Matt Zambrano, an actor, director and nationally recognized slam poet, thrives, he says, “when I have lots of little fires burning.”

If that’s the case, 2025 is a five-alarm fire. (Please do not call the fire department.)

Forget Zorro. The Mark of Zambrano is everywhere in 2025. 

“I would say that this has been a banner year for getting to do projects that I have always been super-excited about – and also ones I never thought I’d get to do,” said Zambrano, who graduated from Wheat Ridge High School, the University of Colorado Boulder and with the final class of the Denver Center’s vaunted National Theatre Conservatory in 2012.

“I just thank the gods that I’m somehow now finding myself in this position where I get to do these works of theater that I’ve really wanted to sink my teeth into for a long time.”

Zambrano is currently performing with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival for the first time in 20 years. He’s playing three varied roles in the history play “Richard II,” including one that puts him in the middle of a halberd swordfight. (A halberd is a big, long, scary, two-armed pole with an executioner’s axe mounted on the end of the staff.) And, on the other end of the metaphorical spear, he’s also playing the jester Trinculo – the comic relief – in “The Tempest.”

This immediately after directing two huge back-to-back productions for different area companies: “Baskerville,” which turns one of Sherlock Holmes’ headiest whodunits into a fast-paced, Pythonesque comedy, for the fancy Lone Tree Arts Center; and “On Your Feet,” the timely and culturally significant jukebox musical that tells of Gloria and Emilio Estefan’s rise to the top of the music industry. That was for the Littleton Town Hall Arts Center.

Zambrano is a clown by nature (his word!). He’s most at home performing improv comedy or in any story for young audiences. He’s shown he can handle intense drama and Shakespearean subterfuge with equal aplomb. But the challenge of directing a Broadway musical “with grown-ass adults” was altogether new to him.

“‘On Your Feet’ was a real surprise to me,” said Zambrano. “They had reached out and asked if I would be interested in directing because it was important for them to have as much Latinx representation as possible. I didn’t really know if I was the right person for the job, but after I read the script, I made it my mission to get to know and recruit and hire as many members of the Latinx population here in Denver as I could.”

“On Your Feet” is much more than a biography of how Estefan achieved unprecedented crossover success and overcame a near-death spinal injury. “It’s also a story about family and our chosen families,” Zambrano said. “Everybody bought into the idea that we had the opportunity at this time in history to tell a story about immigrants who came to this country to make a better life for themselves – and, in doing so, were able to make other people’s lives better as well.”

“On Your Feet” was playing to sold-out houses when it closed last month. “Patron feedback was overwhelmingly positive,” said Town Hall spokesman Steven J. Burge. “Matt infused the show with love – and that showed from the first rehearsal to the final performance.”

Now he’s in the full throes of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s truncated 67^th season, which is being held entirely indoors as the Mary Rippon Amphitheatre undergoes an update.

“I think you have the opportunity to see two really great shows that are vastly different in tone and message,” Zambrano said. “‘The Tempest’ is a wonderful, family friendly exploration of forgiveness and connection with comedy and music. And then I think anyone who comes to see ‘Richard II’ will not be able to help but see connections to where we are now. Even though it was written hundreds of years ago, it’s almost depressingly relevant today.”

Well, teach the children

Zambrano’s first love is TYA – ”Theatre for Young Audiences” – which is not surprising, as he comes from a family of teachers. He’s hired to direct upcoming offerings at both the Arvada Center and Denver Children’s Theatre (that’s at the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture.) Those are two of the three biggest presenters of children’s theater in the state.

“I do love TYA because that’s how I found theater in the first place,” Zambrano said. “I really believe that some of the bravest, boldest work in the American theater is happening in TYA spaces where the only expectation is, ‘Can we do something entertaining, possibly educational, and impart some kind of empathy onto the audience?’”

On an additional and completely different plain, Zambrano and his wife, Libby – a performer and the Human Resources Director at the Arvada Center – have developed a steamrolling new franchise called “The King Penny Radio Show.” That’s a fully improvised, old-timey 1940s radio hour that recently celebrated its 30th fully original performance at an event hosted by the CityCast podcast. In August, the Zambranos and an all-star lineup of local improv buddies will launch a monthly “Third Thursday” performance at the Clocktower Cabaret. Each show will feature guest stars, starting Aug. 21 with Gracie Goodnight and stand-up comic Andrew Orvedahl (of The Grawlix).

In the fall, Zambrano will be directing a trippy play called “Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play” for Red Rocks Community College at the Historic Elitch Theatre (Oct. 10-11). “That is going to be awesome because the audience will journey to different parts of that theater for each part of the play,” he said.

He’ll then star in an enormously empathetic, one-actor play about suicide called “Every Brilliant Thing” for the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (Dec. 5-28).

“That play has always been at the top of my to-do list as an actor,” said Zambrano.

That list is going to be in need of some serious replenishment, and soon.