2013 Rotator Archive Stories

Playwright Tennessee Williams wasn’t afraid to push some buttons. In 1947, the Broadway debut of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play “A Streetcar Named Desire” shocked with sexual and violent scenes and harsh dialogue, but it also received 30 minutes of applause, according to multiple sources. The Star Bar Players&r

The MeadowGrass Music Festival, now a staple of the Memorial Day weekend at La Foret Conference and Retreat Center in Black Forest, is back for round five. The three-day traditional and contemporary roots music congregation features national, regional and local acts. This year promises to be the biggest shindig yet, with more bands, new

Summer nights and live music seem to go together like ice cream and waffle cone. You can immerse yourself in some free tunes almost every night from May to September in parks all over the city. Pull out this list and keep it handy. HILLSIDE GARDENS SUMMER CONCERT SERIES6:30-8:30 p.m. WednesdaysHillside Gardens, 1006 S.

After the final notes disappear from the Pikes Peak Center stage on Sunday afternoon, the 2012-2013 Colorado Springs Philharmonic season will have come to its end. It will be the conclusion of what I found to be the most exciting and artistically satisfying music making ever produced by this orchestra.

Phil and Willie Robertson, co-stars of A&E’s reality TV show “Duck Dynasty,” will be in Castle Rock on Sunday for a fundraiser for The Rock Christian Academy, a small, private school in Castle Rock. The father and son will share their story of faith, family and ducks. Funds raised will go toward scholarships for students an

It’s the Buddha’s 2,556th birthday, and the party is on. The Buddhist communities of Colorado Springs will celebrate by bringing together representatives from local sanghas (groups). Guest speakers include David Gardiner, Pat Komarow, Sarah Bender and Gail Gustafson. There’ll be a guided, loving-kindness meditation, time to pon

Burn the Maps is a listen band. So says Mike Kimlicko, one of the musicians in the local four-piece acoustic folk-pop band.“We have a lot of quieter, intricate harmonies with soft guitar parts,” he said. “So, in a loud bar with a lot of people talking, playing feels pointless. But in a quiet venue, where people ca

The basement of Steve Gurnett, the president of the Pikes Peak Whittlers, is a fanciful den of wood gone wild. In a small corner studio, finished and half-finished wood projects lurk. There are the Christmas ornaments waiting to be painted by his daughter — he gives her $10 for finishing each one. A mini bookcase is filled with woo

It’s an understatement to say Josh Fox is anti-fracking. His 2010 Oscar-nominated movie “Gasland” first introduced the powerful, shocking image of people who lived near hydraulic fracturing — also called fracking — lighting their tap water on fire. He traveled the country, interviewing scores of folks who ta

Marvel’s “Iron Man 3” had the second-highest-grossing opening of all time, $174.1 million, according to Box Office Mojo.That’s second only to 2012’s Marvel’s “The Avengers” at $207.4 million.Typically, the third in a series doesn’t fare as well, but “Iron Man 3” breaks

Auditions Open for Vocal Arts Festival 2013: Opera Theatre of the Rockies

The first rule of Lunch Beat? If it’s your first lunch at Lunch Beat, you have to dance. That’s according to the Lunch Beat Manifesto. The Gallery of Contemporary Art at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs launched the lunch time dance series in December. The third one is Thursday in the Music Room at the Fine Arts Center. It&

You don’t have to be an Ibsen scholar to recognize him in the shadowy melancholy of the Norwegian playwright’s “The Wild Duck,” a solid TheatreWorks production of a dusty work, which is in its final weekend.In this adaptation by David Eldridge, Gregors Werle (Jon Barker) returns to his wealthy father’s h

And the Oscar for best actress in an Olympic twirling mode goes to — Olga Kurylenko for “To the Wonder.” In that new film by director-writer Terrence Malick, the young Ukrainian beauty is having a blissful fling with vacationing American engineer Ben Affleck in Paris. Dreamy, erotic moments abound from the outset, on a

Comedian Ron White is synonymous with Scotch and cigars. He won’t go on stage without either. For nearly three decades, he has told tales at the mic, pausing at just the right moment before throwing out the punchline and taking a healthy sip of his beverage. It was the Blue Collar Comedy Tour that really sent his star heave

Jazzy, fizzy and often quite fun, Baz Luhrmann’s “Pretty Good Gatsby” takes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel out for a sometimes dazzling, always irreverent, spin. The gauzy picture-postcard 3-D production design and superb leading players breathe life into the Jazz Age novel. But the “Moulin Rouge

“Peeples” is an African-American “Meet the Parents” that slips funnyman Craig Robinson into the Ben Stiller role. Casting the musically minded Robinson in this formula comedy about screwing up your first encounter with your potential in-laws is like replacing Stiller’s Greg Focker with Jack Black. Yeah, that

A postal clerk and a librarian — Herbert and Dorothy Vogel — made quite a name for themselves in the art world. Shortly after their wedding in 1962, they began to amass one of the country’s largest art collections, more than 4,000 pieces. A portion of that collection, which has been called a work of art in itself, was g

Title: Dead Island: RiptideFormat: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360Price: $39.99 – $49.99Publisher: Deep SilverDeveloper: TechlandESRB Rating: M (Mature 17+)The Grade: C+  What is it? A continuation of the 2011 hit zombie action RPG “D

It was true when Schubert's "Quartettsatz" ignited the concert and it was true at the evening's final cadence: the Veronika String Quartet's season ending performance was an artistic masterpiece that proffered a clear window of its three composers' visions. The setting was Ascension Episcopal Church in Pueblo and the same program will be

At 50, jazz man Chris Duarte looks back on himself at 21 — the start of his professional music career — and laughs. “I thought I was it,” Duarte said during a phone interview. “I had music figured out.” Duarte, who plays Saturday at the Crystola Roadhouse, was living in Austin, Texas, the heart

That rumbling noise to the east of town on the weekends is not thunder. Not yet. It’s the crowds of people filing in and out of Dion’s.Why are people braving long waits at the traffic light to visit Dion’s? This Albuquerque-based chain offers sandwiches, pizzas and salads. The service is friendly, even when the crow

The number 40 evokes a myriad of biblical allusions. That’s fine with the Soli Deo Gloria Choir, which is celebrating four decades of making music Saturday afternoon. Even though the 81-voice ensemble is unaffiliated with any church or religion, they have a distinct spiritual mission. “The music we sing is an art pie

When I first got interested in wine (way too long ago to admit) Spanish wine basically was a go-to choice for good values for every day drinking. Even the storied Rioja seemed an afterthought in discussions of the world’s finest wines. That seemed largely true even twenty years ago, when I first started writing about wine. Well, th

This is for fans of things that go bump in the night. Like me. I’ve always wanted to stay at The Stanley Hotel, which was famously the inspiration for Stephen King’s horror novel, “The Shining.” The Stanley Film Festival will showcase short and feature-length classic and contemporary independent horror cinema, all set at