleton Doubletree Denver before heading out for New York …

Levitt Pavilion has been working with Denver Parks and Recreation on the first major lawn improvements to the base of Ruby Hill Park since the summer concert season launched in 2017. Phase 1 includes a new concrete dance floor and turf in what is now a graded lower bowl. You can check them out at free shows Thursday (May 11) with Etana and Wylie Jones and Saturday (May 13) with La Santa Cecilia and Nina de Freitas …

Did you know? Free lunchtime tours of Denver Public Art works in and around Civic Center Park return May 17-18, starting at 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. RSVP at eventbrite.com

And finally …

I’m going to feel downright dirty reporting this after writing a column mocking the marketing companies that produce mindless survey data, but here I go: Apparently, Coloradans surf Spotify for Taylor Swift more than any other artist, according to some site called Guitar Aficionado. We’re not even special. Thirty-one states are Swift states. In Colorado, Harry Styles ranks No. 2, followed by Rihanna. (I was right, I do feel slightly dumber just for having inflicted that information on you.)