#Breckenridge, Colorado.
Everyone needs a place to call their own, where no one will pass judgment and they are free to just be themselves. For the characters in theBreckenridge Backstage Theatre’s newest play, that place is The Roadhouse, a fictitious bar set in 1975 Breckenridge, when the town was beginning to release its hold on its mining past and embrace its future as a ski town.
“The Roadhouse” is Part 2 of the Ski Area Play Cycle, a three-part series written and directed by Breckenridge Backstage Theatre artistic director Christopher Willard. The first play, titled “The 10th,” was set during World War II and told the story of a pair of soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division, an Army infantry group that trained in the mountains near Breckenridge.
“What we’re trying to do is give a snapshot — or three snapshots — of different time periods in the development of this region and the development of the ski area,” Willard said of the series. “Any story about the ski area has to start with the soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division. One soldier came back from Italy and settled in Breckenridge, and it’s his family’s story that we’re following through the other two plays.”
THE REGULARS
“The Roadhouse” opens with the funeral of the family’s patriarch, Teddy Pearson. Since his death in a climbing accident, responsibility for The Roadhouse has fallen to his son, Pete, who is immediately faced with a dilemma: continue to own and manage the 50-year-old saloon, or sell the bar and land to the new ski resort, shuttering a landmark and spiritual oasis for many of his customers.
The heart of the play is this motley crew of bar flies, all of whom have found sanctuary at The Roadhouse in one way or another. Each cast member’s story is unraveled as the plot unfolds, including the troubling tale of Jamie, a Vietnam veteran whom Teddy had taken under his wing.
“The Roadhouse is a refuge for Jamie,” said Kevin Lowry, of Denver, who plays the scattered former soldier. “He was pretty much on his own, trying to deal with everything he went through in Vietnam. Teddy was the kind of guy who would take people in — if you needed help, he was there, no questions asked.”
A mystery unfolds as it’s revealed that Jamie was on the mountain with Teddy when Teddy died, and some wonder if Jamie’s volatility played a roll in the bar owner’s death. Jamie has completely blocked out any memory of the incident, and his journey to put the pieces back together illustrates the instability of many of the characters who are drawn to The Roadhouse.
“He has a place in The Roadhouse that’s his place, the only place he feels comfortable, and people know him and know his limitations,” Lowry said of his character. “He has a difficult time communicating with people, especially through touch. He isn’t able to be physically handled by anybody, and this is his place, this is his refuge.”
Among the other regulars are Rick, a sort of wanderer who’s been doing odd jobs around town and “basically failed at every one of them,” said Michael Gurshtein, of Denver, adding that his character is a fun-loving guy who just can’t seem to find his place. “The Roadhouse is the last place he’s welcome and, even there, only grudgingly.”
And then there’s Trice, the miner’s widow, who gravitated to the bar to escape her loneliness. Trice took her husband’s place in the Wellington Mine when he didn’t return from World War II and considers the patrons of The Roadhouse to be her adopted family.
“She’s a bit salty, a bit rough around the edges, but she’s the moral center of the story,” said Cindy Laudadio-Hill, of Denver, who plays Trice. “She doesn’t want to see the change come into Breckenridge for the sake of the shiny new things. She wants to make sure that the people and community look after each other and don’t sell out to the first person who wants it.”
REFLECTING HISTORY
Many of the actors in “The Roadhouse” were drawn to the play because it was a chance to work with an original script that had never before been set to stage.
“To take everything from a blank page to the stage has been a terrific process,” said Mollie Horne, of Denver, who plays Callie, a bartender at The Roadhouse. “You’re originating a character no one else has done before, so that’s really cool and appealing to me as an actor.”
“The Roadhouse” was written from Willard’s research into the time period of the mid-’70s, when the ski resort had been open for more than a decade but still hadn’t taken off the way people had hoped it would. Creating an original script allowed Willard to localize the story and offer a glimpse into a time when Breckenridge was transitioning from the Wild West into what it is today, he said.
“It’s kind of interesting to think that it’s only been 40 years,” Gurshtein said. “This is where Breckenridge was 40 years ago, this run-down, nearly dead mining town with bars that were built out of old mining shacks, into this well-built, well-established town. It’s fun to see that transition happen, and not everyone was interested in that. Most of the characters in the show don’t want to see what Breckenridge has become now.”
Laudadio-Hill said that when you only view the town in the current moment, you don’t realize everything that’s happened here over the years. The play provides a historical perspective to give audiences, and the actors, a better appreciation of the area, she said.
“I’ve been living in Colorado for 30 years and coming up here from the Front Range,” she said, “and being part of this play and this process, driving around looking at the names of the streets, Wellington and Tiger, and I start getting perspective of how this place came to be what it is.”
Courtesy of the Summit Daily News.
