It’s hard to imagine any local stage director taking on a slate of shows that are as hard on women as the ones Kelly Van Oosbree tackled in 2023.

In particular, three warhorse Broadway musicals that once seemed safe, but, through a more enlightened contemporary lens, are nothing if not problematic: “Carousel,” “Man of La Mancha” and “Damn Yankees.”

Julie Jordan (“Carousel”) falls for the wrong man and fully devotes herself to him despite enduring – and defending – terrible physical and mental abuse at his hands. The best thing that happens to Julie and her unborn child is Billy Bigelow’s death.

Aldonza (“Man of La Mancha”) is a part-time prostitute who, for the crime of starting to believe in a delusional old knight’s proclaimed love for her, is vengefully and brutally raped by his enemies.

Lola (“Damn Yankees”) is an ugly old woman who took the bait and sold her soul to the Devil to become young and beautiful. And she has been living in Hell for 172 years since, only allowed brief respites whenever the Devil needs her for his own devices.

Those three classic musicals are a combined 204 years old. Some would say – and many have – that, like a middle-aged baseball player, they should be retired for how they mistreat women. But to do so, Van Oosbree said, would be to retire an entire roster of female characters she believes to be heroes.

“I think of those stories as more powerful than problematic,” said Van Oosbree, a prolific director and choreographer who had a hand in 10 local stage productions in 2023. “Look, none of this is new in terms of terrible treatment of women since the beginning of time. If we eliminated all the stories that are terrible to women, we wouldn’t have stories to tell.”

Importantly, she added, “I don’t think any of those three shows justify the treatment those women endure. The way all three of those characters take agency and rise above and become the heroes of their own stories – I find that uplifting.”

“Damn Yankees,” written in 1955, is a particular if unintentional mirror of its times. The owner of the Yankees is a jerk to the female beat reporter. Meg Hardy stays loyal and true to the husband who has literally abandoned her on a dime, “peace out”-style, to go off and play a kids’ game. Van Oosbree thinks it is important for modern audiences to be reminded of women pushing up against the confines of the era. Because what’s old is always new again.

When Van Oosbree decided to revisit “La Mancha” for the Platte Valley Players, a theater company she runs in Brighton, she updated the setting to a 2023 homeless encampment. And while she gave the musical’s famous rape scene some theatrical touches, there would be no mistaking for the audience exactly what was happening to the brutalized Aldonza.

“If you don’t show what happens to Aldonza, her story arc is not full,” Van Oosbree said. “We show the audience what is happening to her in this moment, but this isn’t first time she’s been beaten and raped by men. This woman has been going through this from the time she crawled out of the womb. We did not tell her story in a gratuitous way, but it was important to us that the audience be uncomfortable watching it. Because no one should be comfortable watching a woman being attacked by a group of people.”

Aldonza, played by the remarkable Lindsey Falduto, is believed to be a fair maiden the old Quixote has named “Dulcinea.” Falduto has played the role before, but this crucial scene was much rougher here than she’s done it before. Which is how she wanted it.

“We all had a mutual agreement that we wanted it to look as real as possible, because this kind of thing still happens,” Falduto said. “I wanted people to feel as if they were watching someone being beaten in an encampment. And I wanted them to feel her pain.”

Van Oosbree, also a busy choreographer, was perhaps ironically best known before 2023 for keeping it light, often displaying a particular flair for incorporating comedy into her dance numbers. Lynne Collins, who inherited “Damn Yankees” on the Arvada Center season when she was named Artistic Director there, said Van Oosbree did a great job of kicking the dust off a very old tire.

“Kelly has a really fabulous attitude, a great spirit of fun in the work she does, and she really knows how to create characters that suit her actors and make them look their best,” Collins said. “She managed to breathe a lot of life into ‘Damn Yankees’ and make it feel kind of fun and current and full of spirit.”

Van Oosbree’s 2023 wasn’t all about women under siege. She directed delightful musical diversions like “Seussical” and “Jimmy Buffett’s Escape to Margaritaville,” as well as several productions for young audiences (among them, her 3-year-old son).

She began the year with “Doubt: A Parable,” John Patrick Shanley’s provocative 1960s Catholic school tale that pits an older nun against a new priest she suspects of sexually abusing a student. The play also features a younger nun and a student’s helpless mother. And it set the tone for the year when it comes to women in her stories.

“People say that play is about ‘Did he do it or not?’ – and the thing is, it doesn’t  matter,” she said. “That play is fully about the agency of those three women who have no power.”

Three women, among many, who do have power on Van Oosbree’s stages. 

Kelly Van Oosbree/2023

• Directed and choreographed: “Man of La Mancha” (Platte Valley Players); “Escape to Margaritaville” (Give 5 Productions); “Chicago” (youth edition) (City Theatre Company); “Tomato Plant Girl” (Platte Valley Players)  
• Directed: “Doubt” (Platte Valley Players); “Damn Yankees” (Arvada Center); “Camelot” (Performance Now)
• Co-directed and choreographed: “Seussical” (Performance Now)
• Choreographed: “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” (Arvada Center)
• Assistant Directed: “Almost Maine” (Platte Valley Players)

Note: The True West Awards, now in their 23rd year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community by revisiting 30 good stories from the past year without categories or nominations.