2025 DENVER GAZETTE TRUE WEST AWARDS: DAY 11

Married couple Marco and Adriane Robinson were romantically paired three times in 2025, while Shakespeare duo’s love was in full Boulder bloom

Is there anything more irresistible than for a romantic leading man to be paired with a romantic leading lady who happens to be his romantic leading lady in real life?

Besides Pomeranian puppies … not a thing. Zip.

It happened three times for the dashing Marco Alberto Robinson and the stunning Adriane Leigh Robinson in 2025. They were cast in three different shows by three different directors working for three different theater companies. My diminutive heart grew three sizes each time.

Nice work if you can get it.

Only (and this is awkward), hold the phone: Just who was Marco’s leading leading lady in 2025, anyway?

Plot twist! Like any good Hallmark romance, this story is a triangle, and our interloper’s name is Shabazz Green. You may remember him as Cord Elam in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s mostly Black take on “Oklahoma!” back in 2018. Green was all over Colorado stages in 2025, often stepping out (on stage) with none other than Marco Robinson. Their ongoing duet was physical-comedy gold worthy of Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy or Burns and Allen. It is a pretty safe bet that if anyone burned more calories on stage this year than Robinson, it was Shabazz Green.

“It’s funny because I don’t think it’s a question of ‘Was Shabazz my leading lady?’” Marco said. “I think Adriane and I were both kind of his leading ladies.”

Let’s review a couple of the pertinent couples here:

1. The Robinsons began the year in the Arvada Center’s super-silly Edwardian Broadway musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” (directed by Geoffrey Kent).

The story: A low-born man named Monty Navarro discovers he’s in line to inherit a title but must eliminate the eight outrageous D’Ysquith relatives standing in his way – all played by one actor. The audience cheers as Monty charmingly murders them one by one.

The roles: Marco played the disarmingly dastardly Monty. Adriane played his self-absorbed, social-climbing love interest, Sibella. But Green had the most fun, playing all of the doomed D’Ysquiths dying off in riotously ridiculous ways.

2. In October, the Robinsons were back in the Lone Tree Arts Center’s newish Gershwin musical “Nice Work if You Can Get It” (directed by Kate Gleason). Onstage Colorado’s Alex Miller wrote: “The Robinsons’ chemistry alone is worth the price of admission.”

The story: It’s a 1920s Prohibition-era screwball comedy about wealthy playboy Jimmy Winter, who, on his wedding day to a modern dancer, finds bootleggers hiding gin in his mansion, leading to mistaken identities, hijinks and romance with a tough bootlegger named Billie Bendix.

The roles: Marco played, duh, Jimmy. As a rumrunner, Adriane played against type – until she didn’t. Meaning, until Jimmy takes a shine to the moonshiner. (She says that’s the couple most like them in real life.) Green played Cookie McGee, Billie’s fast-talking, wise-cracking sidekick.

3. Now you can find the Robinsons performing in the Denver Center’s new “Dracula” spoof “A Comedy of Terrors” (directed by Gordon Greenberg) playing through May 10 in the Garner-Galleria Theatre.

The story: A meek English real-estate agent travels to the treacherous mountains of Transylvania, only to find the most terrifying monster the world has ever known. Promoters promise low-brow physical comedy, clever wordplay and “bloodcurdling screams — of laughter.” Marco calls it “90 minutes of kooky fun, with a lot of clowning going on. It’s totally fun.”

The roles:  Marco plays Dracula – sorry, Adriane clarifies: “Sexy Dracula,” surrounded by a sweaty ensemble of top comic actors who play dozens of zany characters. Adriane’s biggest role is that of the Count’s love interest, Lucy. The twist, for Adriane: “I definitely start out with a very curious crush on Dracula that quickly turns into my plotting his demise,” she said.

But, for this one: Green is, sadly, about 300 yards to the west in an entirely different theater. He’s currently playing Mr. Fezziwig in the Denver Center’s “A Christmas Carol” through Dec. 28. He’s gone but not forgotten.

Adriane said she kind of enjoyed the competition for her husband’s stage attention. But, really, they both should have been keeping their eyes on Green.

“Shabazz had to kiss everybody during ‘Nice Work if You Can Get It,’” Marco said, and he’s not kidding. Adriane created a full. fancy chart spelling out who all kisses whom during that show, and under Green’s Cookie character, there are the faces of six people – including those of both Robinsons. “And that was something that just really was so strange and so silly,” Marco said.

And it does seem his affections were legit torn. “He’s just the best,” he said of Green. (Seriously, he said that right in front of his wife!) “He’s such a pleasure to work with. Truly.”

Start of the affair

Adriane, who is from Pordenone, Italy, met Marco, who is from El Paso, Texas, in 2012 as students at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

“We were friends, but we had kind of an instant crush going on,” she said. “Once we were paired up in a class to do some highly inappropriate number from ‘Miss Saigon,’ the sparks were undeniable. Suddenly, we were no longer dating other people, and the rest is history.”

The couple married in 2017.

But Adriane describes their professional stage careers to follow as “like ships passing.” Marco became a fixture at the Denver Center; Adriane at the Arvada Center. They had only performed in one show together since, in 2021.

“Then out of nowhere, we became a team again this year,” she said. “And it has been really wonderful.”

I asked the couple if, in retrospect, they wonder whether directors have been missing out by not casting them together till now. I mean, instant chemistry between actors is priceless – and saves a lot of time in the rehearsal room.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Adrian said with a laugh.

Love in full Boulder bloom

There are dozens of real-life couples in Colorado’s theater community, but you don’t often see husbands and wives cast in full-on romantic pairings. But the upside of casting two people in real love was on full display last summer’s smokin’ staging of “The Tempest” by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

Director Kevin Rich cast Jordan Pettis and Madison Taylor in the deceptively challenging roles of young Ferdinand and Miranda, whose love is fully orchestrated by her father. And yet the actors must carry it off with the utmost sincerity and simplicity. And, oh yeah, Shakespeare gives them about five seconds to go from strangers to head over heels.

But the second Pettis laid eyes on Taylor, you knew something special was happening on that stage. Their flirtation was utterly authentic and disarmingly convincing. I think it raised the temperature in the Roe Green Theatre by 10 degrees. That one scene propelled the rest of the story to more magical heights. 

At the time, I wrote: “Seriously, the two actors playing Ferdinand and Miranda better be good people in real life, because if they’re not the two most adorable creatures ever paired together on a stage, I’m never going to believe in anything again. What they pull off in the blink of an eye will make you believe in another kind of magic.”

Later on, someone told me, “Hey dumb (let’s say ‘bell’), you know they are married in real life, don’t you?”

I did not. But knowing that only affirmed all my affection for their performances. The love they share in their everyday lives must surely be nothing less than a daily blessing. A fact confirmed by a quick scan of the program. In his bio, Pettis wrote to his wife: “I would not wish any companion in the world but you” – and he got that wish fulfilled when Rich cast them in “The Tempest.”

Turns out, the couple are L.A.-based and have been married since 2017. They spent a previous season performing in Boulder, in 2022. Taylor played Helen in “All’s Well That Ends Well,” while Pettis was hired as a replacement actor for two other offerings. The world was just at the start of the COVID reopening at the time, and at one point, Pettis was called on to perform in both shows in the same week.

“It was such kismet to be able to cast them opposite each other in ‘The Tempest,’” said Managing Director Wendy Franz. “They are both incredibly generous, delightfully playful and total pros.”

Note: The Denver Gazette True West Awards, now in their 25th and final year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community throughout December by revisiting 30 good stories from the past year without categories or nominations.

Now playing: ‘A Christmas Carol’ (with Shabazz Green)

• Who: Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company

• When: Through Dec. 28

• Where: Wolf Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex

• Tickets: $53-$125 at denvercenter.org

Now playing: ‘Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors’ (with Marco and Adriane Robinson)

• Who: Presented by Denver Center Attractions

• When: Through May 10

• Where: Galleria Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex

• Tickets: $61 at denvercenter.org

More True West Awards coverage:

• 2025 True West Awards, Day 1: Matt Zambrano

• Day 2: Rattlebrain is tying up ‘Santa’s Big Red Sack’

• Day 3: Mission Possible: Phamaly alumni make national impact

• Day 4: Jeff Campbell invites you to join him on the dark side

• Day 5: Cleo Parker Robinson is flying high at 77

• Day 6: Mirror images: Leslie O’Carroll and Olivia Wilson

• Day 7: Philip Sneed will exit Arvada Center on a high

• Day 8: Ed Reinhardt’s magic stage run ends after 27 years

• Day 9: Costume Designer Nikki Harrison

• Day 10: DU’s tech interns getting the job done