Sopris Theatre Company at Colorado Mountain College will bring two encore performances of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead” to Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House on Jan. 26 and 27. Minor characters in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” these two bumbling, bewildered types get top billing in this modern tragicomedy.
In 1968, “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead” won both the Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle awards for best play. Hamlet’s two friends obliviously wander around the setting and circumstances of “Hamlet,” though this time, the attention isn’t on the Prince of Denmark. Instead, Stoppard shines the spotlight right on Hamlet’s two buddies. It’s a world where reality and illusion blend, and where fate leads these two to their tragic but inevitable end.
The play is directed by G. Thomas Cochran and stars well-known Roaring Fork Valley thespians Nick Garay and Brendan Cochran in the title roles. Garay is the first graduate of CMC’s theater program, and Brendan Cochran is a current student in the program. Both actors are veterans of productions throughout the Roaring Fork Valley, including roles with the Hudson Reed Ensemble, Defiance Community Players and Thunder River Theatre Company.
Tickets are $20 and are available starting Jan. 2 at the Wheeler Opera House Box Office, aspenshowtix.com or 920-5770. Curtain is 7 p.m. both nights at the Wheeler Opera House, 320 E. Hyman Ave. in Aspen.
For more information, visit coloradomtn.edu/theatre and click on “Sopris Theatre Company.”