No Guts No Story Curious Theatre Company Explores Denver’s Humanity

By Robert Davis

There’s magic in the walls of the old church in the Golden Triangle neighborhood that Denver’s Curious Theatre Company has called home for the last 26 years.

Curious Theatre Company Building. Credit: Robert Davis

The theater is where audiences go to be challenged, said company artistic director Jada Suzanne Dixon. It’s a place where up-and-coming playwrights and artists can explore Denver’s humanity — and their own — through the collective experience of feisty, provocative, and progressive theater.

“What are the things that inspire us? What are the things that scare us? What are the issues that are in our world that we see reflected in plays by playwrights that matter to us, that are aligned to our mission, even if it scares us?” Dixon told the Denver VOICE. “That’s the thing we want to lean into, and not run away from.”

Denver’s theater scene already carries a lot of weight. The Buell Theatre and Ellie Caulkins Opera House have attracted national tours of plays like “Wicked,” “Hamilton,” and “The Book of Mormon.” While these venues and plays are important, Dixon said Curious Theatre focuses its energy on providing Denver with a place where audiences can be sparked to action.

“We’re leveraging theater and sort of the collective experience for both artists and patrons alike, to be moved to be inspired and hopefully spark action towards some type of change, whether that’s on an individual level, or community level, or larger society as a whole,” said Dixon.

One of Curious’ latest plays, called “The Cost of Living” by Martyna Majok, is a great example of Curious offering its audience a way to reinterpret a contemporary issue. Rent, food, and gas are all more expensive in Denver than they were before the pandemic. The play dives into how the stress of living a more expensive life wears on the play’s four main characters.

“How John and Jess, Ani, and Eddie navigate their separate realities but also engage and spar with each other offer lessons in accommodation that go beyond issues of disability to ones of class, yearning, and economics,” Lisa Kennedy, The Denver Post’s art critic, wrote in her review of the play.

Even though these plays take place on stage, there is something to be said about the history captured in the church where the stage lives, Dixon said. The church, which is located at 1080 Acoma St., dates to the 1890s when nearly everyone in Denver was looking for relief from plummeting silver prices, which wrecked the city’s economy. About 100 years later, Curious Theatre took over the building to create a “different vibe” in Denver’s arts scene, Dixon added.

The theater is starting to take a new shape as well. In May, the company announced it is working to raise $250,000 by July to cover a budgetary shortfall. This is happening at a time when Denver’s theater community is still reeling from the pandemic.

To help raise money, Curious Theatre listed their church building for sale in May. Dixon told Denverite that the move is about “excitement” and not uncertainty. Unfortunately, the cost to maintain the church has grown beyond the theater’s budget, she added. So, selling the property seems to make sense for the organization’s long-term future in Denver.

“Now we have an opportunity to talk to other people, get their thoughts, be partners with others, and maybe model an innovative solution for the future,” Dixon said.