Denver's homeless play inspiring role

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Originally published 03:00 p.m., May 9, 2008
Updated 06:33 p.m., May 9, 2008

Michael Ensminger

Cast members in Curious Theatre Company's The Denver Project dress like people on Denver's streets.

A young woman who goes by "Angel" was telling her story to Steve Sapp. She'd been a teenage prostitute and drug user, clean for one year and now living in a safe house provided by Providence Network.

Sapp and his wife, Mildred Ruiz, were trying to learn something about what it means to be homeless in Denver in preparation for their new play, The Denver Project.

"So how do you feel about us trying to write a play?" asked Sapp, his eyes smiling and his face framed by dreadlocks fringed with gray.

Angel suggested a story line.

"Maybe a lost girl who only knows men, and maybe she finds her way. I don't know if you're going to use God in her play," said Angel, 23, who had found God through Providence.

"You tell me, what challenges do women face that men don't face?" asked Dee Covington, who would direct the play commissioned by Curious Theatre Company.

"We struggle a lot more with emotions," Angel answered. "Do you guys believe in God?"

Covington and Sapp nodded.

"Yeah, you're good here," Covington said to Angel.

A different approach

Sapp and his wife have made their career taking theater into unfamiliar corners.

Their theater company, Universes Poetic Theatre Ensemble, is based in the South Bronx, about five miles and a light year from Times Square. Rather than traditional scripts, they blend music, spoken-word poetry and movement in a style the two have evolved since they met at Bard College more than 20 years ago.

The couple first worked with Curious two years ago, when they contributed a scene to The War Anthology. Artistic director Chip Walton suggested they work together again, which resulted in The Denver Project, a leap from the usual narrative-based Curious project.

"We fuse a lot of things together, so we kind of are bringing our Universes aesthetic into working with this company," Ruiz says.

Over the past year, Sapp and Ruiz not only researched the lives of homeless people in Denver, they worked with Curious actors through a number of workshops. Some caught on immediately; others "really didn't get it," Sapp says.

"In their minds, it's this hip-hop thing from New York. Strip all this stuff away, and we're just artists."

A lifetime of drugs

A few blocks from the women's safe house, Sapp visits a men's residence, where "Shawn," a Houston native, has been staying.

Since getting busted for a huge quantity of LSD in his teens, Shawn has been in and out of group homes and rehab. He overdosed in Virginia with a crack pipe in his mouth and a needle in his arm, he says. He got sober, but then found out his sponsor was using drugs.

At the same time, Shawn suffered from epilepsy and had regular seizures. Now 34, he'd been in the home for a month when he met Sapp.

"I have twin boys that I haven't held in my arms since they were born," Shawn said. "I don't even know where they're at. I just know they're in Texas."

Behind the project

The Denver Project incorporates poetry, gospel and jazz, interspersed with the central story of a man intent on dressing up Denver's parking meters - in clothing - for the Democratic National Convention. His home is the street, and he wants it to look its best.

In addition to meeting with Denver's homeless population, Ruiz and Sapp dove into the research. She read 10-year plans, studies and magazines. He rode the bus, walked the streets and sat in on a city committee meeting.

"I sat there for three hours and watched all these people talk around a big table, and nothing was done," he says.

The cast will look like Denver, with actors of different skin tones and different ages. Akil Luqman, who played young Simba in the national tour of The Lion King, joins the company.

"There's a young kid in the play because there's a huge youth population here that's homeless," Sapp says.

Learning the city

"I'm not from Denver; I'm from New York, the South Bronx," Sapp told "Flower," another resident at Providence Network.

"Every place is different, so I'm trying to get a sense of Denver. I just kind of roam around during the day and night. The first night I ever spent in Denver I ended up on Colfax and I thought, 'Oh good God, here's where the drama is.' "

Flower knew plenty about Colfax. She'd lived there, using drugs and having sex for money, since leaving her mother's house. She and her friends called themselves Alley Kids, and they sustained themselves by dumpster diving. Flower knew that the best time to hit 7-Eleven was at 2 a.m., when she could score free food.

Being a prostitute, she said, wasn't like a TV show.

"We dressed in baggy pants. You're not walking down the street wearing high heels and short skirts. It's not like that," she explained.

"The drugs are out there, and that makes life a lot easier when you're on the street. It kills the time, and you don't have to worry about where you're gonna sleep. Because if you're smoking, you're not sleeping."

Sapp explains The Denver Project to Flower.

"My wife and I don't do it traditional. It's not what we call on-the-couch plays. We're poets, and we're from the blocks, from the streets," he says.

"The average person who goes to a play, what do you want them to hear, what do you want them to know?"

"Everyone should be homeless for once in their life," Flower answers. "It can be sad; it can be funny."

bornsteinl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5101

The Denver Project

* When and where: Opens at 8 p.m. today; then 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays (and May 18), through June 21, Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St.

* Cost: $13 to $32

* Information: 303-623-0524

• May 9, 2008

  4 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  TheDenverB writes:

  cool!

• May 10, 2008

  12:39 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Kanary writes:

  The play is about homelessness, but it only includes prostitutes, drug addicts, and maybe a child????

  *That* is the extent of their understanding of homelessness?

  OR.. is that only the slant the reporter WANTS to use?

  Either way, this is a horrible disservice to thousands of people who are homeless in this area!

  The BIG problem, which probably isn't brought up in the play, is THE LACK OF LOW-INCOME HOUSING.

  Until citizens of Denver and these United States, want to correct that, there will be millions of us homeless people.

  AND, know this.. MOST of us AREN'T protitutes, drug addicts, mentally ill... in short, it COULD BE YOU!

• May 14, 2008

  7:03 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  tyee80206 writes:

  Kanary, thank you for your comments on what you feel is most important about homelessness. I think you have a very valid point. I would also like to say, as an actor in the show, it is about more than just prostitutes, drug addicts and the mentally ill. I think you will find the show to be much more fulfilling than that. We do talk-backs every night, and I would love to have you come and see the show so we could discuss what you think, because the show has definitely made me realize that it could be me. None of us are that far removed.