Arts news: Four developing scripts will be presented for future consideration on the Denver Center Theatre Company’s upcoming seasons

Things are rapidly changing in the American theater. But the Denver Center Theatre Company’s place as a major player in new-play development continues to ascend.

“The Reservoir,” “The Legend of Georgia McBride” and “The Book of Will” are just a few of the plays that are being regularly produced around the country after having debuted as readings at the DCTC’s now 20-year-old Colorado New Play Summit, which returns this weekend.

The 2026 Summit will feature readings of four developing works by Bonnie Antosh, Alyssa Haddad-Chin, and returning favorites Tony Meneses and Isaac Gómez. Company reps chose their scripts from among hundreds of submissions to receive a week of intensive rehearsal time with professional directors, actors and dramaturgs from Denver and around the country before it all culminates with public readings Saturday and Sunday in theaters at the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

The Summit draws both industry bigwigs from around the country who come here for their own scouting purposes, as well as local theater fans who come for their first looks at works that stand a pretty good chance of being picked up for full production in future seasons.

Since 2006, the Summit has introduced 74 new plays – and more than half of them have eventually returned as fully staged DCTC mainstage productions. This month, for example, the company is premiering former Summit titles “Cowboys and East Indians” by Nina McConigley and Matthew Spangler, and “Godspeed” by Terence Anthony.

This year’s featured Summit readings at a glance, as described by DCTC Artistic Director Chris Coleman:

• “Lemuria,” by Bonnie Antosh: “A wild and witty exploration of power and legacy.” It imagines a retiring primatology professor caught up in a King Lear-worthy succession drama complete with ambition, hallucination — and lemurs.

• “Influent,” by Isaac Gómez (whose play “Wally World” was featured at the 2019 Summit): “It’s about the curated chaos of influencer culture and the search for authenticity.” After a scandal, two social-media influencers navigate how to be real in a world of reckonings and cancel culture.

• ”You Should Be So Lucky,” by Alyssa Hadad-Chin: “A tender, intergenerational portrait of family, food and the stories we pass down.” It’s about a Chinatown woman whose attempts at connecting with her granddaughter are wrapped up in the family dumpling recipe.

• ”The Myth of Two Marcos,” by Tony Meneses (whose 2019 “twenty50” was one of those plays fully staged the following year), is back with “a heart-tugging tale of friendship and fate.” Can a time-bending Aztec superhero bring unlikely best friends – both named Marcos – back together again?

Each featured play will be read once on Saturday and again on Sunday. Tickets are $18-$24 pre reading at denvercenter.org.

Probably the best ongoing Summit-related program is Denver Center Education’s 14th annual Middle School and High School Playwriting Competition. DCPA teaching artists conducted 159 workshops in schools throughout the state encouraging students to take up playwriting.

That resulted in 288 short plays submitted by Colorado students, which has produced three high-school and three middle-school winners.

The three selected high-school plays will receive their own professional, public staged readings at 9:30 a.m. Sunday in the Randy Weeks Conservatory Theatre (inside the DCPA’s Education building):

• “Bajo La Misma Luna,” by Flavia Armas, Cherry Creek High School

• ”Number 47,” by Carson McConathy and Kaylee Johnson, Salida High School     • 

• “Scraps,” by Audrey Flege, Denver School of the Arts  

The middle-school winners were Emery Eun of William “Bill” Roberts School (named after the father of Curious Theatre Artistic Director Jada Dixon); Miyu Hessel of Carmody Middle School; and Taylor Hunt of St. Thomas More.

Denverite wins Grace Kelly Award

Perhaps one day, one of the Denver Center’s featured playwrights will be homegrown talent Zoë Rhulen, who has just received the 2025 Princess Grace Award Playwriting Fellowship (in partnership with New Dramatists) for her play “Dirt.” 

Rhulen, a graduate of Denver School of the Arts, is among the many young area playwrights who got their starts as teenagers in Curious Theatre Company’s nationally regarded Curious New Voices summer writing intensive. “My writing is motivated by wildness, myths, monsters, food and sexuality,” said Rhulen, who earned her BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

The Princess Grace Awards, issued through the foundation started by her husband (Prince Rainier III of Monaco) in 1982, “support and elevate extraordinary early career artists in theater, dance and film through game-changing grants.”

Rhulen might not know this, but Kelly lived in Denver long before she did. The future princess stayed for a summer at 4020 Raleigh St. while she performed at the nearby Elitch Theatre.

Next for Cayton-Holland: SXSW

After a successful premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Denver standup, author and now screenwriter Adam Cayton-Holland’s debut film “See You When I See You” will next show at the prestigious SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, as a designated “festival favorite.” The family drama, which explores the aftermath of a suicide, is directed by Jay Duplass.

On his podcast, “Advice Fight,” Cayton-Holland said fans can (hopefully) expect to see the movie in wide release around September.

Big change for minerals at the Museum

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science‘s Coors Hall of Gems & Minerals “has inspired awe, curiosity and a lifelong love of Earth’s wonders for more than 40 years,” so says a press release announcing the exhibition will permanently close April 15. Same for its “After the Asteroid” exhibition.

The museum is preparing for what it calls “one of the most ambitious permanent exhibition renovations in our history.”

The rebranded Dea Family Gems & Minerals Hall – 50% larger than its predecessor – is described as an immersive, multi-sensory journey that will promote the essential role minerals play in our everyday lives.

The expansion is the result of more than 8,800 survey responses, 650 interviews and 24 hours of workshops. That community feedback dictated the Museum’s choice to preserve family favorites like “The Crystal Grotto” and “Sweet Home Mine.”

The new hall is planned to reopen in 2027.

Marty Jones at the Roxy

Marty Jones, Colorado’s king of beer-soaked Americana and rocking roots music since 1997, has launched (with the equally legendary Baggs Patrick) a live music series called “Songwriters at the Speakeasy.” It takes place in the intimate basement of the Roxy on Broadway (554 S. Broadway) from 7-8:30 p.m. on the second and third Tuesdays of each month. Capacity is just 45.

Two goals, says Jones: “To feature the unsung songsmiths, from veterans to upstarts. And to give folks like me and Baggs and our peers a quiet listening room gig free of chatter.” (Those are hard to find in Denver!) It’s free, with a heartily passed-around hat for performer donations. More at martyjones.net.

Concert news

Fresh off their Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame induction, the Dave Matthews Band returns to Fiddler’s Green on Aug. 28-29. Tickets on sale Feb. 20 at davematthewsband.com …

At Red Rocks: Sarah McLachlan, July 28, on sale Feb. 19 at axs.com … Hilary Duff, July 20, on sale Feb. 20 at axs.com …

At Coors Field: Noah Kahan ,Aug. 8-9, on sale now at ticketmaster.com …

And this just in: Mandy Patinkin’s upcoming “Being Alive” concert on Feb. 27 at the University of Denver’s Newman Center is, sadly, sold out.

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at john.moore@denvergazette.com.