DCPA Broadway Plans To Reopen In December With Disney's 'The Lion King'
DENVER (CBS4)- The Denver Center for the Performing Arts Broadway is planning to reopen in December with The Lion King. The DCPA is postponing four Broadway tours that were previously scheduled for the fall.
"We are excited to welcome folks back to the Beull in December, and we will certainly be bringing our audience a full slate of Broadway touring once we get up and running," said John Ekeberg, Executive Director of DCPA Broadway. "That does mean that there are a few Broadway tours that had been scheduled prior to that over the fall that are being postponed into 2022."
Those shows are My Fair Lady, 1776, Mean Girls and Ain't Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations.
Following The Lion King production, which is scheduled to run Dec. 2 through Jan. 2, 2022, DCPA Broadway will feature Hamilton in February 2022. Those shows are scheduled based on the assumption that local restrictions are lifted by December.
"It takes a lot of planning. There are so many moving pieces, and when we get back up and going. There needs to be sets built. Costumes built. Rehersals. Getting everything planned to go out in these semi's. We do need the time to get out and do it right," said Ekeberg.
The Denver Performing Arts Complex is the home for about 2,500 jobs from artists and performers; backstage to the box office. In 2018, the arts were responsible for $1.9 billion in the metro area.
A return to Broadway performances and other smaller theatrical performances will hopefully spur a rebirth in restaurants and other businesses around the theater district.
"We are very interested and engaged in getting jobs back. In getting our staff back and reengaged. Folks coming down to the Arts complex feed the restaurants, feed the hotels, other businesses, so we all really rely on each other as one industry," Ekeberg said.
"We're definitely coming back I just ask folks to hang in there with us," he said.
The DCPA also released a list of productions following The Lion King:
Ain't Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations
Come From Away
Dear Evan Hansen
Hadestown
Hamilton
Jersey Boys
Mean Girls
Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Pretty Woman: The Musical
Riverdance 25th Anniversary Tour
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tootsie
LINK: DCPA
