Next month will mark a full year since Helen Murray announced her intention to leave the venerable Aurora Fox, which is in the midst of an ongoing cultural identity crisis. On Wednesday, the city went back to Square One by re-posting her still-unfilled position as executive producer of the Aurora Fox.

After an unusually long initial search, the city finally turned to Murray’s No. 2, offering the job to Patron Services Manager (and interim Executive Producer) Beau Bisson. But, as reported here last week, Bisson by then already had accepted another position out of state. That leaves the Aurora Fox with a continuing leadership void that has been heroically filled (more than once in recent years) by Bisson and two backstage champions, Production Manager Jennifer Orf and Technical Director Brandon Case.

The city further clouded the Fox situation when it recently announced “The Fox Interlude,” which sounds more ominous than it really is. The city decided to use this period of transition as an opportunity to streamline the company’s finances by changing to a calendar theater season starting in 2024, in line with the rest of the city’s budgeting processes. (Most companies still schedule according to the traditional theater season of September through May.)

But for those wondering whether the Aurora Fox is without an artistic direction, it is not. On Wednesday, the city announced the company’s 39th season, even as its top two leadership positions remain vacant. And in at least one major way, Wednesday’s announcement locks in those eventual leaders to a creative vision that seems clearly intent on bringing both audiences and revenue back to the Fox.

Most strikingly, the Fox has announced its commitment to produce August Wilson’s entire 10-play “The American Century Cycle,” starting with “Gem of the Ocean.” Israel Hicks made history in 2009 when he became the first director anywhere to helm the Wilson decalogue for the same theater company (the Denver’s Center’s own DCPA Theatre Company).

“That has to rank up with the greatest achievements in the history of the American theater,” Denver Center actor Harvy Blanks said at the time. In 2015, Denzel Washington announced his intention to direct all 10 plays as films for HBO. But while Colorado Springs TheatreWorks just completed a run of “King Hedley II,” we haven’t seen many Wilson plays on Colorado stages in recent years as the focus has shifted to making space for newer voices of color.

The 2024 Aurora Fox season will begin Feb. 3 with “Art,” the 1994 Tony Award-winning Best Play by Yasmina Reza, followed by “Gem of the Ocean” (March 23-April 14), “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,” a family friendly fantasy adventure based on Rick Riordan’s books (June 1-23); Jules Verne’s classic, “Around the World in 80 Days” (Oct. 5 to Oct. 27); and the regional premiere of “Ebenezer Scrooge’s Big Christmas Show!” by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen (Nov. 30-Dec. 22).

Murray was hired as executive producer in December 2017 and immediately shook things up by taking a city-owned arts facility with deep bureaucratic arteries and running it as if it were her own Off-Broadway playground. Her programming choices infused the local theater scene with thrilling and utterly original departures like the wide-eyed indie-rock musicals “Hundred Days” and “Futurity,” which imagined a world where a machine might be invented to end the Civil War with the flick of a switch. She also responded to the cultural moment with titles like “Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies,” a provocative look at being a young Black teenager in America today. Her choices were often subversive, inflammatory, head-scratching … and unknown. But always of high quality. I once described Murray as a theatergoer’s dream – and a theater marketer’s nightmare.

Those days are over. Every production on the newly announced 2024 season is already box-office proven or based on bankable existing source work. The message from the city seems clear: Before you can change the world (real or theater), first you must survive.

Keep the ‘Light’ on

A year ago, we told you about “If Light Closed its Eyes,” a live play entirely created and staged within the walls of the Sterling Correctional Facility by Dr. Ashley Hamilton and the University of Denver’s Prison Arts Initiative. More than 100 people who have been touched in some way by the criminal-justice system were interviewed for the nearly three-year project. Their words became the basis of the play performed by incarcerated Sterling residents.

On Wednesday, Denver Film hosted a screening of a filmed version of the play to a packed and emotional audience at the Sie Film Center. Seven currently incarcerated members of the creative team participated in a talkback by a video linkup.

Among those in the audience was Marsha Willis, whose son, Ethan, was hit and killed by a drunk kid with a “mile-long” rap sheet driving 90 mph. She is the author of a book called “The Ethan Chronicles: Requiem for a Life Stolen,” which explores her devastation and outrage at what she saw as “an impersonal system that refused to take the steps necessary to stop an alienated kid from acting out his impulses.” After seeing the film for the first time Wednesday, she said, “I really do appreciate this opportunity to look at how we are doing with our human problems, and to see if we can do a better job.”

Moses “Andre” Stancil, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, introduced the film.

“I come from the federal prison system, where things like this never happen,” he said of the DU creative project. “But I went from being a non-believer to being amazed at what they were able to do.”

Lighting that 50-year-old Sparks

There are concerts, and then there are events. One such event is coming to Boulder on July 9 with Sparks at the Boulder Theatre. Sparks (brothers Ron and Russell Mael) is a 50-year counterculture anomaly that just released its 26th album, “The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte.” It’s a record that has been called a modern masterpiece, continuing as it does to chart new and uncompromising terrain on a genre-defying musical journey that began with the duo’s astonishing breakthrough record “Kimono My House” in 1974. Tickets at z2ent.com.

Springs Ensemble Theatre has a home

Can’t keep the Springs Ensemble Theatre down. When we reported that the company was being forced out of its home of 13 years by ballooning rent, company President Matt Radcliffe promised to have a new place to play by the time his production of “Boys in the Band” was scheduled to open for Pride Month. That gave him two months. And he’s done it. Mart Crowley’s bittersweet drama opens tonight (Thursday) and runs through June 18 at Pikes Peak State College, Studio West, 22 N. Sierra Madre St., in Colorado Springs.

The Catamounts double down

The Catamounts are a lithe, Boulder-based ensemble opening two completely different projects this week in Westminster and Aurora. Across the street from the Aurora Fox at the People’s Building, The Catamounts tonight (Thursday) will premiere “The Estate Sale,” which is both a play and an “immersive art installation” in one, created by Denver artist Brad Ramsey and playwright Josh Hartwell.

Audiences will explore the rooms of a deceased’s person’s house through his letters, journals, phone machine messages and more. It’s a site-specific project inspired by the real history of the People’s Building as a furniture store and nearby antique shops lining Colfax Avenue. Performances Sundays through Wednesdays only until June 24 at 9995 E Colfax Ave. Info at thecatamounts.com.

Meanwhile, the Catamounts are also offering Jeffrey Neuman’s outdoor adventure “Pride of the Farm,” a play that explores the life of former Colorado Attorney General John Metzger, through June 25 on and around the historic Metzger Farm in Westminster.

Pride and professional … wrestling!

Pride Month has begun, and opportunities to celebrate range from the solemn to the silly. One upcoming art show is titled “Wrestling Rainbow,” a heartfelt tribute to the LGBTQ+ community within the world of professional wrestling. It takes place June 11 at the Roxy Theatre, 2549 Welton St. There will be artwork, a dance party extravaganza, and, yes,  live pro wrestling performances featuring a legendary LGBTQ+ icon Effy. It’s all part of a program called “Joan Jetson’s Big Queer Launch 2.” The host of the dance party will be iconic YouTube star “Dad,” aka “Dad Feels.” Tickets at holdmyticket.com.