Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company Presents HOW THE WORLD BEGAN, 11/1-18

Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company presents the Regional Premiere of HOW THE WORLD BEGAN by Catherine Trieschmann.

In the aftermath of a deadly tornado, a flippant remark about the origins of life brings further chaos to a small Kansas town. As a big-city biology teacher and her troubled small-town student doggedly battle over their divergent beliefs, How the World Began explores faith, grief, and fear and highlights the nature of the chasms that divide our culture and our country.

How the World Began is directed by BETC Producing Ensemble Director Stephen Weitz and features Guest Artists Emily Paton Davies, Ryan Wuestawald and Chris Kendall.

How the World Began runs November 1 – 18, with opening night celebration set for Friday, November 2. The regular run continues Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays @ 7:30pm, Sundays @ 4:00pm at The Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder.

Tickets at 303.444.7328 or www.TheDairy.org. Thrifty Thursdays – All tickets $15 on Thursday nights! Visit www.BETC.org for more information.

The mission of the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (BETC) is to expose, to entertain, to educate, and to inspire our audiences with the powerful, transformational potential of theatre. BETC stages plays that chronicle the human condition. We target an audience of adults and young adults in Boulder County and surrounding areas through production of contemporary plays, regional and world premieres, and revisited classics. Through our professional theatrical productions, we alter our community’s cultural perceptions and provoke discussion beyond theatre’s boundaries.

BETC arose in 2005 as Oddball Players with our inaugural production, An Evening of Plays. In our first full season as BETC, we presented two productions: Anouilh’s Antigone, and two one-acts by Tony and Pulitzer winner John Patrick Shanley, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Savage in Limbo. Additionally, we presented Week #22 of the world premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days / 365 Plays.

Season 2 featured Tennessee Williams’ American masterpiece, The Glass Menagerie, the austere and thought provoking Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, and the madcap, sidesplitting comedy, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged). Our production of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea was honored with a 2007 Denver Post Ovation award nomination for Best Drama, and Complete Works was nominated for the 2008 Ovation Best Comedy Award.

Season 3 began with the Regional Premiere of Neil LaBute's Fat Pig and continued with Stop Kiss by Diana Son. The season concluded with the World Premiere of Morisot Reclining by acclaimed local playwright, William C. Kovacsik. Morisot Reclining was recognized with a Best New Play Nomination as part of the 2009 Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Awards and Denver Post Ovation Awards.

Season 4 kicked off with the Regional Premiere of Cormac McCarthy's haunting play, The Sunset Limited followed by our first holiday production, The SantaLand Diaries by David Sedaris. The season closed with The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl. The Clean House received awards for Best Actress in a Comedy and Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy from Boulder's Daily Camera.

Season 5, our first four-show season, opened with the Tony and Pulitzer award-winning drama, Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley and was followed by a remount of The SantaLand Diaries. Season 5 concluded with two Regional Premieres, a three-person adaptation of Crime and Punishment by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus and An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf by Michael Hollinger.

Season 6 started with the Regional Premiere of Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, followed by ‘version 3.0’ of The SantaLand Diaries. Season 6 concluded with the regional premiere of Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself) by Donald Margulies and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde by Moises Kaufman.