09/05/2026
Three Years. Three Plays. One Historic Stage.
For three consecutive years, playwright Mike Broemmel has had a work staged at Historic Elitch Theatre — forging an unusual connection between a contemporary Colorado playwright and one of the most storied stages in American theatre.
By Kirk Thompson
There is something about an old theatre after the audience has gone home. The seats are empty. The stage is dark. The applause has disappeared. But somehow, the people who came before never seem entirely gone.
At Denver’s Historic Elitch Theatre, there are more than 130 years of those ghosts. Sarah Bernhardt performed here. Douglas Fairbanks walked its stage. So did Grace Kelly, Edward G. Robinson, Debbie Reynolds, Vincent Price and, in a small uncredited role early in his career, Robert Redford. Helen Bonfils performed here, too.
And during the past three years, another name has developed an unusual connection to this legendary Denver stage: playwright Mike Broemmel. One Broemmel play has been staged at Historic Elitch Theatre every year for three consecutive years.
In 2024, it was The Bonfils Girl: The Life Story of Helen Bonfils, chosen for the historic return of full theatrical productions to Elitch after 33 years. In 2025 came When Strawberries Bloom: The Creation of Golda Meir.
And in 2026, The Wind Is Us: The Death that Killed Capote took the stage as part of the Colorado Theatre Festival, where the production received the festival’s award for Outstanding Overall Production and Eddie Schumacher was honored as Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role.
Three years. Three plays. Three vastly different figures from history. One extraordinary theatre.
“I don’t think I could have planned this if I had tried,” Broemmel said. “There is something deeply meaningful to me about having a play on that stage three years in a row. Elitch isn’t simply another performance venue. You can feel its history when you walk into the building.”
Where American Theatre History Lives
The history Broemmel describes stretches back to the earliest days of Denver itself. John and Mary Elitch opened Elitch Zoological Gardens in 1890, complete with animals, gardens and an open-air entertainment pavilion. After John Elitch died unexpectedly the following year, Mary continued the enterprise.
The theatre building that survives today opened in 1891. Designed by Denver architects Rudolf Liden and Charles Lee, it would become one of the most important theatrical venues in the American West.
In 1893, the Frank Norcross Stock Company presented a different show every week during a 15-week engagement — identified by Historic Elitch Theatre as America’s first summer-stock theatre season. A permanent resident summer-stock company followed later in the decade.
In 1896, audiences at Elitch witnessed another piece of history when the Vitascope brought moving pictures to Colorado.
For generations, performers who were famous — or who would become famous — appeared there. But one of the theatre’s most consequential relationships was with a Denver woman named Helen Bonfils. And that is where Broemmel’s Elitch story begins.
2024: The Perfect Play to Bring Back the Stage
When Historic Elitch Theatre prepared to welcome back a full theatrical production in August 2024, the occasion carried enormous significance. It had been 33 years since a complete live production had occupied the historic stage. The play selected to end that silence was Broemmel’s The Bonfils Girl: The Life Story of Helen Bonfils.
The approximately 600-seat theatre sold out. An additional performance needed to be added.
It would have been difficult to imagine a more appropriate story for the occasion. Bonfils, daughter of The Denver Post co-founder Frederick Bonfils, had long dreamed of becoming an actress. In 1934, after her father’s death, she auditioned for the Elitch summer company using her mother’s maiden name, Barton. She wanted to know whether she could win a role because of her talent rather than because she was Helen Bonfils. She did.
Her relationship with Elitch would ultimately encompass acting, producing and financial support. Her influence on Denver theatre extended far beyond Elitch, including philanthropy that helped establish the Bonfils Memorial Theatre and, eventually through her estate, contributed to what became the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Ninety years after Bonfils first appeared professionally at Elitch, her story returned to that same stage. This time, she was the play.
“There are nights in theatre you know you are going to remember for the rest of your life,” Broemmel said. “That was one of them. To sit in that theatre and realize Helen had performed on that stage — and now hundreds of people had filled the building to see her story — was overwhelming. And it wasn’t merely another performance. Live theatre was returning to Elitch. Helen was coming home at the same time.”
2025: From Bonfils to Golda Meir
Broemmel returned the following year with When Strawberries Bloom: The Creation of Golda Meir. If Bonfils represented Denver history, Golda Meir represented history on an international scale, with a bit of the Mile High City along the way.
But Broemmel’s approach to both women shared a common purpose. He wasn’t interested primarily in monuments. He was interested in people.
“History has a way of turning complicated human beings into statues,” Broemmel said. “Theatre can do the opposite. It can take the statue down from the pedestal for 90 minutes and allow us to encounter the human being.”
When Strawberries Bloom explores the experiences that helped create the woman who would eventually become prime minister of Israel — examining courage, ambition, sacrifice, perseverance and the sometimes painful cost of becoming a historical figure. This included her time in Denver.
For Broemmel, returning to Elitch with the play also established something he had not anticipated. A tradition.
“I remember thinking, ‘This is two years in a row,’” he said. “And that felt pretty remarkable.”
Then came 2026.
2026: Capote — and Two Awards
This time the historical figure was neither a Denver philanthropist nor a world leader. It was Truman Capote.
Broemmel’s The Wind Is Us: The Death that Killed Capote examines the celebrated author’s later life, when the dazzling literary figure who had written Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood increasingly found himself consumed by addiction, fractured relationships, celebrity and the consequences of his own choices.
The production arrived at Elitch as part of the 2026 Colorado Theatre Festival. Eddie Schumacher took the stage as Capote, a role he has played with authority and precision for nearly five years.
By festival’s end, the production had earned Outstanding Overall Production, while Schumacher received Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role.
For Broemmel, there was an additional realization. A third consecutive year.
“There was this moment when it finally struck me: Bonfils. Golda. Capote. Three years, three plays, on this incredible stage,” he said. “And then to have The Wind Is Us receive those honors there made the experience even more special.”
The Past Isn’t the Point
Historic Elitch Theatre could easily have become a monument to what once happened there. Its regular theatrical seasons ended in 1987. A special centennial production followed in 1991. When the amusement park eventually left northwest Denver, the theatre remained behind.
The building survived. Denver designated it a historic landmark in 1995, and the Historic Elitch Gardens Theatre Foundation was created in 2002. Millions of dollars and years of restoration work followed.
Then, in 2024, full live theatre returned. That may be the part of the Elitch story Broemmel finds most compelling.
Preservation alone isn’t enough. A theatre is supposed to have theatre inside it.
“The point of saving an old theatre isn’t simply so people can walk through it and talk about what happened there 80 or 100 years ago,” Broemmel said. “You save it so another actor can walk onto that stage tomorrow.”
For three consecutive years, Broemmel’s characters have done precisely that. Helen Bonfils returned to the theatre she once helped sustain. Golda Meir followed. Then Truman Capote. Different lives. Different eras. Different stories.
But beneath them is a common thread that runs through much of Broemmel’s work: the belief that history becomes most powerful when audiences are allowed to encounter the human beings inside it.
Broemmel makes clear that he believes and appreciates his plays on this venerable stage “are grains of sand on a beach.” After all, this is a theatre that has been standing since 1891, with some of the most talented, famous actors in the United States having been on stage.
But three consecutive years are three consecutive years. And somewhere in the enormous chronology of the old theatre, there are now three entries:
2024 — The Bonfils Girl.
2025 — When Strawberries Bloom.
2026 — The Wind Is Us.
“For a playwright, you really can’t ask for much more than that,” Broemmel said. “You write something alone. Eventually actors give it life. An audience comes through the doors. And if you’re extraordinarily fortunate, your words end up being spoken in a place where generations of people have been telling stories before you.”
He looked around the old theatre. “Three years at Elitch? I’ll carry that with me for the rest of my life.”
