New Dazzle to rekindle spirit of old El Chapultepec | Arts news

Dazzle, Denver’s premiere jazz club, not only starts a new life next week in the Denver Performing Arts Complex, it is, in its way, also bringing back to life the greatest blues club in Denver history.

On Friday and Saturday, Aug. 4-5, Dazzle will officially make the move into its new home at 1080 14th St. (at the corner of Arapahoe Street) with historic opening performances by René Marie and Dawn Clement. And that makes the historic closing performance at its present location in the historic Baur’s building to be Same Cloth at 7 p.m. this Saturday night (July 29). That will end a six-year run and more than 2,000 performances at 1512 Curtis St.

Tickets for the all-ages opening concerts are $15-$45 and are available at dazzledenver.com.

The other big news of the week is the new Dazzle will make a home for an El Chapultepec legacy project in honor of the legendary blues club that operated for 87 years at 20th and Market streets before closing in December  2020. The new El Chapultepec Piano Bar at Dazzle will host “The Late Set” from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Thursdays through Saturday nights starting in the fall. That means thousands of theater, opera, symphony and dance patrons will finally have a late-night, post-show entertainment option just steps away from where their performances let out in the arts complex. The new Dazzle takes the place of the former Onyx nightclub.

Earlier this month, former El Chapultepec owners Angela Guerrero and Anna Diaz launched thepeclegacy.com. “The website is a place for the community to reminisce, watch our short documentary, browse photographs, share your (El Chapultepec) stories and buy merch,” said Guerrero. That’s one way of looking back. “But the new piano lounge will be a place to look forward,” added Diaz.

While Dazzle hosts ticketed events showcasing a variety of local, national and international touring acts, El Chapultepec was a casual space for musical improvisation and surprise sit-ins, with never a cover charge. “This partnership is designed to elevate the best that both clubs have to offer Denver,” said Dazzle owner Donald Rossa. In keeping with the tradition, there will be no cover charge for “The Late Set."

So do you think T.D. can dance?

Former Denver Broncos Super Bowl hero Terrell Davis will be one of the 13 good-humored guinea pigs participating in Cleo Parker Robinson Dance’s annual “Dancing With The Denver Stars” education fundraiser on Aug. 12.

What’s funny is that the local dance community is just about the only place where the name Terrell Davis might be legitimately confused. Denver has a highly accomplished dancer named Terrell Davis. He’s the founder of the eponymous Davis Contemporary Dance Company and co-director of Denver School of the Arts. He is to “Dancing with the Denver Stars” what T.D. is to flag football: A ringer. He’d flatten the competition like it was the 1998 Atlanta Falcons’ secondary.

The evening is modeled after the TV show, so the footballer Davis is learning to bust a Broncos move under the patient tutelage of company dancer Ralaya Goshea. The varied celebrity lineup includes Northglenn Mayor Meredith Leighty, Colorado state House Rep. Naquetta Ricks, Denver Botanic Gardens CEO Brian Vogt and CBS4 anchor Michelle Griego. On the 12th, each team will present their two-minute performances before an audience of more than 700 at the Hilton Denver City Center at 17th and California streets. As of this writing, there are only 25 seats left, priced at $275 each, but there is a $50 streaming option at charlie.amberplains.com.

17-year-old to make Denver Center debut

One name jumped off the page when the DCPA Theatre Company announced the cast for its season-opening production of the Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music”: Sophia Dotson will be sharing the role of Fredrika Armfeldt with fellow Denverite Sydney D’Angelo. Dotson not only became the youngest winner of a Henry Award when she starred in “Fun Home” at Miners Alley Playhouse in 2018, when she was 12, she followed that by playing Fredrika in a local production of “A Little Night Music” at Cherry Creek Theatre.

Dotson, who is about to start her senior year at Grandview High School, last week starred as Regina George in a big-time Broadway Workshop production of “Mean Girls Jr.” in New York. That is considered to be New York's top training for young actors.

Other local actors cast in “A Little Night Music” include Jennifer DeDominici of Central City Opera as Mrs. Anderssen; Marco Alberto Robinson, who just starred in the Denver Center’s “The 39 Steps” as a swing; and Steven C. Rich, a Nebraskan who recently moved to Denver, as Mr. Lindquist. Also returning is former company favorite Leslie Alexander as Madame Armfeldt. The show, directed by Artistic Director Chris Coleman, runs Sept. 1-Oct. 8 in the Wolf Theatre.

She’s on radium, er, fire

Monday was a big night for the Springs Ensemble Theatre, which won the first Henry Award in its history for actor Sarah Sheppard Shaver’s performance in “The Revolutionists.” She’s also an accomplished director, and here’s something you don’t see every day: She’s directing the same play for a second Colorado theater company in five months.

“The Half Life of Marie Curie,” like “The Revolutionists,” is written by Lauren Gunderson and tells the story of a scandal that haunted Marie Curie, the Nobel Prize-winning discoverer of radium, and her suffragette confidant, Hertha Ayrton. Sheppard Shaver helmed a production at Colorado Springs Theatreworks in March, and she’s doing so again with a new two-person cast – Claire Kennedy and Emma Messenger – opening Tuesday (Aug. 1) and running through Aug. 20 at Theatre Silco (formerly the Lake Dillon Theatre Company) in Silverthorne. Info at thesilco.org.

Briefly …

If you believe Season 3 was actually the best season of “Ted Lasso” of all, you are not only wise, but you are a human with a beating heart (unlike all the nasty naysayers out there). And you deserve to know that actor/writer Brett Goldstein, who played Roy Kent, is coming to Denver with his comedy show, titled “The Second Best Night of Your Life,” on Oct. 5 at the Buell Theatre. And because you are not a venal, vile cynic, I’m going to tell you that there is a presale going on right now through midnight Thursday (July 27). Which means you can score your seats before they go on sale to the general public (nasties and all) at axs.com. Use the code BRETTTDEN – but don’t share that with any of the meanies …

The 27th Annual Chicano Music Festival started on Wednesday and runs through Sunday at the Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, 721 Santa Fe Drive. A highlight will be Thursday’s 6:30 p.m. Chicano Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony and concert. Only $8. Info: 303-296-0219 or suteatro.org …

Rick Long, a busy local actor who was just hired to teach acting this fall at the University of Colorado Boulder, is also an accomplished watercolor artist. His new gallery, “Unsung,” celebrates the accomplishments of 22 impactful Colorado theater artists. Among the honorees whose portraits will be unveiled and hang in the Vintage lobby through the end of August are Vintage Board President ShaShauna Staton, red-hot local stage director Kelly Van Oosbree and Arvada Center CEO Philip Sneed. “Unsung” opens with a party at 7 p.m. Monday (Aug. 1) at the Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St. in Aurora.

And finally …

The longest, most painful rebirth in the history of creation has been my first love, the historic Elitch Theatre at 37th Avenue just west of Tennyson Street, which has been in various stages of rescue and promised reopening for 31 years. Thousands of people have dedicated tens of thousands of hours and now millions of dollars to the rescue effort, which after three decades now seems more like a taunt than a legitimate hope. But just in case it ever happens, I dutifully support all efforts to keep the preservation effort going.

This Friday (July 28), sit on the grounds outside the majestic old bird, modeled after Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and watch the family favorite film “Coco.” Come at 6 p.m. for Día de los Muertos sugar skull cookie decorating. The film follows at 8. It’s free, but throw a few bucks into the cookie jar. We all should have a dream.

OK, one last thing...

"Biome: A Queen City Biennial" is a new Denver art series celebrating fine art through community, inclusivity and biennial exhibition. It’s co-founded by former Denver Post Music and Marjuana Editor (not at the same time) Ricardo Baca, and Jason Diminich of Wish of a Lifetime. And they are throwing a public party on Saturday (July 29) for music (and art) fans who are (or aren’t) on their way to this weekend’s 23rd annual Underground Music Showcase (The UMS).

It’s billed as a “UMS Founders Party,” and it goes from 1-4 p.m. at Grasslands, a journalism-minded content agency founded by Baca, who also co-founded the UMS with – full disclosure – me (so much co-founding). Anyway, we’ve invited some booty-shakers in the local art, music and media communities to guest DJ, including Eric Robert Dallimore (Leon Gallery), Carlee Henderson (Flora Fauna Radio), David Moke (Denver Theatre District), Alisha Sweeney (Indie 102.3), and John Wenzel (The Denver Post). It’s at 100 N. Santa Fe Drive and it only costs $5 – which is exactly what I charged people to get into the very first UMS back in 2001.