The most expensive items on stage during a Cherry Creek Theatre Company performance aren’t the set pieces, lighting rigs or even the professional actors who’ve signed top-shelf Equity contracts.
All of those elements are cheap compared to the rugs that hang along every wall and line the floor of the Shaver-Ramsay showroom on East Third Avenue in Cherry Creek. They come in vivid reds and yellows; they’re rendered in dizzyingly complex designs by artisans in Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan. They’re also worth thousands of dollars.
Those exotic and expensive rugs have been a consistent part of the Cherry Creek Theatre’s onstage dynamic since the company launched in 2010. That’s because the showroom that’s hosted every one of the troupe’s performances is a rug store. The Shaver-Ramsay shop specializes in antique, rare and contemporary textiles. It also just happens to host one of the metro area’s most ambitious and accomplished theater companies.
“It’s cool sitting in that room with all of those rugs around you. They’re pieces of artwork,” said Pat Payne, artistic producer for the Cherry Creek Theatre company. “The rug store is literally a business seven days a week. We need to make it as easy on them as possible.”
A rug store in one of the metro area’s most chic shopping districts may seem an unlikely headquarters for a fledgling theater troupe, but the company has made the equation work for the past five years. The troupe has mounted contemporary and classic productions alike, running well-received takes on dramas like “12 Angry Men,” thrillers like “The Mousetrap” and musical reviews like “Side by Side by Sondheim.” It has picked up awards from the Colorado Theatre Guild and local theater critics. It has drawn some of the metro area’s best actors, vets of the Denver Center Theatre Company, the Arvada Center and other high-profile troupes.
And they’ve managed to pull it off under some very exacting circumstances. Every show takes place in the center of the Ramsey-Shaver showroom, a space surrounded by the store’s fancy and expensive merchandise.
“We have to break down the set every night. We bring in the chairs on Friday afternoon and bring them out on Monday afternoon,” said Mark Rossman, who founded the company with his wife Maxine five years ago. “That’s our biggest challenge — basically being able to use the space and clear it out the next day.”
They’ve even incorporated the gallery’s specialty into the stage design.
“We’ve used rugs as part of the backdrop of the stage,” Maxine Rossman said. “And we say it’s some of the most expensive stage setting in Denver.”
It’s a dynamic the Rossmans didn’t specifically plan when they first had the idea of launching a new theater company five years ago. Former college professors and co-founders of the online Capella University, the Rossmans moved to the Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver to be closer to their children and grandchildren. The idea of starting a theater company followed soon after they moved to their new home, and an enthusiastic response from the community came quickly.
“Everything fell into place,” Mark Rossman said, pointing to the fast formation of a board of directors and the offer from gallery owner Paul Ramsey to use his space pro bono. The Rossmans also found an important ally and collaborator in Payne, a vet of the local theater scene who helped define a creative mission statement for the troupe.
“When we started the company we did a survey of area residents. We knew that the majority of our audience would and should come from our neighborhood,” Payne said. “Even amounts of people wanted to see the different genres, but the one overriding thing they wanted was quality.”
The Cherry Creek Theatre staff paid attention. From the very first production, the company made a focused effort to offer professional actors Equity contracts. They made show selection a priority, looking for productions that challenged, entertained and educated. It’s a standard that’s persisted to the company’s current production of “John and Jen,” starring Megan Van De Hey and Casey Andree.
“We want substance,” Maxine Rossman said. “We want to be cutting-edge, not bleeding-edge,” she added, insisting that the troupe will never opt for simple shock effect.
Those priorities will remain in place as the troupe looks to expand beyond its current three-shows-a-season structure. Eventually the staff wants to see the troupe move out of the showroom into a professional arts center. That could eventually mean a new performing arts center in the Cherry Creek neighborhood, or a tenure in an existing space.
Whatever the next move, the troupe will remain committed to quality, the Rossmans and Payne insist. After four years producing professional theater in the unlikely venue of a rug store, that evolution should come easy.
For more information on the Cherry Creek Theatre company, call 303-800-6578 or log on to cherrycreektheater.org
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com