Shadow Celebrates Black History In Newest Production
By John Kuebler

Denver’s Shadow Theatre Company presents Two Trains Running, a play written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson and directed by Shadow Executive Artistic Director Jeffrey Nickelson.

Two Trains Running is set in a neighborhood diner in 1969 Pittsburgh. The deceivingly destructive forces of urban renewal are encroaching, and Wilson’s characters, a fascinating spectrum of personalities, are made to deal with the loss of their old neighborhood as well as the tumultuous times. 

Two Trains Running is part of August Wilson’s epic 10-play cycle, which depicts, decade by decade, African American life during the 20th Century. Nickelson said of Wilson, “His is a perspective of African American experience in America that makes it American, period.”

Nickelson is no stranger to Wilson’s plays. Years ago, when he was with the Eulipions Cultural Center, he helped bring Wilson’s work (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) to Denver for the very first time. After that production, according to Nickelson, no small theater company in town could get their hands on any Wilson plays because the Denver Center sewed up the rights to all of them.

“Now that the Denver Center has gone through the entire canon, we are able to produce his work,” Nickelson said. “It’s exciting to me, and I should say, it’s an honor to direct the great musicality of his language.”

During his lifetime, Wilson earned his share of criticism, as any such highly esteemed artist is bound to. One criticism was that he wrote Black melodrama for White audiences. “I have a philosophy,” Nickelson said. “If you’re a dancer and your shoes don’t get stepped on, you’re not dancing. August Wilson was a dancer as well as a poet.”

Nickelson’s interpretation of Wilson’s work is certain to be exciting. “I’ve got my front line actors for this one,” Nickelson said. Those on the front line include Shadow Associate Artistic Director Hugo Jon Sayles and seasoned actors Vincent C. Robinson, Dwayne Carrington, Jada Roberts, and Damion Hoover, as well as some old and newer blood. 

The play’s themes mirror Shadow’s own struggles with economic development. “I would like to ensure that the company finds the performing arts space it deserves,” Nickelson said. “A place of its own. To quote from the play, ‘I want my ham.’”

Editor’s note: In honor of Black History Month, Two Trains Running opens Feb. 1 and runs through Feb. 24. Performances are every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 p.m. at Shadow’s home space in the Ralph Waldo Emerson Center, 1420 Ogden. For tickets and more information, call Shadow Theatre Company at 303-837-9355, or visit www.shadowtheatre.com.

Su Teatro’s New Play Challenges Racial Stereotypes

By John Kuebler

Denver’s El Centro Su Teatro presents I Don’t Have To Show You No Stinking Badges, a comedy drama written by the father of Chicano Theater, Luís Valdez and directed by Dan Hiester and Laura Cuetara.

Playwright Luís Valdez founded Teatro Campesino (the Farmworkers Theater) in the mid 1960s as an arm of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers union. Teatro Campesino split with the Union in 1967 in order to explore different forms of theater, eventually taking on Broadway in 1979 with the historical backdrop play “Zoot Suit” and Hollywood in 1987 with the rock and roll bio epic La Bamba.

It was Valdez’s experience in Hollywood that inspired I Don’t Have To Show You No Stinking Badges. The play takes a humorous poke at the stereotype casting that prevails in Hollywood. The title of the play comes from a well-known line from the classic John Huston film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

In Badges, Buddy Villa played the bandido in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre who uttered that infamous line, and he and his wife Connie have been eking out a living playing stereotypical bit parts in Hollywood films – everything from maids and janitors to drug dealers and prostitutes. When their son returns home unexpectedly from Harvard, the Villas’ comfortable life is turned upside down in this scathing satire that exposes the underbelly of Hollywood’s discreet xenophobia.

As part of the production run, El Centro Su Teatro will also present a panel discussion called “Charlie Chan, Steppin Fetchit, and Goldtooth: Images of Color on Screen.” XicanIndie FilmFest Director Daniel Salazar and Metro State Department of Chicano Studies Chair Vicente C. DeBaca will lead the panel, which will explore the film industry’s historical acceptance of marginalization and what is being done to challenge it.

El Centro Su Teatro Executive Artistic Director Anthony J. Garcia teaches a Latino film class at Metro, and the subject of media marginalization is important to him. “A lot of progress has been made,” he said. “You now see people of color in a wide variety of roles, and there are more opportunities to produce and direct also. But the big money and big decision making are still in the same hands.”

Editor’s note: I Don’t Have To Show You No Stinking Badges opens Feb. 15 and runs through March 24 at El Centro Su Teatro, 4725 High St. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8:05 p.m. For tickets and more information, call El Centro Su Teatro at 303-296-0219, or e-mail badges@suteatro.org.