Christine Howard Sandoval creates multi-media projects that challenge the boundaries of representation, access, and habitation via an experiential and community-oriented practice. This exhibition explores the complex conversations between land use and water right, focusing on cultural continuity and fracture, featuring several projects by Sandoval. MORE

Exhibition Opening Aug. 3
Born from the artist’s desire to build community, Utopia exists both as a 4-by-7-foot diorama-based installation and as a conceptual art piece. As much a thought experiment as an art installation, Utopia explores what it means to live in community. Artist Becky Wareing Steele lives and works in Denver, Colorado specializing in small scale sculpture. MORE

Exhibition Opening Aug. 3
Archie Musick was a lively figure in local history who had close ties to many prominent figures at the Broadmoor Art Academy and Fine Arts Center, memories of whom are colorfully chronicled in his memoir, Musick Medley. First a student at the BAA and later at the FAC, Musick assembled an astonishing collection of works on paper as a result of collaborative efforts and trades with colleagues over the years. MORE

Thomas Evans (aka Detour) is a Denver-based painter, muralist, and installation artist, internationally renowned for his brightly colored portraits and large-scale artworks. This installation features a large-scale, touchable, interactive painting. Through physical engagement with the work, museum visitors become active participants in the creative process as collaborators with the artist and fellow guests, resulting in a unique, memorable experience. MORE

Based on the novel by Mark Haddon
Adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens
Regional Premiere!

Winner of the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play! Fifteen-year-old Christopher has an extraordinary brain. He is exceptional at mathematics but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched, and he distrusts strangers. It’s seven minutes after midnight and Christopher stands beside his neighbor’s dead dog, Wellington, who has been speared with a garden fork. Finding himself under suspicion, Christopher is determined to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington, and he carefully records each fact of the crime. His detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a thrilling journey that upturns his world.

Recommended for ages 14+

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Orchestrated annually by the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region, Arts Month encourages people to have at least one new cultural experience with family or friends during the month of October. In addition to all the exciting FAC programming below, check PeakRadar.com for a full listing of Arts Month events and activities in the region!

Museum Free Days are an opportunity for the public to enjoy The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center’s galleries free of charge!

Offered on the second Saturday and third Friday of each month. ON VIEW

The FAC Theatre Company costume shop is bursting at the seams⁠—time to make room on the racks and shelves for new creations! Just in time for Halloween!

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Members, join us for the second lecture in this series, Rebels, Rascals and Geniuses: The Characters of the Broadmoor Art Academy. The Broadmoor Art Academy drew an eclectic assortment of students, artists and supporters where heiresses rubbed elbows with revolutionaries. In this illustrated lecture, some of the personalities behind the famous artwork will be explored and stereotypes of “staid Colorado Springs” will be challenged. REGISTER

Based on the novel by Stephen King
Book by Lawrence D. Cohen
Music by Michael Gore
Lyrics by Dean Pitchford
Regional Premiere!

Carrie White is a misfit. At school, she’s an outcast who’s bullied by the popular crowd, and virtually invisible to everyone else. At home, she’s at the mercy of her loving but cruelly over-protective mother. But Carrie’s just discovered she’s got a special power, and if pushed too far, she’s not afraid to use it…

Based on Stephen King’s bestselling novel, the musical of Carrie hasn’t been seen since its legendary 1988 Broadway production. Now, the show’s original authors have joined with director Stafford Arima (Altar Boyz) and MCC Theater for a newly reworked and fully re-imagined vision of this gripping tale. Set today, in the small town of Chamberlain, Maine, Carrie features a book by Lawrence D. Cohen (screenwriter of the classic film), music by Academy Award-winner Michael Gore (Fame, Terms of Endearment), and lyrics by Academy Award-winner Dean Pitchford (Fame, Footloose).

Recommended for ages 14+

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Based on the book the book by Cheryl Strayed
Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos
Regional Premiere!

Based on the best-selling book by Cheryl Strayed and adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos, Tiny Beautiful Things personifies the questions and answers that “Sugar” was publishing online from 2010-2012. When the struggling writer was asked to take over the unpaid, anonymous position of advice columnist, Strayed used empathy and her personal experiences to help those seeking guidance for obstacles both large and small. Tiny Beautiful Things is a play about reaching when you’re stuck, healing when you’re broken, and finding the courage to take on the questions which have no answers.

Recommended for ages 18+

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Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Suggested by The Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Trapp

Sixtieth Anniversary Production! The final collaboration between Rodgers & Hammerstein was destined to become the world’s most beloved musical. When a postulant proves too high-spirited for the religious life, she’s dispatched to serve as governess for the seven children of a widowed naval captain. Her growing rapport with the youngsters, coupled with her generosity of spirit, gradually captures the heart of the stern captain, and they marry. Upon returning from their honeymoon, they discover that the Nazis have invaded Austria, and they demand the Captain’s immediate service in their navy. The family’s narrow escape over the mountains to Switzerland on the eve of World War II provides one of the most thrilling and inspirational finales ever presented in the theatre. The motion picture version remains the most popular movie musical of all time.

Recommended for ages 6+

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Based on the novel by Robert James Waller
Book by Marsha Norman
Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Regional Premiere!

Based on the best-selling novel, and developed by the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning creative team of Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years, Parade, Songs for a New World) and Marsha Norman, The Bridges of Madison County captures the lyrical expanse of America’s heartland along with the yearning entangled in the eternal question: “What if…?” Winner of the 2014 Tony Award for Best Score and Orchestrations, this sweeping romance about the roads we travel, the doors we open, and the bridges we dare to cross will leave audiences breathless.

Francesca Johnson, a beautiful Italian woman who married an American soldier to flee war-ravaged Italy, looks forward to a rare four days alone on her Iowa farm when her family heads to the 1965 State Fair. When ruggedly handsome, National Geographic photographer, Robert Kincaid, pulls into her driveway seeking directions, though, what happens in those four days may very well alter the course of Francesca’s life.

Recommended for ages 16+

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Based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo
Adapted for the stage by Dwayne Hartford
Regional Premiere!

Edward Tulane is an expensive toy rabbit made of china. He is loved by a little girl named Abilene, but Edward doesn’t care. He is vain and self-centered. He has no interest in anyone other than himself. On an ocean voyage, Edward is accidently thrown overboard and sinks to the bottom of the sea. So begins his journey – a journey over which he has no control, for he is a toy rabbit. He can neither move nor speak. As years pass by, Edward meets many different people in many different situations: an older grieving couple who find comfort in Edward’s presence, a hobo and his dog who introduce Edward to a whole community of homeless wanderers, a farmer in need of a scarecrow, a sad little boy and his very ill sister, and finally a doll mender and an old doll who teach Edward an invaluable lesson. Through this miraculous journey, Edward learns what it is to love, what it is to lose that love, and how to find the courage to love again. Based on Kate DiCamillo’s beautiful novel of the same name, the play is a theatrical tour de force for a small ensemble of actors and musicians.

Recommended for ages 7+

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By Lauren Gunderson
Regional Premiere!

When Henrietta Leavitt begins work at the Harvard Observatory in the early 1900s, she isn’t allowed to touch a telescope or express an original idea. Instead, she joins a group of women “computers,” charting the stars for a renowned astronomer who calculates projects in “girl hours” and has no time for the women’s probing theories. As Henrietta, in her free time, attempts to measure the light and distance of stars, she must also take measure of her life on Earth, trying to balance her dedication to science with family obligations and the possibility of love. The true story of 19th-century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt explores a woman’s place in society during a time of immense scientific discoveries, when women’s ideas were dismissed until men claimed credit for them. Social progress, like scientific progress, can be hard to see when one is trapped among earthly complications. Henrietta Leavitt and her female peers believe in both, and their dedication changed the way we understand both the heavens and Earth.

Recommended for general audiences

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By Jaclyn Backhaus
Collaboration between FAC Theatre Company & Colorado College Academic Departments
Regional Premiere!

Spinning historical, theatrical, and gender conventions on their heads, this subversive tale of 10 men, four boats, and two rivers contains none of the above.

Pack your gear for this 21st-century telling of 19th-century American explorer and one-armed Civil War veteran John Wesley Powell, who assembles a brawny band of soldiers, trappers, and adventurers to explore the waterways of the American West. Inspired by Powell’s actual travel log from 1869, Jaclyn Backhaus’s nimble and ingenious script is provocative, laugh-out-loud theatre, performed by a diverse cast of women who infuse America’s historic myths of male conquest with a sly blast of subtext.

With the speed and force of Powell’s white-water rapids, Backhaus conjures her epic story – in which simple materials are transformed into perilous canyons and death-defying cliffs – out of sheer imagination, shaping an innovative and innately theatrical play, that became an off-Broadway sensation.

Recommended for ages 18+

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Book by Quiara Alegria Hudes
Music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Regional Premiere!

From the creator and star of Hamilton comes Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony Award-winning musical, a love-letter to the community in upper Manhattan where he still lives. In The Heights tells the universal story of a vibrant community in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood – a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open, and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams, and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you, and which ones you leave behind. A Hip Hop musical with a Salsa beat, In The Heights is the winner of the 2008 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Score, Best Choreography and Best Orchestrations.

Recommended for general audiences

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By Steven Dietz

Jody is in his 40s and runs a map store. Not one for the outside world, he stays in his store all the time. His friend Carl is in his late 30s and has been bringing chairs of dead friends into Jody’s store and leaving them there. When Jody needs to take an AIDS test, Carl tries to convince him it’s not only okay to leave the store, but also that he must take responsibility for his life. If he doesn’t, he will join the set of chairs that Carl has taken great pains to place in the right spots around the store. Through their interaction, the two realize how grateful they are to have such a strong, lasting friendship.

Recommended for ages 18+

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