Veteran Colorado actor Sean Scrutchins’ first stage appearance as a pint-sized Pacino was at age 12 alongside his pops in Neil Simon’s “Lost in Yonkers” at a theater in Oklahoma. This past summer, Sean’s 9-year-old son, Liam, made his first stage appearance alongside his dad in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s “Macbeth.” Not only that: He got to play his dad’s son on stage.

It would all be so Hallmark – if not for all the kid-killing.

Sean played Macduff while Liam played his brave, doomed, nameless son who gets stabbed and dies warning his momma to run away. Alas, she’s later caught and killed, too.

Talk about a Bard bummer.

But only onstage. For the Scutchins family, the summer of 2024 provided a memory they will enjoy for their lifetimes. Sean celebrated his dream Father’s Day performing a matinee with his son. Liam turned 10 during the run. Castmate Karen Slack, who played his mom, presented him with a Red Velvet cake, but it was Liam who brought the presents.

“Liam loves cats, so he gave a little tiny cat to everybody in the cast and on the production team, which was really sweet,” said “Macbeth” director Wendy Franz. “He was just such a little gentleman. And a total pro.”

Franz chose Liam and Oliver Kirkpatrick to share the role of Macduff’s son from among 12 boys who auditioned. It probably helped that both of Liam’s parents are professional stage actors.

“When they asked us if Liam might be interested in auditioning, we sat him down and talked him through all of it,” said his mother, Devon James. “We know what kind of commitment that is, so we gave him the rundown of what would be expected of him to see if he thought he could handle all of that at 9 years old. And he seemed really interested. So he did the work, he auditioned, and they offered him one of the two roles. I think the prideful moment for us as parents was just seeing how genuinely authentic he seemed.”

Liam may be just a boy, “but he was more like a little man in how well he was prepared,” Franz said. “He had done all the homework and preparation – but he was also a little petrified and shy at first, which was lovely.”

Not for long.

As the wronged Macduff, Sean Scrutchins got to act up a bloody storm. But the emotionally eviscerating money scene comes when Macbeth orders the slaughter of Macduff’s family. It’s a pre-emptive act of brutality that Macbeth believes will cripple Macduff’s ability to fight back against him. It’s a necessary scene that makes Macbeth’s unchecked ambition gruesomely real to the audience.

The scene can be staged in as many different ways as there are directors. Franz stayed true to Shakespeare’s general preference that graphic violence should take place off-stage. Especially when the victim is a kid with a sack full of tiny cats backstage.

Franz’s plan, along with Fight Director Benjamin Reigel, was to show the boy playing pastorally at home with his mom. Then have the two big, bad hired murderers burst in, scoop the boy up, carry him off stage and kill him there, leaving the actual violence to our horrified imaginations.

“My goal was to make that scene start as beautifully and sweetly as possible ,” Franz said, “so you have this quick contrast of seeing this beautiful little boy get manhandled by this horrible guy who’s got a knife to his throat.”

Problem was, she added: Neither boy could stop smiling. They were having too much fun. “They thought it was so cool that they got to get picked up and thrown around by these fun guys that they were just involuntarily smiling,” she said. “Eventually I had to re-block the scene to have the murderer place his gloved hand over their faces, and then I asked the little boys to try to scream though the glove so that it sounded awful. I took Liam off to the side and coached him to really go for it, and yell and struggle.”

What worked for the scene was a little rough on the father, who was standing by watching everything as the production’s designated fight captain.

“The first time Sean saw that scene, he had to take a minute,” Franz said. “Of course, he knows that his son is safe. But just Sean being the empathetic guy he is and having such a great actor’s imagination for the stakes and world of the play, it really rattled him. Liam just really nailed this incredibly high stakes moment, while Sean was like,’ Oh, Jesus, that’s my son.’”

Slack says having Liam in the company alongside his dad meant every day was like Take Your Kid to Work Day – “but your kid is working, too.

“I am so in love with the idea of getting to play the dad of your own child.”

She also fell in love with Liam politely asking each night to sneak up with him near the stage posthumously to watch his real and imagined father kill Macbeth. Why? “Because he’s a 10-year-old boy – and that was the best fight ever,” Slack said with a laugh.

This is how it starts

Sean Scrutchins has done it all on Denver stages since 2012, when he burst on the local scene in a Curious Theatre production of “9 Circles” playing a U.S. soldier accused of multiple killings and rape. He’s also, I kid you not, starring right now as the elephant in the Denver Center’s Theatre for Young Audiences production of Elephant & Piggie’s “We Are in a Play!”

In recent years, he’s played a veritable menagerie of onstage critters, including a rat, a toy bunny and two pigs: Once in the Arvada Center’s seriously dystopian “Animal Farm” and once in the Denver Center’s “Little Red” for pre-kindergartners.

“I think Sean is especially proud of his work in ‘Elephant & Piggie’ right now because theater for young audiences is so underestimated, and so underappreciated,” James said. “And I think it’s such a shame because it should be seen. I think it’s just such a magical thing to remember how moving and inspiring theater can be, especially for kids.”

Scrutchins pulled double duty at the 2024 Colorado Shakespeare Festival, having also played Frank Ford, a foolish fop who disguises himself to learn about his wife’s interactions with the equally buffoonish Sir John Falstaff. His primary scene partner in both “Macbeth” and “Merry Wives” was his pal and onstage partner, Jacob Dresch. Together they have become a formidable comedy team over the past few seasons.

Witnessing the contrast of these two going toe to dramatic toe in “Macbeth” (Dresch played Duncan’s son, Malcolm), followed by the exhausting physical shenanigans of “Merry Wives” should be considered Exhibit A in case for the joy of repertory theater.

“What was great fun about the rep this year is those two actors had extended time together, and they killed their scenes together,” Franz said. “And I really think the dramatic work they did in ‘Macbeth’ made their comedy in ‘Merry Wives’ better, just because of their comfort together. I mean, they went to this whole other level of trust and vulnerability in ‘Merry Wives.’ It was so physical and invasive – and the audience freaking loved it.”

So, Scrutchins really has done it all. Except, until now, having to watch his real-life son get brutally offed every night.

“I’ve never experienced this ebb and flow of emotions before in my life,” Scrutchins said. “I felt a consistent sense of pride and awe in Liam – with sudden cold shocks of grief and terror from the scene’s circumstances.”

Video bonus: Sonnet 31 by the Scrutchins family

Note: The True West Awards, now in their 24th 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.

Unsung hero of the day

Kurt Mehlenbacher’s title is Operations Manager of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Actor Karen Slack thinks his title could well just be “Unsung Hero.” Or, “Cat Herder.”

“Kurt does so much for the festival, and he does it with a smile on his face,” Slack said. “He collects all of the actors’ information and organizes all the paperwork. He compiles the employee handbook. He gathers everyone together. He handles all of the auditions. He fields all questions.

“And he was so patient and kind during COVID. He’s pretty incredible. The festival would be lost without him.”