Often, some of the best local theater productions of any given year only come about when two companies with distinct resources and audiences join forces. Perhaps the greatest example of the past 20 years was in 2007, when BDT Stage joined with the late Shadow Theatre Company to produce a “Ragtime” for the ages.

This year brought a beautiful but bittersweet collaboration between 5280 Artist Co-op and Firehouse Theater Company. Bittersweet because 5280, which like Shadow was founded to tell human stories of the Black experience, has since gone into dormancy. But it went out partnering with Firehouse on a riveting staging of Pearl Cleage’s “Flyin’ West” that will be long-remembered.

Firehouse has its own melancholy roots. The indefatigable Helen Hand has been singlehandedly willing the company forward since the 2004 murder of her brother, Colorado Free University founder John Hand.

“Flyin’ West” takes place as many former slaves left the South are taking advantage of The Homestead Act to build new lives for their families out West. The story follows four women who lay claim to land in an all-Black town in Kansas that’s not unlike Colorado’s own Deerfield – and then face threats from outside and within.

“There were 150 all-Black towns after Reconstruction,” said the play’s intentionally lower-cased director, donnie l. betts, who was nominated for an Emmy Award for his own documentary about Dearfield called “The Road Less Traveled.” (He also was the first local actor hired when the Denver Center Theatre Company was created back in 1979).

“‘Flyin’ West is really about the strength and the tenacity of these Black women who helped to establish these all-Black towns,” said betts. “I wanted to show people how Blacks established these places, and how strong Black tenacity and entrepreneurship were. Even before they were able to be free, that attitude and spirit were always there.”

His cast consisted of Kenya Mahogany Fashaw, Adrienne Martin-Fullwood, Latifah Johnson, Don Randle, Hunter Yasmine and Abid Hassan, all of whom “brought something beautiful and unique to the table,” said betts.

“There is a lot of beauty in this drama — and no small measure of trauma,” wrote longtime theater critic Lisa Kennedy.