Here are six promising options to consider.

Alma Thomas, “Composing Color,” Denver Art Museum, Sept. 8 through Jan. 12.

Alma Thomas was a great painter with an even better story. Wide recognition only came to her later in her life, after she retired from decades as a schoolteacher in Washington, D.C., and major museums and galleries caught on. Thomas, who died in 1978 at the age of 86, went from being an inspiration to generations of kids to an international art star whose paintings now sell for millions of dollars at auction. This traveling exhibition of her abstract canvases is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which has considerable holdings of her work. The paintings show the artist’s skill at using hyphenated, acrylic marks to capture deep emotion and boundless energy.

Location: 100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway. More info: 720-865-5000 or denverartmuseum.org.

Verdi Requiem, Colorado Symphony, Oct. 18-20

This production of Verdi’s choral masterpiece is special for two reasons. First, it is meant to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Colorado Symphony Chorus, which debuted back in 1984 with the same piece of music. Second, it marks the final concert of Duain Wolfe, the chorus’ founder and a beloved institution on the local classical scene. Wolfe outlasted seven separate chief conductors of the symphony during his tenure. It will be a bittersweet weekend, no doubt. Guest conductor Alexander Shelley will be on the podium.

Location: Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex. More info: 303-623-7876 or coloradosymphony.org.

Ethel + Robert Mirabal, “The Red Willow,” Oct. 14

The Lakewood Cultural Center does not get the regional recognition it deserves. Its annual LCC Presents series has consistently produced gems across the disciplines of music, dance and family entertainment for two decades now, making the suburbs a much more interesting place than they were back in the day. This concert is a good example of LCC Presents at its most interesting. Ethel is one of the top contemporary classical music quartets on the touring circuit, and Mirabal, who hails from the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, is among the most respected flute players and music makers in the country. Expect a night of sincere, and ethereal, sounds. The concert is meant to coincide with Indigenous Peoples Day.

Location: 470 S. Allison Parkway, Lakewood. More info: 30-398-77845 or lakewood.org.

“Movements Toward Freedom,” Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Sept. 20-Feb. 2

The MCA is taking a real risk with this show, filling its galleries for more than four months with a high-concept exhibit that looks at the way body movement acts as a form of creative expression across artistic disciplines. This group show, curated by Leilani Lynch, has varied participants, including well-known names like Senga Nengudi and Ronny Quevedo, but also local artists, such as Laura Shill and Ben Coleman. The draw here is that much of the art will be activated through performances during the run of the show. One highlight: an installation by Brendan Fernandes that will resemble a dance studio where performers can interact with his three-dimensional works. This is the kind of adventurous move that deserves support from local art lovers.

Location: 1485 Delgany St. More info: 303-298-7554 or mcadenver.org.

“Sleeping Beauty,” Colorado Ballet, Oct. 4-13

The Colorado Ballet is expecting a sell-out for its eight performances of “Sleeping Beauty” — remarkable, really, for a title that has been around since 1890. This production goes back to the basics of the work, with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and movement by Marius Petipa, and the type of big, magical sets that keep customers coming for ballet’s biggest numbers. Everybody knows the story, and the Colorado Ballet knows to keep this work traditional in every way. This is a family-friendly event.

Location: Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex. More info: 303-837-8888, ext. 2 or coloradoballet.org.

Ivalas Quartet, Sept. 24 and 25

Friends of Chamber Music is offering a lot of options for formal events this season, including promising concerts by the Takács Quartet and soprano Karen Slack. But these two concerts, featuring the emerging musicians of the Ivala Quartet, are a small and welcome special attraction. On Sept. 24, the quartet, which fuses sounds from various genres, will take the stage at downtown’s Dazzle Denver, a venue more traditionally known for straightforward jazz.  The next night, they move a few streets over for a second show at the landmark Clocktower theater, which will center around Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2. The ensemble is just off a residency at the Juilliard School in New York City, and this is a chance to — two chances, really — to catch them before they become famous.

More info on both events: 303-388-9839 or friendsofchambermusic.com.

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But tensions remain high in the neighborhoods around Ford, which hosted its first-ever concerts just north of Colorado Springs in August. Residents used an anonymous reporting app from the city to register more than 600 complaints in the first two weeks. Since then, they say the noise has kept them up at night, rattled their windows and made recent shows by OneRepublic, Primus and John Fogerty too easy to hear from their properties.

“We’re encouraged but skeptical,” said Jerry McLaughlin, 64, who spoke at the Aug. 27 meeting. “The trust has been broken, because what (Ford’s owners are) doing and what they said are two different things. The proof is in what they do next.”

McLaughlin is the president of the Sun Hills Homeowners Association, which represents residents in northern El Paso County between Colorado Springs and Monument. He and others said Ford’s owner, Venu, is making their lives miserable and ruining property values with uncontrolled noise streaming out of the amphitheater on concert nights.

“It’s really irritating when people say, ‘Well, you should have done something about this when it was announced,’ ” McLaughlin said. “And people did. They raised all kinds of holy hell (with city officials) and it got blessed anyway. To put that facility right smack dab where it is surrounded by houses on all sides … it doesn’t make sense.”

How it works at other venues

Officials who oversee other concert venues, like Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Fiddler’s Green, and Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, said there is no one-size-fits-all approach to fixing the problem.

Every venue and neighborhood has unique issues in trying to balance laws, homeowners’ rights, multimillion-dollar concerts, and commercial development, they said. At Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, which hosted four consecutive, highly lucrative Phish shows over Labor Day weekend, the venue predated all but a few homes in the area just north of Denver’s Central Park neighborhood, said Commerce City spokesman Travis Huntington.

“Until Beeler Park was built east of the (stadium) about six years ago, there was nobody really close to it,” he said of Dick’s, which is owned by Commerce City and operated by Kroenke Sports Enterprises. It mostly hosts sporting events but also fireworks and the occasional post-game concert.

“We have a good relationship with the venue and the newer neighbors, who are technically in Denver, and I haven’t seen hardly any complaints over the (last decade),” he said.

The situation is different at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, given that the venue has been hosting concerts for 83 years and predates the scant residences that have been built up around it in Morrison. It last updated its noise rules in 2017 in response to complaints about the increasing volume of shows there, said Brian Kitts, director of communications for Denver Arts & Venues.

“It feels like ancient history now, because there were these urban myths about how the bass in EDM (electronic dance music) was causing the rocks to move,” Kitts said. “Which is just flat-out false. We took readings from all around and agreed on a set of self-imposed rules.”

That’s because, despite being located in Jefferson County, Denver Arts & Venues owns and runs Red Rocks, which is booked primarily by Denver-based AEG Presents Rocky Mountains. There was no city authority regulating them, so it fell on them to be “good neighbors,” Kitts said.

“Our noise complaints mainly come from motorcycles and cars and trucks with loud mufflers,” said Morrison police chief Bill Vinelli. “In the 2 and 1/2 years I’ve been chief here, I honestly cannot remember any noise complaints about the venue coming across my desk.”

The closest overall comparisons to Ford Amphitheater are Coors Field and Empower Field at Mile High, Kitts said, because there are thousands of residences within a mile of both. However, the most apples-to-apples is likely Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre, the 18,000-capacity behemoth in Greenwood Village owned and operated by promoter AEG Presents Rocky Mountains.

The Greenwood Village Police Department works with Fiddler’s management on safety and security at and around the venue, per the city’s annexation agreement passed by Greenwood Village City Council in 2006.

“As part of this agreement, police monitor noise complaints received through a dedicated complaint phone line and handle each complaint on a case-by-case basis,” according to a statement provided to The Denver Post Megan Copenhaver of the city manager’s office.

City records show the venue received a total of 7 noise complaints in 2023 — or about .1% of the 600-plus that Ford received in the first two weeks after opening.

No longer an outlier

The situation in Colorado Springs may take a while to settle.

The El Paso County District Court in June had dismissed Northside Neighbors’ complaint, ruling that the City’s local noise ordinance and its allowance for “hardship permits” trump state law, according to sunsetlawsuit.org. Northside has appealed the ruling to the Colorado Court of Appeals, and oral arguments are set for this month, they said.

Ford operates under an agreement with Colorado Springs that allows it to exceed the usual 50-55 decibel (dB) limit placed on outside, human-made sounds in residential areas. Fifty dB is equivalent to normal conversation levels, car traffic or kitchen appliances. But thanks to its Noise Hardship Permit, the city raised that significantly. The agreement states that amplified sounds are not allowed to exceed more than 110 dB for five minutes at a time, or average out to 105 dB for the same amount of time.

However, each increase of 10 on the decibel scale is a tenfold increase in sound intensity and a doubling of perceived loudness, according to tech-pharmaceutical company Merck.

Sustained sounds above 110 dBs can permanently harm hearing, with examples of that volume level including jets, leaf blowers and car horns, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Residents also launched the Ford Hurts Families website, which features a noise-complaint form and sign-up page for a newsletter. Around 43,000 people in the Northgate, Flying Horse, Greyhawk, Gleneagle, Jackson Creek, Fox Run and elsewhere could be affected by the issue, the website says.

About 80% of respondents to a recent survey by Sun Hill Homeowners Association said they have been impacted negatively by the amphitheater, according to the document. Their complaints echo those that have proliferated online and in news media reports about the venue that hosted its first concert Aug. 11.

They’re continuing to explore options such as reintroducing a class-action lawsuit against owner Venu, formerly known as Notes Live, and its owner JW Roth.

However, the city has already affirmed the venue’s permits — including the noise hardship permit that lasts until October and allows it to exceed the city’s 50 decibel (dB) limit in residential areas. Further testing has affirmed compliance, officials said.

“Nevertheless, we all recognize the need to try alternative mitigation strategies to address noise,” city officials and Venu said in a joint statement after the Aug. 27 city council meeting. “Today we identified short and long-term strategies that aim to reduce unintentional impact on our community. We ask for the community’s patience and grace as additional research is conducted and these actions are developed and applied.”

Those strategies include canceling all fireworks — minus possibly Independence Day — increasing its “sound wall” depth, and conducting further third-party studies. A lot is at stake, all agreed. However, Venu owner Roth has suggested that the resistance is overblown.

“I am in no way dismissive of people’s concerns,” Roth told The Denver Post last month. “But when we made the decision to build this and started the process with the city, 50 or so residents hated the idea of it being there. So I’m guessing those same 50 people put the opening date on their calendar and circled it so they could call in and complain about the noise.”

Ford Amphitheater works in partnership with AEG Presents, which brings in top-name acts just before and after they’ve played other major venues, such as Red Rocks Amphitheatre. As the region’s dominant booker, AEG Presents and Ford have a stake in making the venue’s money back (terms of the naming rights deal from Colorado Ford dealerships have not been disclosed).

AEG Presents operates and books the 8,000-seat amphitheater, while Venu controls the property — which is slated to soon host a whiskey bar and upscale chophouse, Roth said. AEG declined to make officials available for comment, but said in a statement that “we will be examining all options over the coming days. We are excited about our future in Colorado Springs and an ongoing, positive dialogue with the community.”

“The houses were here before the venue,” said McLaughlin of Sun Hill Homeowners Association. “But we’re in unincorporated Colorado Springs so we don’t get to vote in city elections. It’s up to us to show this is hurting families.”

“We don’t want to shut the thing down,” he added. “We know it has a huge benefit to everybody, and I would even love to go see some of the bands. But I can’t in good conscience support it until they fix this.”

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Peyton, the Hall-of-Fame Broncos quarterback who led the team to its last Super Bowl victory in 2016, and brother Eli show up on stage in the roughly 10-minute video, which “required a number of top secret operations in the city, including set building, choreography and rehearsals, and a number of other actors on stage with the brothers, plus a full ‘audience’ in attendance,” according to a statement.

“The four-hour shoot day saw Peyton and Eli sing and dance their musical numbers live, while separately laying down additional vocal tracks in a full studio recording session,” a publicist for Omaha Productions wrote. Kent Denver is an exclusive private school for grades six-12 that is located at 4000 E. Quincy Ave. in Cherry Hills Village.

So how did they fare?

Let’s just say they shouldn’t quit their day jobs. In the video, which promotes Season 4 of their alternate-live television broadcast of Monday Night Football, the brothers lean on celebrity cameos for the relatively elaborate production. That includes Bob Iger, CEO of a little company called Disney, to start.

“Can you just get us a theater?” Peyton asks, his Emmy Award for “ManningCast” in the background, of Iger in his sudden quest to get a Tony Award.

Not all of it was filmed in Denver, of course. Deadline reports that production began right after the Pro Bowl in February, and some of the L.A.-based cameos are spliced into the stage show; see Kevin Hart, Snoop Dogg, Bill Burr, Pete Davidson and Jimmy Kimmel. Plus, of course, NFL regulars such as Sean McVay, Ja’Marr Chase, and Andy Reid.

Watch the parade of weirdness above, or on YouTube.

Manning last week also announced a show interviewing actor and writer Larry David, of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” at Denver’s Paramount Theatre on Sept. 20.

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Guitarist Marc Ribot has made some memorable Denver area appearances, including a fantastic show with his band Los Cubanos Postizos at the Gothic Theatre in 1999. He’s been back a handful of times since, but his upcoming Sept. 20 performance at the Mercury Café promises to be one of his most incendiary yet. Ribot will be teaming up with another celebrated guitarist, Mary Halvorson, who’s been the deserved recipient of a lot of acclaim recently. The quartet fills out with bassist Hilliard Greene and drummer Chad Taylor, both well-versed in creative expression. For those who crave the sound of surprise in their music, this is an experience not to be missed. The committed folks at Creative Music Works are presenting, and your support of shows like this can mean there will be more adventurousness coming our way. Tickets range from $27-$37, at humanitix.com.

Local trumpeter Joshua Trinidad has made a name for himself in the field of ambient music, and his contemplative sound on the horn merges with electronic soundscapes quite nicely, as is the case with his new release, “Resurgence.” Like the best ambient works, Trinidad’s recordings can be both soothing and otherwordly, depending on his approach. He takes his time unspooling thoughtful solos, and if you like what the late Jon Hassell did (as well as some ’70s Miles Davis), there’s much to absorb in Trinidad’s music. He’ll bring his quartet to Denver’s Dazzle on Sept. 21 at 9:30 p.m. Dazzledenver.com has details and tickets.

Pianist Art Lande is a legend living in our midst. The longtime Boulder resident has made a lot of warm music over the decades, and even recorded an impressive run of albums for the respected ECM label in the 1970s and ’80s. It’s always worth paying attention when Lande performs locally, as he will in a trio setting at the Boulder Jewish Community Center on Sept. 8. Lande is a member of the Flex Trio, with drummer Dru Heller and bassist Gonzalo Teppa. This should be an uplifting evening of music, and the press materials say the trio “embodies flexibility, flexion of muscle and mind, the reflex of heart and mood, and the inflection of a wide range of musical influences.” Don’t miss that, Boulder. Go to boulderjcc.org.

The bass clarinet is somewhat underrepresented in jazz, but in the right hands, it takes on the quality and quirks of the human voice. Jason Stein has been one of the chief practitioners on the instrument for awhile, but after a fruitful period of recordings and live performances (you might recall Stein opening for his sister, comedian Amy Schumer, at the Bellco Theater a few years back) he became much less visible. After sustaining an unnamed career-threatening injury, Stein underwent an intense period of investigating the healing arts, including cold water plunges and breathwork. These experiences led to his first recording in six years, “Anchors” (Tao Forms, out Sept. 13.)

The results are an intensely self-exploratory set. Stein is often in a more introspective mode here; his authoritative bass clarinet intuitively melds with Gerald Cleaver’s sensitive drumming and rising star Joshua Abrams’ dynamic bass. This is mindful music, and I hope to see Stein back in a Denver club soon. In the meantime, hear this next chapter in an uncompromising artist’s career.

And more jazz in Denver this month: The Jeremy Wendelin Quintet appears at Nocturne on Sept. 1. … The Buena Vista Social Orchestra plays the Paramount on Sept. 10. … Annie Booth’s Trio celebrates the release of a new album at Dazzle on Sept. 13-14. … Guitarist Julian Lage performs at the Gothic Theatre on Sept. 18.

Bret Saunders is a Colorado DJ and jazz aficionado.

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In a video posted to Facebook, McCreery played just a few notes of the song “It Matters To Her” before he stopped the Aug. 24 show to call out a man who he said had hit a woman near the front of the crowd.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, right here. That’s a lady you just hit, sir,” said McCreery, who won “American Idol” in 2011. “Absolutely not, who just hit the lady? Police? Security? Is she OK? Get the heck out of here.”

In a statement provided to The Denver Post, Colorado Department of Agriculture spokesperson Olga Robak confirmed the assault took place and that state fair security helped with crowd control. The video shows officials trying to locate the alleged assailant using flashlights.

“Y’all let the cops know who hit the lady because that’s absolutely unacceptable,” McCreery said.

Robak said the woman was evaluated onsite at the concert by an EMT and paramedic team, but declined to be transported by ambulance to a hospital. The man who allegedly assaulted her was identified by the Colorado State Fair Police that night and the case has been referred to the Pueblo County District Attorney’s Office.

Anyone who has information related to the event is encouraged to share it with Colorado State Fair Security at csf.security@state.co.us.

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Updated 3:22 p.m. Aug. 29, 2024: This story has been updated to include additional comments from the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

RENO, Nev. — Authorities said Monday that they are investigating the death of a woman at the counterculture festival known as Burning Man, which is held annually in the northern Nevada desert.

The Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said emergency personnel responded to a call about a woman found unresponsive around noon Sunday in Black Rock City — a temporary city erected for the festival, about 100 miles  north of Reno.

The Burning Man Project’s emergency services personnel were unsuccessful in attempted life-saving measures on the woman.

“Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and friends affected by this loss,” festival organizers said in a statement. “We are cooperating fully with local authorities as they investigate this incident.”

About a half-dozen other deaths have been reported at the festival since it moved from Baker Beach in San Francisco to the Black Rock desert in 1990. Last year, a 32-year-old California man died from suspected drug intoxication after being found unresponsive on the festival grounds.

Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen said in a statement that Sunday’s death will remain under investigation until a cause and manner can be determined, which will be updated at the conclusion of an autopsy.

A call to the Washoe County Regional Medical Examiner’s Office wasn’t immediately returned Monday.

Allen said the woman’s name and age won’t be released until her relatives can be notified.

The festival, which combines wilderness camping with a weeklong celebration of art for art’s sake, kicked off early Sunday after the gates had been closed for 12 hours following rain and muddy conditions.

An estimated 20,000 people were already on the playa before the gates officially opened to all ticket-holders.

Burning Man runs through Sept. 2 . Organizers expect more than 70,000 people to attend this year’s event.

Known for its colorful theme camps, towering sculptures, drum circles, art cars and avant-garde theatrics, it grew from a gathering of about 4,000 in 1995 to 50,000 in 2010 and now temporarily becomes Nevada’s third-largest city after metropolitan Las Vegas and Reno.

In 2023, the 35th annual Burning Man festival was attended by an estimated 73,000 people with an additional 95,000 participating in regional events around the world.

It was disrupted by a protest blockade that was shut down by local authorities and about a half inch of rain turned the playa into mud, making it difficult to drive and pedal bicycles.

Authorities brought in cell towers and asked attendees to stay put until the rain cleared.

Other deaths recorded at Burning Man over the years included a woman who was hit by a bus in 2014 and an attendee who fell under a trailer in 2007. In 1996, a friend of Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey was killed in a collision with a van while riding his motorcycle at night.

“For some reason, that triggered something in me,” she recounted during a phone call. “I would never have gone. Nobody was taking me to ‘The Sound of Music,’ you know? And he took us, and that triggered something.”

Around the same time, her grandmother, who also played music, started taking Gilmore to the theater. “When I graduated, she gave me a pair of season tickets for us could go together. Eventually, they were just mine. And that’s how it all started.”

That was in the 1980s. With only a couple of breaks, Gilmore has been a season ticket subscriber at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts ever since.

With its marketing muscle, the Denver Center — both its Broadway and its theater company arms — have made a fine art of building and sustaining its subscription base. That means guaranteed seats, exchange flexibility, and discounts for friends and family, and, for the Broadway division, access to the hot national tour that isn’t part of the season package. Think this fall’s “Hamilton” and next spring’s “Mean Girls.”

The bond between the DCPA and its faithful is among the reasons the premiere arts organization has seemingly rebuffed national trends and continues to rebound from the existential crisis of the pandemic. So touting the joys of the Denver Center season might be a little like preaching to the converted.

But the theater-sustaining power of the season subscription isn’t — and shouldn’t be — the sole purview of one of the region’s biggest arts institutions. The bond a subscription creates between theatergoers and the area’s smaller theaters comes with its own special qualities.

Some tangibles are obvious: time commitment, cost, a comfortable playhouse. Others, to return to the sports vernacular, are shaped by the intangibles: the camaraderie between the audience and the theater-makers.

“Our patrons are just so unique, Boulder’s a very academic place. And so, you have a lot of intellectuals that are just, they just crave this, you know, when we have new readings, new readings, it impacts the house,” said Mark Ragan, managing director of the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company. “I think we are so lucky,” he adds. “… we are so blessed at BETC because our patrons are the most loyal, wonderful, dedicated, trusting people that I’ve seen in my years of working in the theater.”

Ragan’s not alone in his affection for patrons.

“Subscribers are our super fans,” said Len Matheo, producing artistic director of Miners Alley Performing Arts Center. “They’re always there for us, through thick and thin, and we love taking care of them with our subscription packages.”

Because season subscription offers often kick-off as the current season is winding down, the revenue from those packages “brings in a big jolt of income at a time when we usually need it,” Matheo said in an email. Last week, the theater announced its 2025 season, which begins in January.

“It also helps us sell the first two weeks of a production, which can be a challenge, especially if the show is not as well-known. When you give customers a way to participate on a regular basis, you’re building community around your art!”

Looking to deepen your arts and entertainment experiences? Here are five theater companies whose artistic choices, craft and subscriptions may prove habit-forming.

The Curious Theatre Company

One expects the team at the daring company to import the goods from off-off Broadway to its digs in a former church in Denver’s Golden Triangle neighborhood. The 2024-25 season is rife with regional premieres and a bonus world premiere. Among the playwrights whose reputations keep trending upward: Dominique Morriseau, whose “Confederates” opens in November, and
Samuel D. Hunter (author of “The Whale”), whose “A Case for the Existence of God” opens in early 2025. Actor-playwright Regina Taylor’s “Exhibit” will have its world premiere in late spring.

Tangibles: This year’s season offers a four-pack of shows, starting with Selina Fellinger’s all-female political comedy “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” one of the most produced shows currently in U.S. theaters. Patrons opting for the five-show package have first dibs on Taylor’s one-woman show, which was last year’s recipient of Theatre Aspen’s Solo Flights Project Advancement Fund.

Intangibles: The company’s stated motto? “No Guts, No Story.” Yes, producing deeply engaging theater takes intestinal fortitude. What that looks like onstage comes by way of a heady mix of searing dramas and deft and timely comedies that often pose questions about who we are: to our families, our nation, each other. It also takes ducats. Single ticket sales are a wonderful measure of programming, but not the only. It is subscriptions that enable the work and the risks year-in, year-out. What’s the return on that investment? The center-staging of some of the most incisive and insightful playwrights the nation has to offer.

The Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St. 303-623-0524 and curioustheatre.org.

Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company

Season 19 will launch in late September in … wait for it … Denver when Henrik Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” — adapted by Ragan — opens at Denver Savoy Ballroom. The show will open at the Dairy Arts Center in November. Not unlike last month’s searing remount of “Grounded” — which plunged into the moral issues stirred by drone warfare — the Ibsen play engages contemporary concerns.

“It holds up a mirror to our society today,” said Ragan. “Even though it was written in 1882, it’s breathtakingly similar to what we’re going through as a country with polarization, misinformation, the rise of demagoguery. All of that’s in the play.”

Tangibles: A great value for the quality, BETC’s five-play package costs $180 and includes discounts for special productions. Recently, the company created a new tier of commitment: The Director’s Circle is an opportunity for a BETC lover to see the works, of course, but also get the perks of being a sustaining patron: special webinars with the creatives, drinks at the Dairy’s bar, a pre-season dinner with Ragan and artistic director Jessica Robblee and more.

Intangibles: The abiding affection between the company and its patrons is palpable once you walk into BETC’s home at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder or, on occasion, attend shows mounted at the Savoy in Denver. And not just because Ragan often stands in the corner of the theater personally greeting patrons as they head for their seats. Having taken the reins of the company in 2023, Ragan and Robblee have carried on a tradition of expertly produced, intellectually stimulating, engagingly performed work that invites and rewards a theatergoer’s fealty.

Betc.org.

The Catamounts

For years now, this Boulder-based company has been calling its most financially devoted fans Fat Cats. That moniker should give you an inkling that this company doesn’t mind winking. The Catamounts are playfully smart. Or smartly playful? Case in point, their current immersive show “After the End” about the search for a lost book runs, or rather ambles through, the Anythink Library in Thornton until Sept. 14.

Tangibles: The company is a week out from officially announcing its new season but expect a continuation of their civic collaborations with another Colorado history-infused work, this one unfolding in Westminster. They’ll produce a show at the Dairy Arts Center in the fall and in the new year, guests are invited to a FEED, their signature mix of a communal gathering of food, libations and performance.

Intangibles: No matter how one characterizes them, the plays, musicals and immersive experiences of this troupe based in Boulder but showing up in far-flung burgs like Westminster, Thornton or Greenwood Village will likely tickle, warm or charm you. And like the good experimenters they are, the Cats will also make you wonder about the elasticity and possibilities of the very term “theater.”

thecatamounts.org.

Local Theater Company

The Boulder-based outfit dedicated to developing new work has had a string of impressive, home-nurtured productions: GerRee Hinshaw’s solo show “Raised on Ronstadt”, the aching, Phish-inspired joyride “You Enjoy Myself,” and the blisteringly amusing and uncomfortably resonant housing parable “237 Virginia Avenue” come to mind. Earlier this month, the new season launched with a grand experiment: “We the People: The Democracy Cycle,” invited the denizens of three different cities, along with three playwrights, to craft a short play about the pressing concerns of their community.

Tangibles: Although the three, one-night engagements of “The Democracy Cycle” ended earlier this month, the rest of the season is vintage Local, starting with a production of “Stockade” in late September. Written by Andrew Rosendorf with Carlyn Aquiline, the post-WWII, early Cold-War drama focuses on the repercussions of the so-called Lavender Scare, a period of suspicion that presaged the dismissal of LBGTQ soldiers and persecution of those who went on to work in the government. Commissioned by the company, the play received a stage reading during spring’s Local Lab. So did Michelle Tyrene Johnson’s often hilarious comedy “Chasing Breadcrumbs,” set to open in February. The tiered packages are clearly defined on the Local website and, no matter which tier you opt for, they are a bargain.

Intangibles: Subscriptions help budget one’s entertainment dollars and nail down one’s calendar, but purchasing them can also reflect a deeper commitment to art, to artists, and to the culture more broadly. Co-artistic director Nick Chase described the company’s community of subscribers as “theatergoers who are interested not only in the content of a specific play, but the artistry and value system of a theater company as a whole.”

Localtheaterco.org.

Miners Alley

Goodbye Playhouse. Hello, gorgeous performing arts center. For years, Golden’s tenacious theater company peddled its enjoyable wares off the town’s main drag. With the winds of true municipal commitment at its back, it took over the town’s go-to hardware store space, rebuilt it as a theater-education complex and opened a new home with terrific sightlines, a welcoming lobby and Matheo’s local community-savvy programming.

Tangibles: The season doesn’t launch until January. So now is the perfect time to check out the subscriptions that come in a variety of packages.

Intangibles: Sitting in the raked auditorium, enjoying the story unfolding before you (the final mainstage show of the 2024 season, “School of Rock” plays through Sept. 24), it’s easy to forget how much goes into making all that happen, emotionally and fiscally. One of the great things about Miners Alley is that it’s an Actors Equity Union Theatre. This means it’s not only dedicated to putting on a show but is also committed to helping its theater-makers put food on their tables.

100 Miner’s Alley, Golden. 303-935-3044. Minersalley.com

Lisa Kennedy is a Denver-area freelancer specializing in film and theater. 

Here are five ideas for the days before and after the holiday, including free, cheap and family-friendly options. (Find more things to do at denverpost.com/things-to-do.)

Denver Food + Wine Festival

Labor Day week means the return of the Denver Food + Wine Festival, one of the city’s biggest and most popular eat-and-drink events. The Sept. 4-7 gathering features hundreds of restaurants and spirits brands. Stick around for educational seminars and the Grand Tasting. It all takes place at the Tivoli Quad, Auraria campus, 1000 Larimer St. in Denver. Tickets are $150-$225 for the Grand Tasting, with varying prices for other programs. denverfoodandwine.com

Music festivals, big and little

While Phish owns Labor Day music in Denver — with its traditional Aug. 29-Sept. 1 run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City (plenty of GA, standing-room tickets are still available at ticketmaster.com) — there’s much more on tap. Monument Lake in Weston hosts the Caveman Music Festival, Aug. 30-Sept. 1, with on-site camping and a well-booked mix of 20 indie- and ’90s alt-rock, folk, Americana and other artists. That includes sets from Kurt Vile and the Violators, the Wallflowers, Toadies, Jamestown Revival, Band of Heathens and Red Clay Strays. Tickets: $120 per day or $220 for all three days. cavemanmusicfestival.com

Also check out Levitt Pavilion’s free, all-ages festivals over Labor Day weekend, including the Rocky Mountain Tentaclefest on Aug. 30, featuring bands from punk legend Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label: Tsunami Bomb, Kulture Shock, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Dead Pioneers. Biafra, a part-time Boulderite, will host.

The next day, on Aug. 31, Dashiki Fest from the Colorado African Cultural Center has live music, arts and crafts, vendors, fashion, dance and more. Both shows are free and family-friendly. 1380 W. Florida Ave. in Denver. See levittdenver.org for more free, all-ages shows.

Outdoor movies, fading fast

Movies under the stars won’t last much longer, with series such as Denver Film’s popular Film on the Rocks already wrapped up as of Aug. 19. Avanti Food and Beverage Denver’s free series will screen “Legally Blonde” on its patio on Aug. 29 (avantifandb.com), while Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace hosts Film on the Field with Aug. 31’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” (stanleymarketplace.com). Evergreen Park and Recreation has “Barbie” at Buchanan Park Field on Aug. 30 for its latest Family Movie Night (evergreenrecreation.com).

Golden’s Parfet Park will also have “Barbie” on Sept. 6, and 88 Drive-In’s Retro Week features “Grease” and “Dirty Dancing,” through Sept. 29 ($10 per person, children under 12 free; facebook.com/88drivein).

The crack of the bat

Colorado Rockies diehards and and visiting-team fans tend to equal each other in number at Coors Field most days. But whether you love the Blake Street Bombers or their rivals, you’ve still got a few chances to catch a late-summer game before the Rox hit the off-season. That includes their home series against the Miami Marlins, Aug. 26-29, followed by more games against the Baltimore Orioles, Aug. 30-Sept. 1. Prices vary (wildly). (mlb.com/rockies/schedule)

Last call for theme parks

While theme parks tend to reopen during lucrative holiday weekends to capture Halloween and Christmas traffic, their primary runs are swiftly coming to an end. Just as pools empty over Labor Day weekend, so does Water World in Federal Heights, the 50-attraction water park that ends its regular seasonal hours on Sept. 2 (waterworldcolorado.com).

Elitch Gardens in downtown Denver also ends its regular season on Sept. 2, with limited weekend hours through the fall (elitchgardens.com). The historic (if often half-open) Denver theme park Lakeside Amusement Park will be open through Sept. 16 (lakesideamusementpark.com).

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It has never been an issue until this summer when a new venue in Colorado Springs sold its naming rights to the Ford Motor Company, and the Colorado Springs location chose that moniker.

Some concertgoers predicted it would be an issue. On Instagram, in a post announcing the venue’s new name, one user predicted that there would be “a lot of (upset) people who bought tickets to the wrong venue.”

Dave Dressman, the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater’s event director, said that prediction did indeed come to pass recently when concertgoers showed up in Vail to see The Beach Boys with tickets to the Colorado Springs venue. The Beach Boys played the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater on Aug. 15 and the Ford Amphitheater on Aug. 16.

Read the full story at our partner, Vail Daily.

The 8,000-seat Ford Amphitheater — previously known as Sunset Amphitheater before its naming rights were formalized in June — opened Aug. 9 with three consecutive nights of concerts from multiplatinum Colorado act OneRepublic. By Aug. 14, city officials said their anonymous reporting app had received around 170 complaints about the volume of the outdoor performances.

More than 400 new complaints were also registered after the next weekend’s concerts, Aug. 16-18, during and after sets from The Beach Boys, Walker Hayes, and Iration and Pepper (respectively), according to the city. The venue is scheduled to host shows this weekend from Lauren Daigle (Friday, Aug. 23) and Primus (Saturday, Aug. 24).

“I am in no way dismissive of people’s concerns,” said JW Roth, who owns Ford Amphitheater and its parent company, Venu (formerly Notes Live). “But when we made the decision to build this and started the process with the city, 50 or so residents hated the idea of it being there. So I’m guessing those same 50 people put the opening date on their calendar and circled it so they could call in and complain about the noise.

“We’ve been tracking more than 80,000 positive impressions online from the past two weeks, so it’s frustrating to have this be so lopsided,” he added. “I’ve personally heard nothing but raves.”

In addition to the complaints registered with the city, the Next Door app and social media sites host dozens of poor reviews of the venue’s opening weekend, with residents citing consecutive sleepless nights and audible disturbances even with their windows closed.

“I’m a Northgate resident. I just got to hear (OneRepublic) play last night. I live 2.8 miles away from the amphitheater, but I could hear every word of their last song very clearly,” user nillywillCOS wrote on the r/Colorado Reddit thread. “They build a high-end venue with fire pits, luxury seating, and the added traffic congestion, but don’t give a second thought to the residents that have to hear it.”

The amphitheater is located at 95 Spectrum Loop in Colorado Springs, just east of I-25 and the Air Force Academy.

While multiple complaints may have come from the same people or household, Roth said, it’s hard to be sure since the app is anonymous and complaints are self-reported. This week, Venu released a report from a third-party sound measurement company, LSTN Consultants, that set up listening devices at the venue’s perimeter. The results show that the amphitheater is in full compliance with the agreed-upon limits, Roth said.

Ford Amphitheater operates under an agreement with Colorado Springs that allows it to exceed the usual 50-55 decibel (dB) limit placed on outside, human-made sounds in residential areas. Fifty dB is equivalent to normal conversation levels, car traffic or kitchen appliances. But thanks to its Noise Hardship Permit, the city raised that significantly.

The Ford Amphitheater agreement states that amplified sounds are not allowed to exceed more than 110 dB for five minutes at a time, or average out to 105 dB for the same amount of time. However, each increase of 10 on the decibel scale is a tenfold increase in sound intensity and a doubling of perceived loudness, according to tech-pharmaceutical company Merck.

Sustained sounds above 110 dBs can permanently harm hearing, with examples of that volume level including jets, leaf blowers and car horns, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

While there’s an open city investigation related to the complaints, the current sense is that the venue did not violate the limits in its development plan, which was approved by the city council, said Max D’Onofrio, public communications specialist for Colorado Springs

“Ford Amphitheater has been granted a permit which authorizes it to exceed the City noise limits (City Code § 9.8.104) during upcoming events,” according to a statement he provided to The Denver Post. “The data voluntarily shared by the amphitheater shows the decibel levels during the opening weekend were below the allowable limit in the development plan. As an extra step, the City monitored decibel levels to gather its own data. The numbers the City recorded were comparable to what we received from the amphitheater.”

Roth admitted that he can sometimes hear train horns 15 to 20 miles away in Palmer Lake. That’s because the distance that sound travels can be affected by weather, as strong winds tend to carry sounds over greater distances.

“On Saturdays I can hear the marching band at the Air Force Academy from my house, and it’s not any louder than ours is, but it’s a different type of sound than people are used to hearing,” he said.

Metro Denver residents have lodged noise complaints over the years against a range of outdoor musical events, from concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison to sidewalk shows outside Wax Trax Record Store in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and various festivals. Each city has different rules, but they try to balance residential concerns with those of the band and fans who come to see them, promoters have said.

Complaints from Morrison residents forced a new sound limit at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in 2014, following the proliferation of bass-heavy, electronic dance music at the 9,545-seat venue. One of the rules stated that the music should not exceed 105 dBs for one-minute averages after midnight on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends and holidays. Another addressed the rumbling nature of the bass — low-frequency sounds tend to travel farther, officials said — and set the limit at 125 dBs at 25-80 hertz for one-minute averages during similar time periods. (Note: Red Rocks show generally don’t go past midnight these days, according to Denver Arts & Venues.)

Roth has reason to act as a good neighbor, even beyond ticket sales. He’s still building out the Ford Amphitheater site and hopes to fill his upcoming seafood and chophouse restaurant and bar with people eating steak and drinking premium whiskey, whether they’re attending the show that night or not. For now, that site is filled by a 50-foot sound wall intended to further block music from leaving the venue.

“We’re constantly fine-tuning our systems but we’ve been open for literally two weeks, so we’re just now learning the best way to do some things,” he said. “But I don’t get to say, ‘Oops, sorry about that!’ I have to make sure we’re reducing the effects of our (concerts) as best we can. And while I want to emphasize that I do take these seriously, I also think we just need time to become part of the ambient noise you already hear every day, because then people will notice it less.”

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