From Puppets to Presidents: Spotlight on Arts Complex Creates Grantees
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On any given night at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, you might catch the ballet, the symphony, a touring Broadway show or a night at the opera. This fall, you might also have followed a miniature dachshund into the Rocky Mountain wilderness, or found yourself sharing a cocktail with the 32nd president of the United States.
That range is exactly the point of Arts Complex Creates. Launched by Denver Arts & Venues in 2026, the program opens the Arts Complex's stages to Denver's creative community, along with local, regional and national artists, to expand and diversify what audiences can experience downtown. The inaugural cohort provided a total of $190,000 in funding to seven partners this year, and the 2027 cohort has already been announced.
Funding comes through two distinct opportunities, each designed for a different stage of an artist's work. Here's how they work, through two grantees who brought them to life this fall.
Two Paths to the Stage
Producing Partners invites Colorado artists and organizations to scale up their work on the Arts Complex's premier stages. The goal is to elevate productions that reflect the many communities and experiences of Colorado and help them reach new audiences.
New Works Incubator supports artists as they create, develop and present brand-new work that challenges traditional performance norms. They’re also required to engage with the community t through workshops, open rehearsals and other activities.
Producing Partners: FDR's Very Happy Hour
Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously hosted a cocktail hour nearly every day at the White House, a ritual for connecting and unwinding during difficult times. FDR's Very Happy Hour brings that tradition, and the man himself, back from the "great beyond" for a new generation, and its Arts Complex run marks the launch of the show’s national tour.
Created by Denver’s Regan Linton with M. Graham Smith, in collaboration with High Hard Heat, the production has been shaped through developmental workshops at leading theatre organizations across the country, including Arts Complex resident company the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, before its world premiere at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2025. Now it returns home to kick off its next chapter, which is exactly the kind of growth the Producing Partners opportunity was designed to support.
The immersive experience mixes humor and history. Alongside cocktails, mocktails and soft drinks, audiences can expect game-show trivia, cozy activities designed to get the room talking, personal reflections on polio and the occasional surprise guest. Each performance also features a short conversation with a different “changemaker” from Denver’s community, including leaders from organizations like the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition, Rocky Mountain Refuge and Second Chance Center.
At its heart, the show explores the successes and missteps of a world leader who lived with disability, and invites audiences to reflect on the challenges and possibilities in their own lives. Accessibility is part of the design, not an add-on: performances include open captioning and ASL interpretation, and the space is designed for mobility device access. (Roosevelt himself was a wheelchair user, after all.)
“As a Producing Partner, we’re getting the opportunity to launch our national tour right here at home,” said Linton. “The support is hugely valuable, anllowing us to direct our energy where it matters most: crafting a show that’s comprehensively accessible and bringing people together to engage in a space of joy and reflection, regardless of perceived differences.”
FDR's Very Happy Hour runs Oct. 14 through Nov. 1 in the Studio Loft at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Get tickets and see the full changemaker lineup. Guests with specific access needs can email fdrassists@highhardheat.com with their performance date and time.
New Works Incubator: Valarie: A Puppet Show by Blue Silk Productions
When a miniature dachshund named Valarie vanishes into the forests and foothills of the Rocky Mountains, her 529 days in the wild become something more than a survival story. Through puppetry, shadow, projection and sound, Valarie follows her transformation from lost pet to fantastical survivor and asks what it means to find community, shelter and acceptance in a strange land.
The show was created by Blue Silk Productions, a devised-theatre collective led by co-directors Katy Williams and Cinco. Williams, who also serves as the show's puppet director, is president of the Rocky Mountain Puppetry Guild and has spent years building Colorado's puppetry community.
Through the Incubator, Blue Silk spent a month-long residency at the Champa Arts Studio this September, building the show in real time. From Aug. 30 to Sept. 20, the team opened that process to the public with a series of free community workshops, where participants learned about the collective's "makers-lab" approach, devised with paper puppets, created their own creatures and got a behind-the-scenes look at the projection mapping used in the show.
“Puppetry is a full storytelling form, and the Incubator gave us the room to prove it,” said Williams. “The residency let us bring puppets, projection and sound together at a scale we’d never attempted, and sharing the work-in-progress with the community made it feel like Denver helped build Valarie alongside us.”
Valarie premiered with five performances in the Studio Loft at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House Sept. 25-27. While its Arts Complex run has wrapped, the work it started continues. Follow Blue Silk Productions on Instagram for future developments of Valarie and other works.
More Arts Complex Creates on the Horizon
The 2026 season isn't over yet. Still to come from this year's grantees:
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49th Denver Film Festival from Denver Film: screenings at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Oct. 22 and 24
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The Brutal Joy by Justine A. Chambers, presented by Biennial of the Americas: Nov. 6 in the Studio Loft
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KINFOLKTALES: The Untold Stories of Black Denver from Zoid Art Haus: Nov. 27 in the Studio Loft
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GIRA GIRA: A Cyberpunk Opera Odyssey from Akaiya Productions: Jan. 7-15, 2027, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House
And looking ahead, seven 2027 grantees will share $195,000 to bring everything from a new musical to a 24-hour karaoke ritual to the Arts Complex next year.
Like all of Denver Arts & Venues' grant programs, Arts Complex Creates is part of how we activate our “Good Times, For Good” model: proceeds from events at Denver's city-owned venues help fund opportunities for the artists who make this city's culture what it is.
Explore all 2026 Arts Complex Creates grantees and upcoming performances.