Must-see

Rocky theater critic Lisa Bornstein summarizes The Denver Project, a new play at the Curious Theater:

The Denver Project incorporates poetry, gospel and jazz, interspersed with the central story of a man intent on dressing up Denver's parking meters - in clothing - for the Democratic National Convention. His home is the street, and he wants it to look its best.

The Denver Project opens tonight with an address by Mayor Hickenlooper (whose ten-year plan to end homelessness in Denver has become a national model, he's said over and over). Tickets are $75. Bornstein:

[Steve] Sapp and his wife [Mildred Ruiz] have made their career taking theater into unfamiliar corners.

Their theater company, Universes Poetic Theatre Ensemble [I'm gonna go lie down], is based in the South Bronx, about five miles and a light year from Times Square. Rather than traditional scripts, they blend music, spoken-word poetry and movement in a style the two have evolved since they met at Bard College more than 20 years ago.

Got any aspirin?

Over the past year, Sapp and Ruiz not only researched the lives of homeless people in Denver, they worked with Curious actors through a number of workshops. Some caught on immediately; others "really didn't get it," Sapp says.

"In their minds, it's this hip-hop thing from New York. Strip all this stuff away, and we're just artists."

Just artists, you cowtown kulaks.

In addition to meeting with Denver's homeless population, Ruiz and Sapp dove into the research. She read 10-year plans, studies and magazines. He rode the bus, walked the streets and sat in on a city committee meeting.

Gritty.

"I sat there for three hours and watched all these people talk around a big table, and nothing was done," he says.

Hard to believe.

"Every place is different, so I'm trying to get a sense of Denver. I just kind of roam around during the day and night. The first night I ever spent in Denver I ended up on Colfax and I thought, 'Oh good God, here's where the drama is.'"

Drama: two drunks arguing over a cigarette butt. With Bornstein apparently in tow, Sapp explains the project to Flower, a former Colfax Avenue prostitute:

"My wife and I don't do it traditional. It's not what we call on-the-couch plays. We're poets, and we're from the blocks, from the streets," he says.

The streets of Bard College. Ticket prices for the rest of the run range from $13 to $32.