Banging the drum loudly for unsung heroes of the invisible stage arts
2025 DENVER GAZETTE TRUE WEST AWARDS: DAY 25
Victoria Holloway is ready to be her own princess, while musicians Sean Case and Leslie Kahler have struck a sweet chord through cancer
Victoria Holloway’s friends talk as if the young actor and director should have a lifetime achievement award just about wrapped up by the time she’s 30. Which gives her about three more months to seal the deal.
But wait, why stop there? As far as Kelly Van Oosbree is concerned, sainthood is on the table as well.
“What can’t Victoria do? She directs. She sings. She dances,” said Van Oosbree, Holloway’s director for Performance Now’s upcoming production of “South Pacific” (Jan. 9-25) at the Lakewood Cultural Center.
For this production, Holloway is what I affectionately call a “wonderstudy” – those valiant and for the most part unseen theater artists who learn multiple roles should they ever be needed to replace a designated actor at the last minute.
The other day, Van Oosbree ran a rehearsal “run-through” of “South Pacific.” And she needed Holloway to fill in for no less than six missing players.
“It’s especially astounding to see her play in scenes with two characters – and she’s playing both roles,” Van Oosbree said with a laugh. “I can’t wait to see her do the love scene.”
Holloway is building quite the versatile theater resume, largely under Van Oosbree’s tutelage. She began the year playing Tzeitel in Performance Now’s “Fiddler on the Roof,” and she was nominated for a Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Award. Then she co-directed “The Bridges of Madison County” with Van Oosbree for Platte Valley Theatre Arts in Brighton. And in September, she took on the massive challenge of directing “The Little Mermaid” (solo) for Performance Now.
Van Oosbree met a 13-year-old Holloway while choreographing a youth production of “Hello, Dolly!” Soon enough, Holloway was the rare teen strong enough to make it into her adult choruses at Performance Now. Then she was off to study theater at Baylor as a recipient of Performance Now’s Nancy Goodwin Memorial Scholarship, named after the company’s late founder. Every summer, she’d be back as Van Oosbree’s assistant. And now?
“I pretty much feel like I don’t leave the house without her,” Van Oosbree said. “She lives in residence inside my brain.
“As I’ve gotten older, it’s nice to have a younger, more porous brain with me. She’s so smart. She loves what she does. She’s really invested in this theater community. She’s got a great point of view. She supports other companies. And also, she’s a wonderful person and a delight to have around. She’s just the best.”
While Holloway seems happy whether in or out of the spotlight, Van Oosbree thinks that, in her heart, she’s a director.
“I really see her in a leadership role,” she said. “But then again, she’s too talented not to be on stage when she needs to be.”
It takes a special sort to live happily in the world of the invisible arts, of which directing is only one. Stage management is perhaps the biggest. Backstage crew, too: Spotlight operators, wardrobe changers, scene-changers. The list goes on. These are the unsung heroes of the performing arts. Working in their chosen fields can make for a lonely life, often short on appreciation.
Well, not today.
SEAN CASE AND LESLIE KAHLER
I’m a sucker for punk-rock love stories. Like the November night I was invited to a performance of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” at the new Ballyhoo Table & Stage to make a direct audience pitch for donations to my non-profit, the Denver Actors Fund, which raises money to pay down Colorado theater artists’ medical bills. I watched with respect as this one hipster lady participated in the pre-show costume contest. She didn’t have much hair but it was festively multi-colored, a strong and empowering fashion statement for a woman who was evidently at some point in a chemo journey. It looked like a shark has taken a chunk out of her arm.
After the show, she approached me and brazenly stuffed me with a $20 bill like I was a common stripper. (I never felt more beautiful.) “Wait,” I told her. “I raise money to help people like you, not the other way around. And by the way … who are you?”
“I’m Leslie,” she said, “I’m marrying the drummer!”
Wait. I’ve had my eye on that drummer. I didn’t know him much, but I did know I was going to be recognizing him with a True West Award at the end of the year. Because he’s everywhere. The DAF Night at “Rock of Ages.” The DAF Night at “Ring of Fire.” But the deal was sealed when I saw him banging the skins for Magic Moments, a nonprofit that exists to create one big annual musical performance opportunity for actors with and without disabilities to perform as equals, side by side.
His name was Sean Case, and he just seemed like a good guy. Meeting his fiancée, Leslie Kahler, confirmed it. I trolled her Facebook page, where she tells her friends: “Ladies, be sure to find a partner who will wear matching PJs with you and your cats.”
Yep, this is the kind of guy you want as a partner when cancer throws you a big “eff you.”
He also turns out to be a pretty kick-*ss drummer, always locked in.
“He is just a genuinely good human being, and not just because of Leslie’s cancer,” said “Hedwig” guitarist (and True West Award winner) Jason Tyler Vaughn. “He cares about everybody – and he cares about doing a good job.”
Turns out, Case really was just about everywhere last year, including performing at least twice alongside his very own sweetheart. Case played drums while Kahler played reeds in both Parker Arts’ “Mary Poppins” and Lone Tree Arts Center’s “Nice Work if You Can Get It.”
As a classically trained percussionist, he’s also in demand with both the Colorado Symphony and Opera Colorado. He also volunteers his talents to the music ministry at Columbine United Church in Littleton.
Come to think of it, if this guy is as good as he seems, Case was terribly miscast to play the sneering, brooding, spiky-haired mohawked Eastern European drummer named Schlatko in Hedwig’s badly abused band. So you can add acting to his list of talents.
Like the two sides of Hedwig, these two seem to be unsung heroes to each other.
“She’s amazing,” said Vaughn. “She’s just super-cool, super-chill and extremely talented at what she does. And then, she also has just kicked cancer right in the (rhymes with walls).”
DRUMMER SEAN CASE/SELECT LIST OF 2025 SHOWS
- ‘Mary Poppins,’ Parker Arts at the PACE Center
- ‘Don’s Stop Believin’,” Magic Moments at Kent Denver School
- ‘Rock of Ages,’ Veritas and Parker Arts at the PACE Center
- ‘Ring of Fire,’ Miners Alley Playhouse
- ‘Nice Work if You Can Get It,’ Lone Tree Arts Center
- ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch,’ Give 5 Productions at Ballyhoo
MEGAN DAVIS, FIREHOUSE
When people say stage managers can do it all, they mean Megan Davis, the resident stage manager and production manager for Firehouse, a rising community theater that operates out of the Colorado Free University.
Many people have heard the term “stage manager” but might have no idea who they are or what they do. (Simply put: A stage manager is the central organizer of any stage production, managing communication and logistics from before rehearsals begin to the final performance.)
You don’t have to sell me on the idea that “as your stage manager goes, so goes your show.” Stage managers are the theater equivalent of a newspaper copy editor. If they do their jobs perfectly, they go completely unnoticed. Because there have been no evident mistakes.
If they are noticed, well, then … chances are, it has been a rough night at your theater.
Theater insiders know just how critical stage managers are to the success of any show. Still, I have never heard anyone speak of stage managers with the reverence of Firehouse Artistic Director Helen Hand.
“A big factor in the positive evolution of the culture at Firehouse is having Megan Davis as our resident stage manager and production manager, because she brings consistent, very affirming, solid leadership to every production,” Hand said. “The communication is clear. The schedule is set. Everything is organized in a way that makes everybody feel that things are under control. They know what to expect.”
When Sound Designer Madison Kuebler finished up with a recent Firehouse production of “Ripcord,” she told Hand: “I just have never been anywhere where things go this smoothly.” That’s on Megan, Hand said.
“Firehouse wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are now without Megan.”
RILEY ANNE MARTIN
Here’s a resume I can get behind: Riley Anne Martin, who designed the costumes for Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s “Cry It Out,” an empathetic play about the challenges of new motherhood, is also a performance artist who goes by the name Singing Bones.
This past Halloween, she played the Queen of the Vampire Ball, which called on her to improvise ritualistic theater for four hours of passing guests at the Dairy Arts Center.
She also performed as “Earthling” in an interactive percussion installation in Boulder, and stars in a web series filmed near Nederland called “Vera Zane.” What’s that?
“Riley has been developing mythical stage characters over the past five years inspired by the natural world along the Front Range: Vera Zane – spirit of winter – and Earthling – spirit of spring,” said her friend, Kit Baker, formerly of the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins.
She also sang at the Boulderado, a Renaissance fair event at the Balanced Root Apothecary in Denver. A true original who describes herself as “actress, director, dancer, musician, artist, weirdo and goblin.”
Riley was a fixture at the Mercury Cafe and studied opera at Metro State and was a barista at St. Mark’s Coffeehouse, where Baker met her.
“The first time I saw her behind the bar it felt like she’d walked straight out of Paris in the 1920s,” he said. “She was more than I could have hoped for. A phenomenal theatre artist.”
And a true Colorado original.
To all of you, and to the many hundreds not mentioned here: Your work may feel thankless at times, but it doesn’t go unnoticed. You power the engine of the stage through countless hours of practice and perseverance. You elevate everyone around you. Theater in Colorado and around the world thrives because of unsung heroes like you.
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
