Feature: An Act of God has God Taking The Stage
December 16, 2016
“For 90 minutes I laughed continually. I wasn’t expecting to, but I certainly did.” -CBS4’s Critic at Large Greg Moody.
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“For 90 minutes I laughed continually. I wasn’t expecting to, but I certainly did.” -CBS4’s Critic at Large Greg Moody.
Doug’s got a pretty light touch, so it still sounds like Shakespeare. We’re not saying, ‘Yo, dude!’ or anything,” Kent says. “I really think the goal is to create scripts that are a little less legwork for the actor and a little more accessible to the modern ear.
Twenty years after his arrival at the Denver Center, Geoff Kent is as busy as any kid ever was trying to break into the business. In short, he continues to practice pretty much every theatre discipline he ever learned – at the same time.
Geoffrey Kent directed the play, and Lindsey Kyler stars in it as Dromia of Syracuse. They spoke with Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner.
Collins already has committed to three longtime Denver Center favorites: Geoffrey Kent, Sam Gregory and Josh Robinson, as well as Creede Repertory Theatre’s Emily Van Fleet.
Geoffrey Kent is a busy guy. He’s playing Don Pedro in this summer’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of Much Ado About Nothing, and he’s doing a couple of roles in Henry V. And Talbot in Henry VI, Part One. He’s also the fight director for all these shows, making sure feats of swordplay aren’t marred by actual stabbings. And starting Friday, he’ll be portraying Iago in Othello. The pace of summer repertory theater is blistering, one of the best workouts a theater person can get.
“What I love about Shakespeare’s romances,” says Kent, musing on The Tempest, “is they contain the best of the tragedies and the best of the comedies. The play is able to swing from line to line from wonderful comedy to gripping tragedy, and that feels very human to me.”
“The other comedies are laced with history jokes and jokes on the reign of the current queen,” Mr. Kent said. ” ‘Midsummer’ doesn’t have any of that. You don’t need footnotes to understand why it’s so funny.”
“It’s magic, it’s the art of misdirection,” says Kent, president of the Society of American Fight Directors. “I’ve got to chop a hand off in plain sight. The audience knows I didn’t really do it — but for one split second they have to believe it.”
“Theater can be entertaining, surprising, and even gut-wrenching—but to be successful, all performances have to be believable. Meet Geoffrey Kent, one of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s primary fight directors, who orchestrates the swordplay and gun battles onstage.”
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