A fierce and earthy Carmen stalks the stage at the Central City Opera this summer. Director Daniel’s Pelzig’s production of Bizet’s ever-popular opera, starring mezzo Kirstin Chávez in the title role, opened the CCO’s diverse 2011 season June 25. There are eight more performances through the last day of the season, Aug. 7.

The 54th Annual Colorado Shakespeare Festival kicked off last weekend with the ultimate tale of tragic teen love, Romeo and Juliet. The festival features four plays this year. In addition to the brawling Montagues and Capulets, the idyllic outdoor Mary Rippon Theatre also hosts The Comedy of Errors. In the indoor University Theatre, you’ll find The Little Prince, based on the existential classic by Antoine De Saint-Exupery and written by Rick Cummins and John Scoullar, as well as Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General.

Samuel Avital speaks many words about the art he has spent his entire life perfecting. Strange, because Avital’s art is practiced wordlessly. He is a mime.

For 35 years, Philip Sneed has been hearing that the theater is dying as quickly as its gray-haired audience.

'We've known for about five years or so that a new form of nightlife, or a new form of entertainment, in Boulder could be well received,' says Matt Rushing, a CU alum and Denver local. 'So we had the idea of opening a comedy club in Boulder for a few years now.'

People often analogize the creative process to the reproductive one. They talk about the “labor pains” artists go through as they struggle to bring a novel piece of art into the world. They refer to “giving birth” to a new idea, painting, play or piece of music. There are, of course, exceptions to this referential rule. I’ve never heard it applied to, say, a mime routine or professional wrestling story arc, but it does seem, generally, to track to the world of art.

'Up In The Air' is what happens when a talented street performer is given the green light to move inside and take center stage in an actual theater. Peter Davison, a one-time street performer, National Juggling Champion and Co-Artistic Director of Boulder Ballet, took the opportunity and created a piece of street theater styled for the stage. Though he utters not a syllable during the course of the show, Davison speaks volumes with his movements, expressions and choices of musical accompaniment.

That's right; Boulder's Dinner Theatre is enjoying its 34th season, which means that BDT has bested the one and only Lord Jesus Christ in terms of corporeal longevity on this big, blue, mostly-water-covered rock we call Earth.

It was just a few years ago that comedian and actor T.J. Miller was pounding the pavement seven days a week doing standup routines at Chicago comedy clubs and touring with comedy troupes. He was paying his dues, as most entertainers do at some point in their lives, when he got a call for an audition.

Did you know that the Longmont Theatre Company has been around for 53 years? That means that for more than the past five decades, 600 months or 18,250 days, depending on which unit of measure one prefers, the Longmont Theatre Company has been bringing theatre to life in Boulder County.