Colorado Shakespeare Festival Takes The Stage At Iconic UC Boulder Theatre
The Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre's four productions run June 11 - August 13
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s “Much Ado About Nothing” opens with a preview performance June 11; tickets from $23, cupresents.org/series/shakespeare-festival | Photo by Jennifer M. Koskinen
Opened in 1944, just three years after Red Rocks Amphitheater, the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre at the University of Colorado Boulder joined the shortlist of the state’s iconic world’s-a-stage venues under starry summer skies with a staging of “Romeo and Juliet.” Fourteen years later, the structure’s tiered flagstone seats and circular stage at the historical heart of campus became home to the professional company of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival—one of the oldest and top-ranked in the United States. This summer’s four productions run June 11–August 13, with “Much Ado About Nothing”—whose Beatrice and Benedick enemies-to-lovers plotline has inspired witty rom-com banter ever since—as the opening act. But don’t tarry; the 2023 season marks the final opportunity to experience the Rippon (named for CU’s first woman professor, who began teaching in 1878) in its current iteration before renovations to the theater and century-old Hellems Arts and Sciences Building commence.
