The Storyteller

Austin Price, Editor in Chief

There was a great storyteller

Who told tales of you and me

The sweet songbird of literature

Who relied on his ABC’s

His currency was parchment

Stained deep with black paint

He often spent his days alone

It gave him time to think

He was a chameleon of sorts

You could never tell what mask he wore

You might recognize him in the after

But he stays a stranger in the before

He drives the yellow bus on your way to school

He cleans the conference room after meeting

He’s the quiet neighbor who lives across the street

He doesn’t answer the door when you’re trick-or-treating 

He’s a hoarder of words

He captures, categorizes and collects

Your deepest, darkest secrets

Your ultimate regrets

He speaks countless languages

He is the ultimate translator

He shares your secrets

He is history, it’s mediator

With the words he writes

He exposes humanity

Illuminating the good and the bad

Revealing the ugly

He scribbled his thoughts

Ancient hands begin to shake

The splotches of liquid color

Mark the page with intentional mistakes

The storyteller is a narrator for us all

Documenting our best and our worst

He remains neutral in his writing

For the naked truth must come first

With a mind like a mouse trap

Enticing the reader in

Only to take them hostage 

And let the games begin

The work of the storyteller never ends

There will always be more to record

The secrets are shared

And the readers are never bored

When his days of writing are over

The storyteller does not quit

His tasks are passed on

For new stories will always exist

Once the pages are drying

And the stories have been told

He seals the letters tightly

And signs them in gold

Rain on the Roof

Austin Price, Editor in Chief

The rain patters on the tin roof

Split, splatter, split, splatter

Continuous pounding of cool water

Onto old, rickety metal

This metal has formed a rust

A visual of the continuous abuse 

What once was pure 

Is now cursed 

Never ending wallop of wretched water 

Taking a clean slate 

And tarnishing it

One would argue that the roof deserves it 

The roof is a shield 

An impenetrable, fixed structure 

Honored by time 

The patterns may change 

But the roof stays the same 

The wind blows and the fires glow

But the roof seems sturdy

But seeming is often not sincere

Seeming is a deceptive ingredient 

Underneath that roof 

There is rot 

There is pain

There is death

The continuous molestation of the rain onto the roof 

Breaks it

From the inside

Out

Some things never change 

Like the endless onslaught of the rain 

But nothing gold can remain

And nothing refined can deny the wickedness of pain 

The roof has withheld more than her fair share

Fires, tornados, blizzards, hurricanes

Temporary calamities are easy to withstand

But consistent cruelty is the roof’s demise

The pouring rain is constant

It’s inflection is consistent 

There’s no variation in the rhythm

And no end in sight 

Rain is a part of life

But when all we have is rain

We have no time to heal 

The roof begs for a reprieve 

For the sun to come out 

And to dry her skin

For the metal to be warmed

And the water to be dried 

Unfortunately, a break in the rain is rare

And a rarity becomes a fantasy

Despite the rust spores

And creaking structure 

The roof’s groans are unheard

And no change is made 

Warning signs are given

Premonitions are shown

And yet nothing changes 

Until the roof falls in

And the home is destroyed

It Works! A Review of the Tour of Back to the Future: The Musical at the Buell Theatre

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer

Back to the Future: The Musical is a new adaptation of the classic movie. With a book by Bob Gale, music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, and direction by John Rando, this timeless tale has hit the stage at full speed.

I attended this show twice while it was in Denver. The first was a part of our family’s season subscription. At that first performance, we had the full principal cast and sat in Orchestra C, Row AA, Seat 9. The second time I saw it with a group of friends and had the full principal cast but a new Marty McFly than the one I had previously seen transferred to the West End production. I sat in Orchestra D, Row D, Seat 7.

Back to the Future: The Musical follows the movie to a T, with only slight changes or omissions. I was quite skeptical coming into the show, figuring it’d be good fun but ultimately another forgettable movie-to-musical adaptation. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It works! 

Back to the Future: The Musical is bombastic, strange, and campy. Much of this is achieved through incredible tech work, with many moving parts that come together to create convincing illusions. The most important thing is that they have recreated the DeLorean time machine and put it onstage. This thing can actually drive around the stage and has a fully detailed interior. Credit goes to scenic and costume designer Tim Hatley, who managed to design and bring this beast to life. 

While it can drive around, the effect is really sold through Fin Ross’ video design and Chris Fisher’s illusion work. The car is sandwiched between a downstage see-through scrim and a screen in the background. Here we see videos of the world zipping by the DeLorean, creating an incredible feeling of speed I haven’t really seen on a stage before. It is a particularly effective piece of technical work that sells the scene well despite it being a simple setup. It also displays the logo when you first arrive in the theatre, with error warnings popping up reminding you not to take photos as phones did not exist in the 80’s and it will mess with the space-time continuum. 

While we are on the topic of technical work, I want to applaud the lighting design by Tim Lutkin and Hugh Vanstone. It does not intrude on scenes where it is unnecessary, but it makes great use of the proscenium which lights up in a futuristic circuit-like pattern when the car is speeding by. Towards the end of the show, when the storm begins to pick up, bright white lights flash at the audience to simulate lightning.

At our first performance, Marty McFly was played by Caden Brauch. He has since left the touring production to instead play Marty on the West End and has been succeeded by Lucas Hallauer. Caden’s interpretation of Marty felt unique, he wasn’t weighed down by what Michael J. Fox did in the movies. His Marty seemed to be playing it cooler than Fox’s. There is a specific line that I feel illustrates the point well. When Fox says “You built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?”, he sounds exasperated and confused. When Brauch says it, he is in awe, with a hint of “right on dude” in his voice.

Our second performance had Lucas Haullauer, who previously understudied the role. Almost anything I could say about Caden’s performance I could say about Lucas’, they both play a very cool and suave Marty. I prefer how Lucas plays out moments with Lorraine and the few moments Marty does get genuinely panicked, his voice shoots up and the persona comes down. I feel Caden had better chemistry with George, his disappointment in how lame his dad is being almost painful. There are moments where he says nothing, just staring at his dad as you see the hope being extinguished behind his eyes. Neither of them gave a “better” performance, I think they both are doing a lot of the same things but playing into different strengths.

Don Stephenson played Doc Brown and his performance was one of the greatest things I have ever seen a person do onstage. I couldn’t make out many of the words he was saying due to his strange cartoon voice, but his vibes and aura were captivating. He moved about the stage in a herky-jerky manner, speaking with the cadence of a mad scientist. Stephenson says “flux capacitor” like Doofenshmirtz says “evil-inator”. There was a point where he made an expression where he stretched his mouth in opposite diagonal directions, a face so impossible he surely must have detached his jaw from the whole side of his skull. He looked like an animatronic with rubber skin stretched so far it was about to tear away. He’s almost what I imagine Doc Brown would be like if an 80’s Back to the Future cartoon had ever been made, similar to the Beetlejuice cartoon. A goofy caricature of a mad scientist, a zany personality that could sustain an episodic series.

Michale Bindeman plays George McFly, Marty’s father, and is a delight to watch anytime he’s onstage. He is a very tall and lanky man and uses it to his advantage, walking around in an awkward and bow-legged manner. One of the best moments that showcases this brand of comedy is during “Put Your Mind to It”, a song where Marty is teaching his dad how to be cool. Marty dances with swagger and style, and his father flails his arms around as he attempts to replicate the moves. There is a key point towards the end of the show where he gains confidence he never had before, and it is fun watching how his character transforms. He is still gangly and awkward, but he stands tall and stops being hunched over all the time.

Zan Berube plays Lorraine, Marty’s mother, who has the onerous task of making the audience believe incest is funny. She is successful at this endeavor, as she is quite overtly horny and Marty has to dodge her wild attempts to get him into her bed. To add some essential context for those who have not seen the movie, Marty accidentally interferes with his parents meeting for the first time in the past. Instead of his mother nursing his father back to health after he falls out of a tree, Marty falls and his mother becomes affectionate towards him. It is ridiculous how infatuated Zan is with Marty, and it is ridiculous how this is a primary obstacle that needs to be overcome so Marty isn’t erased. Perhaps it is the fact it is all so ridiculous that makes her performance work so well.

The whole show lives in its own ridiculous and campy world. When Doc begins to sing, a group of women come out and act as backup singers. Marty asks where all these girls came from, and Doc says “I don’t know! They just appear whenever I start singing!”. A whole chorus of ensemble members appear later during “Future Boy”, and Doc awkwardly shoos them out of his house when the song comes to a sudden halt. Act 1 ends with a spectacularly choreographed chase sequence through the high school, with Marty and George scaling lockers and leaping over tables. There is so much happening onstage during that sequence, so much to look at. It’s a spectacularly fun show.

The music is the weakest part of this show, despite the promise of the name attached to it. Alan Silvestri composed the music for the original movies and came back to create the score for this musical. When the Back to the Future theme is being played, recreating iconic moments from the movie, there is some real magic happening on that stage. That said, Alan is not a musical composer. 

There are a lot of times where it feels like the music is not meaningfully moving the story forward or developing the characters, two essential traits of any good musical theatre song. The first four songs are duds, making it feel like we were stopping the show to sing a song. The best was “Hello, Is Anybody Home?”, where Marty wonders how he ended up with such a lame family. It’s fun seeing how much his family sucks. The show at this point is sitting at like a 7/10, maybe 6 if I’m feeling uncharitable. Then right after that song, the DeLorean comes swerving out of the darkness and the show instantly rockets up to a 9/10. Everything after that point is just ridiculous, campy, fun. It maintains that energy until the very end with a curtain call performance of Huey Lewis and the News’ “Back in Time”. Back to the Future: The Musical is absolutely not high art, but boy is it a real fun ride.

Tensions Flare in Stereophonic at the John Golden Theatre

Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer

Stereophonic is a new play written by David Adjimi and directed by Daniel Aukin with original songs by Will Butler. It debuted at Playwrights Horizons, a theatre that fosters new work by playwrights hoping to break into the business. The play became the most nominated play ever at the 2024 Tony Awards with 13 nominations, beating the previous record of 12 held by Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play. While it did not win every nomination, it did win Best Play, Best Direction of a Play, and Best Sound Design of a Play. Will Brill won the award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Reg, and Sarah Pidegon won Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Diana. The show we saw had the full principal cast, although Sarah Pidegon and two other original cast members, Tom Pecinka and Juliana Canfield, had left the show by this point. 

The play follows a band trying to record their next album after their first received international acclaim. They’ve recently become quite well-known, and the pressure of fame weighs heavily on them. We watch the band, their producer, and assistant with a kind of fly-on-the-wall view. 

Early we see the seeds of discontent being sewn within the band, seeds that blossom into anger and resentment as they spend longer and longer in the recording studio. We are often without context as to what time of day it is, until one of them complains that it’s 3 AM and they’re at take 34. At one point, Grover, their producer, hears something loose in Simon’s drum. Fast forward and they have spent 6 days trying to get rid of the rattle sound. It takes them a full year to record the album, a slow and torturous time for our characters, but not for the audience, despite the show holding four acts and a runtime of three hours and fifteen minutes.

The greatest praise I can give to this play requires some context. The day I saw Stereophonic was the day we flew into New York. I woke up at 5 AM to catch a 7 AM flight, landed at LaGuardia at 1 PM, took a hellish ride on the Q70 bus to the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street-Broadway subway stop, took the 7 Train into Times Square, spent far too long trying to check in to our hotel, caught a 5 PM show of Oh, Mary!, left the Lyceum at 6:20 PM, rushed to grab coffee somewhere, and was finally seated right at 7pm to see Stereophonic. 

Despite the long and arduous travel day, my attention never wavered during Stereophonic. It is a captivating piece of theatre; I found myself quickly invested in these characters despite knowing them for so little time. Part of this is due to Enver Chakartash’s wonderfully 70’s costume designs, and Robert Pickens and Katie Gell’s hair and wigs, adding the touches needed to complete the characters’ looks. It firmly establishes a time, setting, and attitude for everyone onstage. Other little touches like prop cigarettes and joints bring it all together. Those props were lit with a real lighter onstage and they produced real smoke the audience could smell. The other part of what grabbed me so quickly were the performances. 

Prior to seeing the show, I had heard some naysayers on the internet claiming the show had lost its “je ne sais quoi” since the three original cast members left the production. The new members “couldn’t capture the energy” or whatever. However, the cast I saw was electric. They embody the play’s deeply naturalistic style, just people having candid conversations about life and work and tensing up when ill-tempered characters enter the recording studio. I cannot imagine how the performances could have been better beyond nitty gritty preferences on character interpretations. 

Special shoutout to Eli Gelb who played Grover, the primary sound engineer. Grover is a chill man who unravels at the seams slowly as he is enveloped by the hellish working conditions the band put him through. Perhaps I connected with him because he feels like he’s part of the audience, watching everything unfold helplessly and trying to stay out of it. When Eli came out for bows, I had a hard time believing that Gelb was the man who played Grover and not just Grover himself. 

Will Brill is also brilliant, rightfully deserving of his Tony Award. He starts the show particularly inebriated, and we watch his slow journey to sobriety as he reckons with the fact sobriety alone cannot solve all his issues. Early in the show, there’s a particularly amusing moment when Reg goes on an incoherent stoned rant about houseboats and the “secret war” happening between rich houseboat owners. It is a wonderful bit of acting from Brill, and had sold me on the validity of his Tony win long before he even started to have his character arc.

The real cherry on top is getting to hear the band play music live. The foreground of the stage has the soundboard and acts as a “hangout” area, and the background is a full recording studio area. Ryan Rumery’s sound design gives a distinct quality to the actors’ voices when they are speaking on the recording microphones, giving an extra layer of authenticity to the whole thing. 

The music in this show is really, really good. The most gripping and magical moments of the show come from watching a take finally come together, waiting with bated breath to see if the band can nail it this time, and sharing a sigh of relief with the characters when they do in fact nail it. I think perhaps the only critique or gripe I have with this show is the ending, or rather the feeling I was left with as it ended. There was so much drama and tension and yelling and when it ended, I asked “well, what was it all for?”. It doesn’t feel like it leads to a neat conclusion, but I feel perhaps that’s the point. You can stream the album they made (really just a cast album for the show), and it hits differently after seeing everything that made the music possible. It feels almost tainted, and even though the music is bopping, you can’t justify the pain people went through to make it.

The show officially closed on January 12th, but I am so glad to say it will be going on tour! Playbill reports that the tour will begin in October at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Recently, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) has been featuring touring one play per Broadway season, so I have very high hopes it will be in Denver in the next two years. The DCPA 2025-2026 season will be announced sometime in March. Alongside that, it is going to transfer to the West End at The Duke of York Theatre, with performances beginning in May of this year.

Purple Sea

Austin Price, Editor in Chief

Lavender blue

Lavender green

Those are the colors

Of the purple sea 

The rain

Pitter patters

The salt

Spitz and spatters

Sailing ships

Seagulls cry

All beneath 

The purple pink sky

Jagged rocks

Like shark teeth

Sink into the souls

Of our flesh, fragile feet

Outlined in sand

Soaking, seaweed

Heavy waves of water

A new way of being

Salt in our hair

Sun in our eyes

Sand under our nails

A painful surprise

The sea is a haven

For the creatures of the deep

Both strong and tall

Small and weak

Lavender blue

Lavender green

Those are the colors

Of the purple sea

Hit TV Show, Stranger Things, Highlights A Variety of Human Relationships

Schuyler Kropp, Staff Writer 

Stranger Things is a TV Show set in the 1970’s through the 1980’s that was introduced to Netflix in July of 2016. It was made by the Duffer Brothers, as a multi-genre series including science fiction, horror, drama, and action. The show quickly gained a lot of popularity and views, making many of its young actors famous. In the beginning of the show, the character Will Byers, played by actor Noah Schnapp, goes missing in the town of Hawkins. The past of Hawkins is uncertain in the beginning of the film but then, the cause behind tragedies in this town are revealed. 

The show often centers around the character, Eleven. She grew up inside a mysterious lab and eventually made an attempt to run away. She escapes through the underground tunnels leading out into a forest away from the lab. When she escapes, she is found by three boys— Micheal, Dustin, and Lucas— who help her learn about the outside world. As she starts to explore this new world, she starts to learn how to form meaningful relationships and love the people around her. You can learn about love through Eleven’s journey of discovery. She explores different types of relationships in her life. Those types of relationships are friendship, romantic, self, and parental love. 

She experiences friendship and love through the relationship she has with Max. At first, Eleven doesn’t like Max because she is jealous over a boy, but when Max asks her about him, they learn about their likes and dislikes. Max gives Eleven relationship advice, and allows her to discover her taste of who she wants to be. This is how she finds happiness with Max. Later on in the show, they understand each other better as their friendship grows. Throughout the show, they support each other through difficult and even violent times as they face issues with both friends and supernatural forces. Their friendship teaches us how we can rely on friends through hard times.

Eleven experiences romantic love in the show with her boyfriend, Mike. Mike and Eleven become friends during her time when she first escaped the laboratory. They become closer as they both struggle with bullies in their lives. Throughout the show, they are both willing to stand up to these bullies for each other. As she defends Mike, Eleven learns that she wants to use her powers for the greater good rather than showing them off or hurting others. As he finds safety in Eleven, he discovers that he can always have someone to rely on through tough times. This relationship teaches us that our partners are supposed to be people who always have our backs. 

Eleven learns about self love throughout the show as she tries to figure out who she is. At the beginning of the show, she had been stuck in a lab for her entire life and therefore, had never been able to discover herself. Once she breaks out and is able to explore the world, she starts to gain a sense of independence. She starts to be able to make her own decisions, including who she hangs out with, how she dresses, and what her values are. This teaches her about herself as she is no longer just a tool for someone else. She also takes time to discover her past and meets her sister, Kali and her mom. From her journey of self discovery, we discover that no matter how bad our pasts may be, it is always okay to keep moving forward and make our own decisions about how our futures shape us.

This show also models parental love with the characters Hopper and Eleven. Hopper adopts Eleven when she escapes from the lab and quickly becomes her father figure. The beginning of their father and daughter relationship is a bit tough as Hopper becomes controlling of her. Hopper wants to protect Eleven as she fights the evil in Hawkins, but at one point ends up pushing her away as she tries to find independence. Eleven returns to him once they both open up about how they have lost important people in their lives. Hopper has made mistakes but his relationship with Eleven allows him to reflect on this, move forward, and become a better person. Hopper helps her understand what parental love is and what it means to be unconditionally supported. Their relationship shows us that parents are supposed to love and support us even through disagreements.

Character based storytelling is important because it allows us a new way to learn about ourselves and how to navigate the real world. Stranger Things shows how people love each other and what that is like. I like to relate some of my writing to this show, as I like to tell stories and express different relationships between characters. The beauty of stories is that they can show how everyone deserves to be loved.

The 5th and final season of Stranger Things will premiere later in 2025 on the streaming platform, Netflix. 

Click here for more information