2025 DENVER GAZETTE TRUE WEST AWARDS: DAY 24

From a Sondheim musical about presidential killers in Golden to a Disney musical in Arvada, Colorado musicals showed their range in 2025

When the Miners Alley Performing Arts Center decided to include the controversial Stephen Sondheim musical “Assassins” on its current season, it was more than 18 months ago. A few weeks before Thomas Crooks grazed the ear of Donald Trump at an open-air campaign rally on July 13 near Butler, Pa.

There have been more than 640 mass shootings in America since, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Seven weeks before the highly anticipated musical finally opened in Golden, Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman was assassinated at her home alongside her husband.

The atmosphere in Golden for that Aug. 8 opening night was that of nervous trepidation. The city had suggested maybe the theater company should take down the marketing banners that were hung along the city’s main street, just to be mindful of people’s potential sensitivities to that word – ”Assassins.”

Truth was, no one had any idea just how this microcosmic, conservative-leaning community would take to a story that explores the mindsets of nine disparate wack jobs who have tried to take out U.S. presidents throughout history, a cohort that includes John Hinckley Jr., Lee Harvey Oswald, Sam Byck and “Squeaky” Fromme.

“Assassins” is now considered an established classic by an American master. But its road to acceptance was uneasy. It was an immediate off-Broadway hit back in 1990, but it took another 14 years to make it to Broadway because its polarizing subject matter made investors nervous. Ironically, the thing that finally propelled it to Broadway was 9/11.

“The country,” as John Wilkes Booth himself says in the show, “is not what it was.” It was now more fearful and in need of answers. Enter “Assassins,” which won five Tony Awards, including Best Revival. And yet, it closed after only three months. 

The Miners Alley production, directed by Warren Sherrill with an astonishing collection of Denver musical theater talents, opened to large crowds and mostly positive response.

“None of our worries came to fruition,” said Producing Artistic Director Len Matheo, “But it was a bit nerve-wracking. I was really nervous. My trepidation was over people who have trauma feeling safe in the theater. So we made some artistic choices: No gun would ever be pointed at the audience. No actual gunshots – not even recorded gunshots. That kind of thing.”

Then came Sept. 10, the day before the all-star company was to begin its final triumphant weekend of performances. The day Charlie Kirk was assassinated – and the same day a gunman attacked Evergreen High School just 30 miles away.

Matheo never considered canceling.

“We were thinking, ‘Well, we have to say something to the audience,’” he said. “But in the lobby before the show, I realized that these people wanted to be there, and they wanted to be together. They weren’t feeling like maybe they were going to be traumatized. So the only thing we ended up saying that night was that our hearts went out to everyone affected, and that obviously any show that involves guns is going to feel different today.”

As a theater journalist, I have a long history with “Assassins” going back to 2005, when the upstart Next Stage Theatre Company landed not only the first homegrown staging of “Assassins, but the first anywhere to include a newly updated book by John Weidman. They even got him on the phone with me.

“When Steve and I started looking at these characters, the conventional wisdom was that they had nothing in common with the rest of us, and very little in common with each other,” Weidman told me then. “Each one was just sort of this individual nut who had fallen to Earth from some other place. They were like diseases that cropped up from time to time. And while we’ve lived with the grief they have caused, there was nothing systemic to be addressed.”

Then they were struck by this notion: “Our assassins and would-be assassins) are all peculiarly American in that nearly all of them represent some kind of apolitical displacement. “Assassins” makes it clear as day how utterly absent of a political ideology some of our most notorious killers were.

“Whenever the Russians tried to kill their czar, it was because they were trying to overthrow the government and change the way the country was run,” Weidman said. “But when Hinckley attacked Ronald Reagan, he was trying to impress a movie star. When you think about it, these characters have more in common than not.”

While some claimed political motives, most were mentally ill or simply trying to solve their problems with a gun, he said. Still, he understood why the world wasn’t ready for a musical that put history’s bogeymen under a spotlight for some song and dance.

“I think some people of my generation who lived through the Kennedy assassination have difficulty with the idea that musical theater should be tackling such troubling material,” he said. And, yes: “We absolutely set out to upset audiences in a way that was necessary to open them to what the show is about.”

Personally, I find it infuriating that, 35 years later, we live in a world where “Assassins” remains a relevant and even urgent piece of theater. But here’s the twist: “Assassins” is not a musical about guns or gun rights. (There’s not a single mention of the Second Amendment.) It’s a play about mental illness in America. It’s about our thirst for any shortcut to celebrity. Mostly it’s about the consequences that come when deranged people wake up and realize that not all men are created with equal access to the ever-slippery lie that is the American Dream.

Sherrill and his actors were on point. Damon Guerrasio was particularly haunting as Sam Byck, the would-be Nixon assassin who in 1974 killed a guard, forced his way onto an airliner and killed a co-pilot in his failed plot to fly the plane into the White House. (Byck committed suicide before the plane took off.)

“Assassins” never asks you to sympathize with these criminals, but it’s uncanny how close to the bone some of their screeds and grievances might hit you in 2025 – whether you reside on the right or the left. It all made for an utterly encompassing evening of theater. And, it sold.

“Extremely well,” Matheo said. And not just for traditional theatergoers. It drew history buffs. Curiosity-seekers as well. “People just loved it,” he said.

And for good reason. We have these “moments” that pop up very rarely on the local arts scene, and you either have to jump on them when they happen, or live to regret it. This was one of those moments.

Ensemble: Jake Bell, Damon Guerrasio, John Hauser, Drew Horwitz, Matthew Murry, David Otto, Julia Tobey, Kira Wendland, Sharon Kay White and Clark Jones.

Here’s a quick look at some of the other high-impact musicals of 2025:

‘Frozen,’ Arvada Center

Not gonna lie: Disney’s “Frozen,” as the New York Times famously described it when it was introduced to the world back in 2017 here in Denver, is a musical “with a little magic – and some icy patches.”

But the only word that matters when describing the Arvada Center’s excellently presented regional premiere is “historic.” Great cast, stunning sets, technical wizardry, lights, costumes. Kenny Moten and Company deliver the goods. And the princesses whose names I am biologically pre-disposed to invert every time (Elsa and Anna) are played by local stage royalty (Anne Terze-Schwarz and Jennasea Pearce). 

This is the monster hit the Arvada Center has needed.

“Frozen,” said Artistic Director Lynne Collins, is not only “the biggest thing we’ve ever done – it is now the best-selling thing we’ve ever done.” And that covers 49 years of shows.

“Frozen,” which runs through Jan. 4, has now generated $1.42 million in ticket revenue, which beats “Elf” (2018) by around $220,000.

The musical has now sold 22,297 tickets, second only in Arvada Center history to “Les Misérables,” which drew 22,937. The Frenchies’ record is safe only because “we don’t have enough tickets left in the run to beat it,” Arvada Center Director of Communications Sarah Kolb said.

But here’s all the irrefutable proof you need to know that the “Frozen” is winning the hearts and minds of the only demographic that matters: 

“Fun fact: We’re averaging around 35 princess dresses for every performance,” Kolb said, and yes, I had to ask what that means. It means the number of kids (of every gender) coming to see the show each day dressed as princesses (and snowmen and reindeer and other things). That’s about 1,750 dresses in all. An irrefutable hit. 

• Elsa: Anne Terze-Schwarz
• Anna: Jennasea Pearce
• Kristoff: EJ Dohring
• Hans: Zachary Chiero
• Olaf: Patric Case
• Sven: Brandon Guzman
• Young Anna: Greta Ellerhorst, Colette St. Clair, Mila Weldon
• Young Elsa: Madeleine O’Donnell, Madeleine St. Clair, Adella Weldon
• Weselton, Oaken: Brett Ambler
• Queen Iduna: Caitlin Secrest
• King Agnarr: Mathenee Treco
• Pabbie: Ethan Zeph
• Bulda: Fairin Moon Hightower
• Ensemble: Jennifer Arfsten, Cate Benioff, Krista Broumpton, Imani Gholson, Danny Maguire, Rachel Miller, Justin Milner, Andy Nikhomvan-Morgan, Elliot Peterson, Michael Phillips, Olivia Renteria, Kong Vang, Emery Hines, Sarah McQuiggan, Jazz Mueller, Robert Tait

‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ DCTC

I was trying to count how many productions of “Little Shop of Horrors” I’ve seen since starting to cover Colorado theater back in 2001, and I stopped at 12. But, as you might imagine, given the talent and resources available, the Denver Center Theatre Company served up a Broadway-quality production that is as good as it gets.

While the show was created by and for Denver artists, the talent on stage was imported from New York, and it was staggering from top to bottom. Ben Fankhauser and Gizel Jiménez could not have been more capable, or capably paired, to play the geek and the adorably lisping, low-esteem beauty with a tip-toe for the ages. Together with a mind-altering Motown Greek Chorus, the voices here were pure flower power.

‘Once,’ Town Hall Arts Center

Town Hall’s latest knockout season of musicals – complemented by an unusual foray into serious drama with the powerful mother-daughter suicide drama ‘night, Mother”– was framed by two musicals that required the actors to play their own instruments – the brooding Irish/Czech folk romance “Once,” and a Buddy Holly jukebox musical called, yep, “Buddy” – both starring Andy Seracuse.

“Once” felt a lot like an immersive St. Patrick’s Day hootenanny thanks to an astonishing collection of live musicians who, starting with an electric pre-show, established a raw and emotionally intimate atmosphere that made it easy for us to fall in love with the lovers (played by Seracuse and Isabella Duran). It felt authentic, poignant and altogether winning.

‘Bright Star,’ Candlelight Dinner Playhouse 

You might not think you can take the true story of a baby who gets packed into a suitcase and tossed off a train by his (bleeping) grandfather and turn it into pure stage honey, but that’s what Steve Martin & Edie Brickell pulled off when they invented “Bright Star,” a heartfelt Appalachian bluegrass musical that follows the travails of an indefatigable woman over 20 years of the early last century. Director Steve Wilson, helped by Mason Siders’ band and heartfelt performances by no-longer emerging talents Jennasea Pearce and Jazz Mueller (they’re emerged), delivered Candlelight one of its most emotionally satisfying productions to date.

‘Rock of Ages,’ Veritas Productions

Is your world diminished if you never see the big-hair jukebox musical “Rock of Ages” ever again? Perhaps not, but … there was something invigorating about the size and scope and heart of Kelly Van Oosbree’s massive 2025 staging for Veritas Productions at the PACE Center in Parker. Say what you will about a silly (and it knows it) story with a score filled with Tin Pan Alley classics like “Sister Christian,” “We Built This City” and “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” but audiences loved this show – and for good reason. And any show that makes any audience member leave wanting to maybe come back to see another show is OK with me.

‘Hadestown,’ New Generation Productions

And, for good measure, just putting this out into the world because the world is a better place for having Grayson Allensworth, Maya Eisbart and the all-youth theater company they founded when they were 12 in it: “Hadestown” went from being the hottest Broadway musical since “Hamilton” to the most-produced school title in America in about two seconds flat. But New Generation Productions was first, delivering an incredible (and entirely adult-free) staging at the Montview Presbyterian Church. “Hadestown” is framed around the classic myth of fated lovers Orpheus and Eurydice, but it comments on everything from climate change to capitalism to finding hope in despair. It’s a monumental artistic challenge, and these now 17-year-old seniors and their pals were up to it. No thanks to you, me … or anyone over 18.

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.

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

• Day 11: Husbands, wives keep home fire burning

• Day 12: Denver School of the Arts’ Drama Dash

• Day 13: Theater as a powerful response to violence

• Day 14: Elitch Theatre no longer a ghost town

• Day 15: A double play for playwright Luke Sorge

• Day 16: ‘Legally Blonde’ at the Air Force Academy? Elle, yes!

• Day 17: Kelly Van Oosbree is the cat in the hats

• Day 18: Phamaly presents a ‘Pericles’ for the neurodivergent

• Day 19: Justine Lupe and Coloradans on the national stage

• Day 20: Immersive Theatre after the end of Off-Center

• Day 21: Matt Radcliffe and theater as therapy for trauma

• Day 22: Pure ‘Follies’ at Vintage Theatre

• Day 23: The play is the everything