It was past 10 o’clock on Tuesday night, and William Wei didn’t want the moment to end.

That’s how much fun he was having talking with a Sie FilmCenter audience at a special screening of “The Farewell” about the film, Denver’s long-gone Chinatown neighborhood, the Chinese Exclusion Act and the things that distinguish Chinese from Chinese Americans.

He’s a born teacher, and he taught on Tuesday until literally no one had any questions left.

His boyish enthusiasm is just one reason Wei, 76, has been named as Colorado’s State Historian (for a second time) and as leader of History Colorado’s State Historian’s Council.

An audience member asked Wei about ethnic distinctions after watching the sleeper 2019 hit movie centered on a Chinese American woman who joins with her family in not telling her Chinese grandmother that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“As far as the people in China are concerned, if you are ethnically Chinese, they think of you as Chinese, even in you live in America or are a Chinese-American,” Wei said. “But when you’re Chinese American, you are considered (by other Americans) to be a perpetual foreigner.”

Wei warns against his tendency to engage in “monumental digressions,” each more interesting than the last. 

Wei is a professor of history at the University of Colorado in Boulder and succeeds Claire Oberon Garcia as State Historian. That’s a position created by History Colorado that rotates every Colorado Day (Aug. 1) so that someone with a new perspective can lend their expertise to education and outreach at the museum.

Among his focuses for the coming year, he said, are promoting a historical record that is diverse and inclusive, elucidating the role immigration played in the development of Colorado, and facilitating a broader look at our country’s foundational principles.

“I want to focus on the evolution of American democracy, especially our long-term experiment, as set forth in the preamble to the Constitution, ‘to form a more perfect union’ appropriate for the age,’” Wei said.

Phamaly jolts back to life

No question that Phamaly, Denver’s 35-year-old disability-affirmative theater company, has been in a period of creative reinvention since the pandemic. But with its current production of “A Chorus Line,” Phamaly feels like Phamaly again. It’s a profound reimagination of the iconic Broadway musical through a disability lens. And it addresses head-on the seeming contradiction between the musical’s real-life pursuit of physical perfection with a cast made up entirely of performers with disabilities. It does it with the best recorded pre-show curtain speech I can ever recall hearing. It’s narrated from New York by Phamaly alumna Jenna Bainbridge, who is currently making history on Broadway as a cast member in the award-winning musical “Suffs.” It reads in part:

“In 1989, the five founders of Phamaly wanted to kick off this amazing theater company with ‘A Chorus Line’ but were convinced by members of the Denver theatrical community that no audience would believe that a bunch of disabled people could possibly be auditioning for a Broadway musical, and so the choice was made to switch to ‘Guys and Dolls’ for the inaugural production.

“Maybe those naysayers were right. It was 1989, after all, and the Americans with Disabilities Act hadn’t yet passed. But here’s the thing: It’s not 1989 any longer. Times have changed and this year, 2024, I became the first-ever wheelchair user to originate a role in a Broadway musical.

“So to all those who still believe that a disabled actor can’t possibly act, sing and dance at the level of professional theater: Do us all a favor and (bleep) off.”

I’ve never heard a show begin with a louder cheer. “A Chorus Line” runs through Aug. 25 at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Do yourself a favor and go.    

Denver School of the Arts kicks ‘Boot’

We told you back in February that two of the nine high schools chosen to advance to the annual International Thespian Festival were from Colorado. Both Denver School of the Arts (“Kinky Boots”) and Fort Collins’ Fossil Ridge High School (“Alice by Heart”) were invited to perform.

“Kinky Boots” was chosen to close out the 2024 fest last month at Indiana University, and director Shawn Hann said it was raucous.

“Everyone was on their feet cheering and crying throughout the whole show,” said Hann, whose students had to raise $45,000 to make the trip. “The whole thing was like a rock concert.”

DSA student Neko Daniels won a 2023 Denver Gazette True West Award, in part for his performance as Lola.

Briefly…

The Breckenridge Backstage Theatre, which is celebrating its 50th year and recently won three Henry Awards for excellence from the Colorado Theatre Guild, reports that the company raised a boggling $110,000 at its annual gala last week. That’s the good news. The bad news: The company says it needs to raise another $30,000 by Sept. 30 to remain sustainable. You can give at breckenridgebackstagetheatre.org …

Derek Holland, a book seller and store manager at the Tattered Cover for the past 34 years, has been named the book store’s managing director. He will be based in the flagship East Colfax store but oversee all Tattered Cover bookselling operations.

And finally …

Musical theater fans, take note: Harkins Theatres’ “Musical Mondays” series returns Sept. 7 and continues for five weeks. Tickets $7 each:

• Sept. 2: “The Greatest Showman”
• Sept. 9: “West Side Story”
• Sept. 16: “The Sound of Music”
• Sept. 23: “Moulin Rouge”
• Sept. 30 “Mary Poppins: (1964)