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Parker: Webisodes offer theater's fun bits

By Penny Parker, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 20, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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How do you attract a younger audience to the theater - a cultural institution primarily patronized by aging baby boomers and beyond? Hire a kid with a Harvard pedigree.

Meet Charlie Miller, a 23-year-old wunderkind, who recently accepted the newly minted job as resident multimedia specialist at the Denver Center Theatre Company.

"I see my job as bringing theater and new media together in different ways," Miller said. "We're putting video on the Internet to help attract younger people and new audiences to the theater. We're hoping an online video will catch on with the YouTube crowd, and to spread virally."

The ink on Miller's visual and environmental studies degree may barely be dry, but this is a creative thinker showing some clever clips in his online video series 10 Minutes to Curtain.

"We were talking about different ways I can work with the different departments in the Theatre Company to show a lot of interesting things people don't know about," he said. "They gave me unlimited access and a camera, and I came up with 10 Minutes to Curtain."

If you go to YouTube.com/denvercenter, you can catch the first two webisodes that are posted monthly on the first Tuesday.

In the first webisode, Miller conducted a 30th anniversary scavenger hunt to find the person who had worked for the DCTC all 30 years, followed resident actor and The Trip to Bountiful star Kathy Brady through her pre-show routine in makeup and wardrobe and interviewed the director of Glengarry Glen Ross.

The second webisode includes viewer suggestions, including an interview with resident actor David Iverson, the voice of the turn-off-your-cell-phone reminder in the theaters. He also filmed a "trust walk" around Denver with the two lead actors in The Miracle Worker, the play about Helen Keller and her mentor Annie Sullivan.

But you don't have to wait monthly to get more glimpses into Miller's mind in DCTC snippets. Bonus Features are also posted on the site such as the Glengarry Glen Ross Curse Word Symphony, which is a string of f-, s- and a-bombs from the play set to music.

"I'm trying to do things that would appeal to younger people that are silly and fun." 10 Minutes to Curtain will have its own page on the dcpa.org Web site, which will relaunch with a new design in January.

UP FREEBIE: Today Show travel editor Peter Greenberg will discuss his new book Don't Go There highlighting Must-Miss Places of the World during a free event at 5 this afternoon at the Denver Woman's Press Club, 1325 Logan St. He will be signing the book beginning at 7:30 p.m. at the Tattered Cover on Colfax Avenue.

FREE LAUGHS: Need something to laugh about during these dark economic times? Comedy Works South invites you and as many pals as you can gather to try out the new club in the Landmark project near Belleview and I-25. Book dinner at Lucy, the restaurant upstairs from the club, and for each entree ordered, you get free admission to a show through Dec. 4. For information and reservations, call 720-274-6800.

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Spotted on the Dependable Cleaners sign on First Avenue in Cherry Creek - "If your clothes aren't becoming to you, they should be coming to us."

EAVESDROPPING on a woman and a man at Green Valley Ranch Golf Course: "Is your signature worth anything?"

"It is on a check."

Penny Parker's column appears Tuesday through Saturday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-AM (630).

Comments

  • November 24, 2008

    8:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    JeffBach writes:

    Good read here. Creating new media content for the theater-going demographic could well be leading the way for others who are in similar circumstances, but are uncertain about audience interest in this form of entertainment media. I am very curious about how this turns out. Compliments to DCTC - you are taking a risk and leading the way!
    Jeff Bach
    Quietwater Films
    Madison, WI.