2025: A year of living ferociously for area actors

By John Moore December 28, 2025 | updated 10 hours ago

2025 DENVER GAZETTE TRUE WEST AWARDS: DAY 29

Here is a representative look at some of the Denver actors who were on fire from start to finish this year

When I say Noelia Antweiler was everywhere this year, I mean she might have been that lady behind me in the bank drive-through the other day.

She was everywhere.

Launching a world-premiere play for Local Theater Company in Boulder. Getting silly in a farcical riff on “The Hound of the Baskervilles” in Lone Tree. Adapting “Little Miss Sunshine” for the stage at the Aurora Fox. That’s not even the half of it.

Antweiler reached the pinnacle (at least for Denver) when she became the rare local actor to be entrusted with a leading role at the Denver Center Theatre Company. She absolutely walked away with “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” with her smokin’, pulse-racing take on Maggie the Cat.

And yet, her best work to date was fully evident in the sleeper hit of the Colorado theater year: the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s wrenching regional premiere of Molly Smith Metzler’s deeply meaningful “Cry It Out,” the story of how three very different women navigate the challenges of new motherhood.

For Antweiler, the challenge was navigating a complex and subtle character arc through the isolation of new motherhood, career ambition and what’s best for her child.

“Noelia is the kind of actor who is always game to try whatever you ask of her,” said her director Candace Orrino. She will pivot right in the moment, which requires a lot of vulnerability. For ‘Cry It Out,’ that openness yielded an authenticity about the highs and lows of motherhood that made the mothers in our audience in particular feel really seen.“

Rebecca, ‘Chasing Breadcrumbs,’ Local Theater Company
Multiple roles, ‘Baskerville,’ Lone Tree Arts Center
Sheryl, ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ Aurora Fox
Jessie, ‘Cry It Out,’ Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company
Maggie, ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,’ Denver Center Theatre Company
Lana, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,’ Miners Alley

DAMON GUERRASIO

Damon Guerrasio is a good guy who played a lot of bad dudes in 2025. He’s the type who can swing from being an unabashed racist to a smarmy band manager to a would-be presidential killer in his evenings on the stage – while spending most of his mornings entertaining children portraying, yes, both good and bad guys. Sometimes at once.

He’s an incredibly charming actor, which makes him an irresistible casting choice for local directors whether they need sweethearts or a guy who can pull off Sam Byck, the angry nutbag who attempted to hijack a plane intending to crash into the White House in the hope of killing President Richard Nixon.

“Damon is someone who always comes to rehearsal with his homework done,” said Warren Sherrill, who cast Guerrasio to play that very role in “Assassins” at Miners Alley. “And for some stupid reason, this surprises me every single time I work with him because outwardly, especially during rehearsals, he’s just so chill and seemingly unconcerned. Then he knocks you over with what he’s been working on. This is his process.”

Guerrasio had two chilling monologues as Byck that surely haunt anyone who heard them because he made Byck’s anger make some sort of sense.

Damon Guerrasio playing characters both good and evil in the Miners Alley Performing Arts Center's Theatre for Young Audience staging of 'Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp'. He's playing The Evil Magician, left, and The Sultan. (Boone.Eye Photo) — Damon Guerrasio playing characters both good and evil in the Miners Alley Performing Arts Center’s Theatre for Young Audience staging of ‘Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp’. He’s playing The Evil Magician, left, and The Sultan. (Boone.Eye Photo)

“Those monologues were so perfect, so heartbreaking and admittedly, almost all him,” Sherrill said. “All I did was feed him encouragement.”

He plays so well against type because he has no type. “Damon is truly a chameleon,” said Miners Alley youth theater director Rory Pierce. “If there is a part still to play that he hasn’t yet, I am sure he will soon.”

Karl/Steve, ‘Clybourne Park,’ Arvada Center
Phil, ‘On Your Feet,’ Town Hall Arts Center
Evil Magician/Sultan, ‘Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,’ Miners Alley
Cosmo, ‘Snow White and the Seven Martians,’ Miners Alley
Sam Byck, ‘Assassins,’ Miners Alley
Ensemble, ‘Schoolhouse Rock Live,’ Aurora Fox
Ichabod Crain, ‘Sleepy Hollow,’ Miners Alley
Godfather Drosselmeyer, ‘The Story of the Nutcracker,’ Miners Alley
Himself, ‘Stocking Stuffers,’ Miners Alley Performing Arts Center

CLARK DESTIN JONES

Clark Destin Jones blew onto the theater scene like a glittery tornado in 2024 and nothing slowed his roll in 2025. After seeing him deliver the now canonic iteration of Hedwig (which he brought back in November), he showed his astonishing range as everything from an utterly winning chimney sweep in “Mary Poppins” to the haunting Balladeer in “Assassins” to a charming washboard player in the Johnny Cash tuner “Ring of Fire.”

He’s one you truly gotta catch while you can, because greater things are in this tornado’s immediate forecast.

“Clark has a way of spanning performances from Bert to Hedwig so effortlessly because he has a secure sense of who he is as a human being and a fearless approach to forming characters without limiting himself or his creative exploration,” said his Mary Poppins director, Shannan Steele. “He understands such a broad spectrum of human experience and brings that into his character development and storytelling.”

Bert, ‘Mary Poppins,’ Give 5 Productions
Slim, ‘Ring of Fire,’ Miners Alley
The Balladeer, ‘Assassins’, Miners Alley
Ensemble, ‘Schoolhouse Rock Live,’ Aurora Fox
Hedwig, ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch,’ Give 5 Productions
Himself, ‘Stocking Stuffers,’ Miners Alley

Emma Rbecca Maxfield in 'Pippin' for Phamaly at the Denver Center. (RDG Photography) — Emma Rebecca Maxfield in ‘Pippin’ for Phamaly at the Denver Center. (RDG Photography)

EMMA REBECCA MAXFIELD

I promise each year not to repeat honorees on this annual list of actors who deliver sustained excellence over a full calendar year. And Emma Rebecca Maxfield has made me a liar, because she just had a 2025 that was not to be denied, and she is back on the list.

The highlight was surely playing the Leading Player in the disability-affirmative Phamaly Theatre Company’s thought-provoking take on the classic 1970s musical “Pippin” as its popular annual summer offering at the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

Full transparency: I usually find “Pippin” to be kind of icky, with its self-indulgence and unapologetic excess and self-absorption that defined 1970s musical theater. With the winning Maxfield as our narrator (think Ben Vereen on Broadway), Maxfield and co-star Kaden Hinkle managed to make it sort of sweet.

Emma Rebecca Maxfield in 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' for Give 5 Productions at Ballyhoo Table & Stage. (John Moore, Denver Gazette) — Emma Rebecca Maxfield in ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ for Give 5 Productions at Ballyhoo Table & Stage. (John Moore, Denver Gazette)

“Emma was always willing to try new things and new ways of delivering moments,” said her director, Robert Michael Sanders. “But once she locked in, she was one of the most consistent performers. I really conducted the show around her every night. She’s like a maestro.”

Lizzie, ‘Lizzie,’ Aurora Fox
Reza, ‘Once,’ Town Hall Arts Center
Leading Player, ‘Pippin,’ Phamaly Theatre Company
Yitzhak, ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch,’ Give 5 Productions

Jennesea Pearce as Anna in the Arvada Center's 'Frozen' (Amanda Tipton Photography) — Jennesea Pearce as Anna in the Arvada Center’s ‘Frozen’ (Amanda Tipton Photography)

JENNASEA PEARCE

Jennasea Pearce blew into the local consciousness with a debut performance in a musical about the Lizzie Borden murders that made her a True West Award “breakout” honoree back in 2022. Whatever might be left to prove of her potential was laid to rest in 2025 with monster leading roles in three of the biggest musicals of this or any other era:

Laurey, ‘Oklahoma,’ Candlelight Dinner Playhouse
Alice, ‘Bright Star,’ Candlelight Dinner Playhouse
Anna, ‘Frozen,’ Arvada Center

Pearce is no longer on her way. She has arrived.

“She’s an extraordinary actress. And she’s an extraordinary person,” said Steve Wilson, her director in Candlelight’s radiant staging of the Steve Martin musical “Bright Star.” Pearce, a married young mother herself, played a real-life woman whose child was taken from her and presumed dead (by some), only to find decades later that he is still alive.

“I have watched Jennasea grow in all the best ways over the past year or so,” Wilson said. “She is obviously extraordinarily talented vocally, but she has also come into her own as an advanced actor in a way that is uncommon in the musical theater. She has an ability to portray a depth of character that is both surprising and exhilarating.”

From “Oklahoma” to “Bright Star” to, currently, “Frozen” (as the fun princess, don’t ask me which), Pearce has pulled off a run of three leading roles the likes I’ve never seen before in one year.

SEAN SCRUTCHINS

Sean Scrutchins, to cut to the chase, is considered pretty much the all-around good guy of the Colorado theater community. He’s adept at everything from children’s theater to Shakespeare to gripping psychological dramas. He really belongs on this “outstanding season” list every year he performs. Which is all of them.

But 2025 took Scrutchins to places not even he has visited before with Curious Theatre’s “Downstate.” Bruce Norris’ gut-twister of a play tells the story of four convicted child sex offenders living in a group home as they transition from prison to open society.

The play tests the limits of human forgiveness when Scrutchins’ character (Andy) arrives on the doorstep unannounced to confront the old man he believes abused him as a boy. The whole play was tough sledding for anyone with a beating heart. But talk about exhilarating theater.

“We joke at Curious that when Sean goes out into the community, he’s doing theater for young audiences, or clown work, or classical work,” his “Downstate” director, Christy Montour-Larson, said with a laugh. “But when he does shows at Curious, he’s having his leg chopped off, or he’s being executed as a war criminal live on stage. And that just shows the depth of his talent and of his craft.

“One thing I will say is that Sean is brave. He is willing to go to the dark and scary places that other people don’t like to go to. As a director, I trust him implicitly.”

Andy, ‘Downstate,’ Curious
Stephano, ‘The Tempest,’ Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Ross, ‘Richard II,’ Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Multiple roles, ‘Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors,’ Denver Center Attractions
Also a fight director on multiple productions, including ‘The Moors’ at the University of Denver

KAREN SLACK

There was a time when if Denver did drama, Karen Slack was doing it. If Denver theater had a face, hers was its empathetic, gut-scraping face. But her intense commitment to motherhood, her catering business and her craft have limited her stage appearances over the past decade. But in 2025, Slack was back, and she was vintage Slack.

“I have collaborated with Karen for more than 20 years, and I find her to be smart in the way directors like actors to be smart,” said Montour-Larson, her director on a wildly zeitgeist play called “Eureka Day.”

It’s set at a private, socially progressive elementary school in Berkeley, Calif. “And as a school, it works really, really great – until one of the children get the mumps,” said Montour-Larson. Then, I say, “Lord of the Flies” ensues. No, says Montour-Larson: “Then, comedy ensues.”

Two things can be true.

“As an actor, Karen works from the brain in her belly – her gut – and she has the ability to find empathy in any character she is playing. As Suzanne, she played a very complicated, very progressively liberal woman. But she has her reasons why she doesn’t want to vaccinate her children. And Karen brought such heart and emotion and grace and intelligence to the role. She’s just one of my favorite actors to work with.”

Slack said the play was an opportunity for people to really examine themselves and their choices in the people they surround themselves with. As for Suzanne, she added, “We really have only one thing in common. I believe Suzanne makes her own granola, as do I make my own granola. There is that similarity.”

Caliban, ‘The Tempest,’ Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Duchess of York/Green, ‘Richard II,’ Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Cornelius, “Doctor Faustus,’ Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Suzanne, ‘Eureka Day,’ Curious Theatre Company
Em, ‘Downstate,’ Curious Theatre Company

WARREN SHERRILL

For good measure, we’re throwing a director onto this list because, holy cow: Look what Warren Sherrill did in 2025. It’s astonishing:

‘A Case for the Existence of God,’ Curious Theatre Company
‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ Aurora Fox
‘National Bohemians,’ Miners Alley
‘The Trip to Bountiful,’ Bas Bleu, Fort Collins
‘Assassins,’ Miners Alley
‘Diva Royale,’ Miners Alley
‘Stocking Stuffers,’ Miners Alley

One sentimental favorite had to be returning to his stomping grounds in Fort Collins to direct the legendary Wendy Ishii, founder of the Bas Bleu Theatre, and the rock-solid Mark Collins, in a poignant staging of the bittersweet Horton Foote chestnut “The Trip to Bountiful.”

“I had been wanting to work with Warren for more than 30 years – ever since I saw him direct a production of ‘The Glass Menagerie’ when he was a student at Colorado State University,” Ishii said. That opportunity came this year when Sherrill called and said, “Let’s do ‘Bountiful.’”

It’s about an elderly widow who longs to escape her stifling life with her son in 1940s Houston to revisit her childhood home in rural Texas one last time before she dies. Not that there are many mountains left for the great Ishii to climb, but this was one.

“I loved working with Warren,” she said. “I just loved his insights and his support and his handholding when I was a nervous wreck. He’s just so kind and thoughtful. But he knows what he wants – and he gets it in the most gentle but certain way.”

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.