“Being outside exposes us to one of the most wild variables a person can encounter: the general public.” Rocio Balderrama, THEATREdART Photos courtesy of THEATREdART Most likely, you’ve heard of Emma Crawford, the tuberculosis victim who inspired the annual coffin races in Manitou Springs. But the city has been home to several memorable characters who will appear in the annual Ghost Stories of Old Manitou Walking Tours. This is the 31st time that the Manitou Springs Heritage Museum has hosted the popular fundraiser; for the past seven years, the MSHM has collaborated with THEATREdART for the tours. The Colorado Springs…
Author: Rhonda Van Pelt
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The Arts Alliance Studios offer affordable studio space to creative industry businesses in the Pueblo Creative Corridor. Colorado is a haven for creative types of all stripes, but they can’t live on love alone from their audiences and gallery visitors. Fortunately, the state and our region have resources that assist individuals and visual arts and performing arts organizations so they can keep doing the work they love. Jump to a funder Colorado Creative Industries Bee Vradenburg Foundation Chapman Foundation El Pomar Foundation Give Pikes Peak Joseph Henry Edmondson Foundation Manitou Arts, Culture, and Heritage Manitou Springs Community Foundation Pikes Peak…
× Through Oct. 30 Inner Realms, Outer Limits Cottonwood Center for the Arts, 427 E. Colorado Ave. Various times Dale Johnson’s exhibit “Therapy” has grown out of the artist’s fascination with 19th-century medical journals documenting mental illness. He takes fragments of asylum records and interprets them on canvas. Also showing: Darla Slee’s “Flora and Fauna” draws from her interest in folklore, history, speculative fiction, music and the Colorado landscape. Slee strives to create fantastical realms with fun characters to delight, provoke thought or leave the viewer feeling unsettled. Visit Website Through Oct. 30 Artists on the Rise Manitou Art Center,…
× This part of the state offers plenty of opportunities for spooky fun in October. Whether you enjoy taking hayrides or picking pumpkins, cheering for racing coffins or strolling through graveyards, you’re sure to find events to thrill and chill. Sunday Night Frights Through Oct. 25 Where Manitou Springs Heritage Museum, 517 Manitou Ave. Time 5:30 p.m. doors open The museum presents its annual festival of classic movies. This year’s offerings: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Oct. 4; “The Cat and the Canary,” Oct. 11; “The Ghost Breakers,” Oct. 18; and “Rebecca,” Oct. 25. Visit Website October Pumpkin Fest Through…
× October is Arts Month in the Pikes Peak region, so get out and celebrate our visually creative friends and neighbors. Check out local gallery and museum exhibits or roam farther afield with a fun day trip. Colorado Springs The Peak Radar website, managed by the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region (COPPR), is the definitive resource for visual arts news in El Paso and Teller counties. COPPR has also collaborated with Cottonwood Center for the Arts to present “Stronger Together,” a juried exhibition featuring 34 locally created artworks honoring arts organizations across the Pikes Peak region. The exhibit…
As Colorado approaches its Aug. 1 birthday, let’s celebrate 150 years by exploring our state. Whether you were born and raised in Colorado or just moved here, there’s a good chance you don’t know all the interesting facts about our state. First, Colorado’s shape is not the simple rectangle we all thought. It’s actually a 697-sided polygon shape (a hexahectaenneacontakaiheptagon). Although latitude and longitude defined its borders, 19th century surveyors were using limited technology and created numerous small zigzags. That turned the straight lines into many short, straight segments between boundary markers. Superlatives Colorado’s average elevation is 6,800 feet above…
Green Mountain Falls was pretty much business as usual in early May. The occasional vehicle traveled along Ute Pass Avenue, the main drag through the town that sits northwest of Colorado Springs. Waterfowl paddled in the pond, and snow still lurked in shady spots. Something big was on its way, though. Workmen were rearranging picnic tables at the Farm Stand near Lake Street, and soil nearby had been excavated to add parking spaces. And Scott RC Levy was in his office, preparing for the 18th annual Green Box Arts Festival, running July 4–19 this year. Levy became Green Box’s executive…
Theatreworks and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center announced their 2026–27 theater seasons just days apart, so this seems an opportune time to learn more about the people who help decide what audiences will see on two of the region’s largest stages. The late, great Murray Ross was artistic director at Theatreworks, which he founded in 1976. After his death in 2017, Caitlin Lowans was producing artistic director until 2025. Max Shulman, who grew up in Boston before living in New York, has been part of Theatreworks for about eight years; he was named artistic director after Lowans departed. 2026–27…
WTF! Awww, don’t clutch your pearls. That stands for the Women’s Theatre Festival, and it’s returning to the Millibo Art Theatre in mid-March. What started as the Six Women Playwriting Festival in 2006 has evolved to encompass more than just staged plays. The festival also welcomes innovative performances in music, dance, performance art, film, poetry, clowning and physical theater — all birthed by Colorado’s female creatives. “Although great strides have been made, women’s voices in performance and playwriting remain seriously under-produced and unheard by the traditional theater community,” says Jim Jackson, Millibo’s co-founder. The call for entries went out all…
The nonprofit real estate organization, based in Minneapolis, specializes in creating, owning and operating affordable live/work spaces for artists and creative entrepreneurs. Artspace has six other Colorado projects in progress or completed: two in Loveland and one each in Carbondale, Ridgway, Salida and Trinidad. Colorado has more than any state other than Minnesota, which is home to 18 projects. Most Artspace properties are in existing, often historic, buildings that were at risk for demolition. “What is exciting for me and for Colorado Springs is that I am not aware of any place that has such an inclusive concept approach,” Claar…