Week 1: "Native" at Nonesuch

I gave a lot of thought to the question of where to begin my native explorations and decided I could do no better than Nonesuch Theater’s musical production, Native. Upon arriving at the little theater tucked away on Pine Street in Old Town, I chatted with David, who sold me my ticket and very humbly trumped my nativehood by telling me he’s a seventh generation Coloradoan. (Darn my Kansas/Missouri-born parents!) Undaunted, I found a seat and had a few minutes to take in the ambience. It’s a small space (“intimate," as they say) with lots of beautiful red brick, forty-nine seats--not a bad one among them--and that cool round thing in the floor that looks like either a manhole cover or a portal to another dimension.

The cast of four kicked off the show with a clever opening number, and the fun continued from there. In short, Native made me laugh. A lot. And loudly. I won’t repeat the jokes because a) there were too many of them, and b) I don’t want to be the spoiler. Let’s just say I came away with a new appreciation for what it means to be a native Colora-din. We’re high altitude, high energy, and occasionally high maintenance. (A fact every waiter and barista in town can no doubt confirm.) We take it all in stride—the traffic, the trains, the transplants, the crazy weather, the possibility of being eaten by wild animals while enjoying a leisurely hike. Best of all, we’re not above poking fun at ourselves, including some good-natured jabs at our malodorous neighbor to the east.

Native is coming to the end of its long run, but if the material has gotten stale for Mark, Amy, Nick, and Gina, they didn’t show it. They kept the energy up and the laughs coming. Generally, I don’t mind arriving a little late to the party, so to speak. I wait for movies to come out on DVD and seldom buy books in hardcover. But I do wish I would have seen Native months ago, to allow me time to forget the jokes and see it again. I also should have taken advantage of the Nonesuch/Rustic Oven dinner-show package. That’s a whole lot of Old Town goodness for thirty bucks. Oh, well…next time. And there will be a next time for me at Nonesuch.

Thank you, David and Nick, for making me feel so welcome, and for helping me kick off my Choice City Native challenge in great style.

And I’m so grateful to finally, finally, know the reason Fort Collins is vampire-free.