CactusMan! Live in Denver - Plus Free Pizza!

$18 early bird tickets through November 15

"Sean's writing is like disturbingly wonderful." – Annie Baker, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of The Flick

Sean Michael Cummings is proud to present the one-night-only, fully staged workshop premiere of CactusMan, a full-length dark comedy for a single performer, directed by Tresha Farris (One Way Back Day, The Catamounts).

Equal parts dark comedy, reality-show confessional, and old-school thriller, CactusMan features Greeley man Frank Ashman, a local celebrity and father of two. Once, Frank was the CactusMan: a drunk, shirtless pioneer of reality TV.

After twenty years off the air, Frank sets up his camera to tape a new audition. But some mistakes are too big to leave on the cutting room floor…

CactusMan also marks a new chapter for Denver Comedy Underground. Nationally recognized for its superior comedy programming, DCU will open its stage for the first time to a full-length new play by a Denver playwright.

"Every reality show is just a true crime show in slow motion," says Cummings. "Often, the people I start out rooting for on reality TV wind up being absolute villains. So am I guilty by association for cheering them on? With CactusMan, I wanted to get into the head of a longtime reality TV star and see what makes them tick. This show is equally the product of the Russian masters and about 1,000 hours of Real Housewives."

Cummings is the author of "Toxoplasmosis (or) High Strangeness" (DCPA Off-Center), "Bazaruto" (Phamaly Theatre Company), "Snipes" (semifinalist, John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play), and doghead (semifinalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival). He is a recipient of the Orchard Project Fellowship, an alumnus of the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive, a lapsed standup comic, and a proud survivor of a liver transplant and cancer.

BUZZ

"Represents all that's good in new, emerging writers."
– Gary Garrison, Co-Founder of the Playwrights' Workshop at NYU; Dramatists Guild

"Electric! Can't wait to see this in full production."
– Rough Draught Playwrights, Denver

Frank Ashman used to be one of America’s biggest characters: the Cactus Man, a shirtless founding father of reality TV. After decades off the air, Frank tapes an audition for his old show’s all-star season, but he can’t help but make some confessionals America may not be ready for. Like the one about the fishing hole, or the sauna, or what happened to the kid who came asking about his uncle. CactusMan is about what happens when one man stops being polite, and starts getting real, and then stops being anyone.