FULL ARTICLE: 5280.com
In 2018, Meghan Frank’s family purchased the Savoy Denver, an 1889 red-brick building in Five Points. The former social hall became the home of Theatre Artibus, a company founded by Frank and her husband, Buba Basishvili (pictured), that delivers physical theater at its most piquant, precise, and poignant. “The story lives in their bodies and faces,” says Jeff Campbell, the founder and executive director of Denver’s Emancipation Theater Co., “and it takes a lot of talent to convey a narrative with that approach.” But as stewards of the Savoy, Frank and Basishvili are eager to share its stage with other companies from around the region.
As a result, the theater has become a secret gem for witnessing some of the most compelling and diverse art in the city, including this trio of shows that shined at the Savoy. —Lisa Kennedy
The Bluebird: Basishvili packed a lifetime of quandaries about dreams, belonging, and immigration into April’s The Bluebird, based on a poem by Charles Bukowski. Full of captivating pantomime, the one-person Theatre Artibus show soared under Frank’s direction and sailed on original music by the Walsenburg-based band Homospouses.
In the Pocket: The Ballad of Bobby Trombone: Set at the Rossinian Hotel in Five Points during the Jazz Age, this February 2023 play by Emancipation Theater Co. captured the history of a storied place even as the piece touched upon a decision facing so many contemporary artists as their cities become too expensive: Should I stay, or should I go?
Undone: The Lady M Project: In March 2023, Boulder’s Local Theater Company put on a Lady Macbeth–worthy show, posing fresh questions about power and privilege. But audiences were perhaps most affected by the opening pantomime of a hanging actor, an indelible image that could only have been achieved in a space built for physical theater.