Press/Articles
Yule window show
To experience that last item in reality, Denverites lately have had to travel to New York City, Chicago and a handful of other cities with department stores willing to invest in such big-budget offerings.
But this year is different.
Through a cooperative venture between Cherry Creek North and the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Englewood, Denver has its own top-level holiday store window for the first time in at least a couple of decades. And it’s generating a buzz locally and nationally. Click here for the full story
Puppet master Cory Gilstrap adjusts a mechanical fantasy machine. (Brian Brainerd, The Denver Post)
Museum of Outdoor Arts Holiday Windows 2008
Museum of Outdoor Arts’ “Wizard in Residence” Lonnie Hanzon has done it again! Magical Holiday Machines: The Wondrous Keep of Emry Gweldig features a display of over 100 feet of windows! Hanzon designed the elaborate display which is located at 158 Fillmore St. in Denver, Colorado’s. Windows will be on display from November 21, 2008 – January 4, 2009. Happy Holidays.
No Squidding
Nautilus: 20,000 launches a monster fish
Westword’s, Susan Froydpublished: January 22, 2004
A really big squid is part
of the scenery in Nautilus:
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Move over, Squidward: There’s a new squid in town, and he’s 27 feet long and tall enough for a grown man to stand inside him. He’s the larger-than-life creation of Denver’s self-proclaimed “puppet guy” Cory Gilstrap, who built the Bunraku-style cephalopod for the new original children’s musical at the Walden Family Playhouse, Nautilus: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, based on the undersea yarn by Jules Verne. As with all Walden projects, Nautilus is a brightly detailed production, with a big-budget creative team and the effects to match, and that’s where Gilstrap and his creature of the deep, a rightful nemesis for Nemo, come in. “I’m creating more than just a squid; I’m creating a monster,” Gilstrap says, and that’s no joke. Built from molded foam sheets, the humongous thing must be operated by two puppeteers, who conduct their horrifying business dressed as unlucky sailors caught in its tentacles. Gilstrap, a native Coloradan who set off for Hollywood at age nineteen “to seek fame and fortune,” has had plenty of practice. He first learned his craft under the tutelage of special-effects artist Rob Bottin (Legend) and ended up “puppeteering for everyone under the sun.” There were high points — he designed the beloved overstuffed “Chairry” for Pee-wee’s Playhouse — but also a lot of low ones: In Hollywood, it’s typical to toil in his field, doing contract work and receiving little recognition. He eventually returned to Denver, where he teaches puppet building, works with various theater productions and heads the board at The Other Side Arts, a local non-profit arts cooperative.Gilstrap’s squid will steal the show when Nautilus opens today at Walden, 14500 West Colfax Avenue, Colorado Mills in Lakewood; shows continue through March 14. Admission is $14 to $16; for reservations, call 303-590-1475. — Susan Froyd
"The Hobbit" (Children's)
There’s children’s theater, and there’s children’s
theater infused by the talents of Cory Gilstrap.
Colorado’s master puppeteer and his team of so-called “paduans” have created a plethora of wonderful, larger-than-life Bunraku-style puppets that elevate Backstage Theatre’s original adaptation of “The Hobbit” to a magical if all-too-brief experience for all ages.
“Puppets” seems an inadequate term to describe Gilstrap’s dynamic creations. There are three giant trolls whose heads nearly scrape the sky – or in this case, the Breckenridge theater’s roof. There is a spider larger than your average 8-year-old (and much cuter than the arthropods in your cubby hole). And there is the coup de grace, the 17-foot fiery dragon who battles protagonist Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic “legendarium” that precedes “The Lord of the Rings.”
Bunraku is an 11th-century form of Japanese puppet theater. Because of the Japanese belief that our ancestors exist among us, the puppets are manipulated by “ghostly” (though completely visible) puppeteers who manipulate all sorts of ingenious controls, adeptly maneuvered here by four cast members.
Gilstrap employed some of the same techniques with puppets for Curious’ “The Long Christmas Ride Home” in 2004.
This take on “The Hobbit” is written by and stars Backstage artistic director Christopher Willard, to whom performing in children’s theater comes as instinctively as thumb-sucking to a toddler.
Willard secured a $4,000 grant for the creation of these puppets. It’s worth it. Without them, it’s just not the same.
Bilbo Baggins (Willard) is, of course, “uncle” to Frodo (played by J.P. Devine). Uncle is happily living a safe, sedentary, dull life in Middle-earth when wizard pal Gandalf the Grey (a deceptively gray Jason Tersterman) arrives on the eve of Bilbo’s 111th birthday. Together they recount for young Frodo and pals the story of Bilbo’s one great adventure from long ago, when the hobbit became first bearer of “the ring.”
His mission was to slay the magnificent dragon monster Smaug and retrieve the dwarves’ gold. We go back with Bilbo to when he fulfilled his destiny as “the reluctant burglar,” and in doing so conquered all manner of adventurous challenges.
“The Hobbit” marks Denver actor Geoff Kent’s directorial debut. He’s better known for starring in Score Marketing’s “Urinetown” and serving as the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s fight director. But he brings an inventive sense of wonder and “why not?” spirit that imbues the storytelling with freshness. He gets great help from lighting designer Jacob Welch and Willard on sound effects, but most wonderful is his changing sense of proportion (such as when a miniaturized dragon takes flight).
All this should engage and impress “Lord of the Rings” fans of any age. The creatures may be a little too scary for the under-6 set, but for all others, this adorable prequel is a perfect introduction to children’s theater.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
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