Welcome to Season 26! 

As we curated Season 26, we asked ourselves, “What makes a play Curious?”

As one way to answer, we challenged ourselves to choose plays that would amaze, delight, and invigorate our audiences and artists alike. Curious believes in stepping into uncharted territory, and we are so happy you are joining us as we continue this journey with the World Premiere of William Cameron’s Truth Be Told.

Truth Be Told is more than a play; it’s an immersive experience that plunges the audience into a rich narrative interwoven with the intricate threads of truth, its manipulation, and the extraordinary journey of two mothers facing unprecedented circumstances. As the story unfolds, brace yourself for a riveting World Premiere that guarantees to be a rollercoaster of thought-provoking moments.

With every unexpected twist and turn, this production promises to delve deep into the very fabric of the human experience. It invites audiences on a profound and emotionally charged journey, prompting introspection on the power of a mother’s love and the intricacies of navigating the ambiguous terrain between truth and perception.

We believe that this captivating tale will not only enthrall your senses but also leave an indelible imprint on your hearts. Join us for an evening where the convergence of storytelling, emotion, and the complexities of human connection create an unforgettable experience that transcends the confines of the stage and lingers in your thoughts long after the curtain falls.

Don’t miss a moment! We encourage you to join us as a subscriber (and offer a heartfelt thank you if you already are.)  The adventure that awaits at Curious is only possible through the gathering of committed, enthusiastic theatre-goers like you. Your ongoing support ensures we’ll continue to travel together on this art-filled adventure through the best of contemporary theatre.

With gratitude and excitement for the road ahead,

Jada Suzanne Dixon & Jeannene Bragg
Artistic & Managing Directors

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” – C. S. Lewis

Truth is a complex and sometimes elusive concept – a dynamic process that evolves as our
understanding of facts and our belief systems change over time. Truth gets even more complicated in the world we find ourselves in today: nose deep in alternative facts and manipulated truth. Where feelings have more weight than evidence and self-deception can range from seemingly tiny untruths to massive falsehoods about reality.

Psychologists for decades have been performing experiments that show that we are not quite as rational as we think. Some of this work bears directly on how we react in the face of unexpected or uncomfortable truths. Therefore, when people would like a certain idea or concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true.When a college professor began to espouse the view that some American mass shootings did not occur and are hoaxes, William Cameron began to form an idea for a play about the ways we manipulate the truth for our own ends – through the lens of a mother’s story. Susan Klebold provides a unique perspective about truth and mothers in her book, A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of a Tragedy:

“Early on I flinched from the news coverage about Columbine because it was so wildly inaccurate, or reporting things about my son I could not bear to hear… At the time, the contradictory reports and the inaccuracies served to fuel my desperate hope it was all a terrible misunderstanding. If they’d forgotten this fact wrong, or that one, then perhaps all of it was false. As I would come to learn too well over the weeks, months and years to follow, the mind plays tricks to hold itself together when under tremendous strain. Ordinarily logical to a fault, I spent those early days clinging to any shred of hope I could salvage or manufacture , no matter how irrational or far-fetched.

As Klebold knows all too well, there is a common narrative in modern American culture to blame the mother when someone makes a bad choice. For as often as we put mothers on a pedestal as a nurturing self-sacrificing Madonna, the slightest deviation from this ideal, means complete failure. It doesn’t help that parenting is more demanding than it used to be. Working mothers today spend as much time with their children as stay-at-home mothers of the 1970s — and feel more pressure to be hands-on. The surging evolution of technology has added additional concerns causing parenting styles to include approaches to keeping their children safe online. Economic anxieties are another concern. Parents today are the first generation that may not surpass their parents economically. According to a 2022 survey, almost all parents feel judged, almost all the time and mothers are more likely to feel judged than fathers are.

Truth Be Told found its way to Curious Theatre Company from the Ashland New Play Festival, where it was a 2020 winner. Upon my first read, it hit me in the gut. I found the journey between two seemingly disparate mothers to be achingly human and thought provoking. I see my own mother. I see myself. Thank you Bill, for allowing us to work on your play and for gifting Curious Theatre Company with your world premiere.

It is an honor to give this play to you

Christy Montour-Larson
Director

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, a Florida college professor claimed without evidence that the massacre was a hoax, perpetrated by the federal government. He declared that those 20 six and seven-year-old children and those six school employees didn’t really die. He went so far as to demand that the father of a Sandy Hook victim provide him proof of the child’s massacre.

Since then, others have picked up his cause and made similar claims. In one infamous case, a professional conspiracy theorist was sued by grieving Sandy Hook parents. The conspiracist was ordered to pay significant reparations for his calumny. The verdict in this case will hardly settle such matters, however. So long as there is money to be made and fame to be won, opportunists will continue to subvert the truth to their own ends, inevitably compounding the torment of grief-stricken parents.

Though I started writing Truth Be Told in response to the Florida college professor’s cruel and self-aggrandizing stunt, more personal influences have worked their way into my play.

Early in Truth Be Told, Jo, one of the play’s two mothers, says of her 5-year-old son, “I cherish his future. I fear for his safety and comfort in a wicked world.” My own son is 34 years old, but his well-being is still at the forefront of my thoughts. Is he safe? Healthy? Happy in his work? Happy in his relationships? If the answer to any of those questions is no, I’m struck with another painful question: What did I do wrong?

Our children leave us, but we never quite let them go. Their joys and triumphs lift us up, their heartbreaks and setbacks haunt our dreams, and we parents wonder, always, if we could have done better. In writing Truth Be Told, I have tried to express both the abiding love and the eternal disquiet that comes with being a parent.

Finally, let me thank everyone at the Curious Theatre Company for having such confidence in my play. The process of working with these gifted artists has been a joy and I thank them all for their insights, inspiration, and kind hospitality.

William Cameron
Playwright

Present day. Late summer. A modest apartment in Mecklenburg, a small town in the Eastern United States.

Scene 1: Monday Morning
Scene 2: 90 Minutes Later
Scene 3: Tuesday, Late Morning
Scene 4: Wednesday Morning

(in Alphabetical order)

Jada Suzanne Dixon* as Josepha “Jo” Hunter
Karen Slack as Kathleen Abedon

Set Design by Caitlin Ayer**
Costume Design by Janice Benning Lacek**
Lighting Design by Colin D. Young
Sound Design by Jason Ducat
Props Design by Krista Montoya
Stage Manager, Rachel Ducat*
Assistant Stage Manager, Harper Hadley
Board Operator, Chyanne Huynh

To the University of Denver Department of Theatre Costume Shop, Colin D. Young for rehearsal photography, Richard Krammes, Wigmaster, and Jackie Apodaca and the Ashland New Plays Festival

Rehan Hasan, President
John Flanigan, Treasurer

Marike Fitzgerald
Chip Horne
Michael Hughes
Greg Laugero
Michael Potts
Sheri Raders
Jamie White
Alyssa Williams

*Jeremy Shamos, Honorary Lifetime President
*Roscoe Hill, Board Member Emeritus
*Cajardo Lindsey, Artistic Company Member
*Erik Sandvold, Artistic Company Member
*Jeannene Bragg, Managing Director
*Jada Suzanne Dixon, Artistic Director

*non-voting members

Artistic

Jada Suzanne Dixon, Artistic Director
Wayne Breyer, Production Manager & Resident Stage Manager
Christy Montour-Larson, Artistic Producer
Piper Stormes, Technical Coordinator 

Administrative

Jeannene Bragg, Managing Director
Camdon T. Presley, Marketing & Development Manager
Katelyn Sauer, Operations & Patron Services Manager
Hillary Wheelock, Finance Associate

Front of House

Clove Love, Lead Front of House Representative
Aidan Dick, Front of House Representative
Evy DiPasquantonio, Front of House Representative
Evette Srouji, Front of House Representative

2023–24 Curious Bridge Apprentices 

Jordyn Good, Stage Management Focus
Clove Love, Directorial Focus
Evette Srouji, Directorial Focus

Lisa Boehm
Kevin Brainerd (In Memoriam)
Anastasia Davidson
Richard Devin
Jada Suzanne Dixon
Jason Ducat
Brian Landis Folkins
Ilasiea Gray
Kathryn Gray
William Hahn
Josh Hartwell
Markas Henry
GerRee Hinshaw
Jim Hunt
Cajardo Lindsey
Sheryll McCallum
Shannon McKinney
Michael McNeill
Christy Montour-Larson
Michael Morgan
Josh Robinson
Erik Sandvold
Sean Scrutchins
Karen Slack
Todd Webster
Annette Westerby

Artistic Company Emeriti

Thank you to our founding Artistic Company Members whose dedication, hard work and artistic vision has helped make Curious the amazing theatre it is today.

Dee Covington
Chip Walton

Discussion Questions

1. Kathleen is adamant that her son Julian is innocent. Have you ever changed your mind about had a deeply held belief? Why or why not?
2. How are Jo and Kathleen different?  How are they similar?
3. Which of the characters could you relate to the most?  Did your feelings about the characters ever shift and change? Why? or Why not?
4. What makes a good mother? In what ways are Kathleen and Jo good mothers?  In what ways does society judge them both?
5. The truth is very important to both characters.  How do they define “truth” differently?  How do you define “truth”?
6. What do you think is the significance of Good Night, Moon in the play? How does the book make you feel?
7. Early in the play, Jo quotes Shakespeare: “The evil that men do lives after them/The good is oft interred with their bones.”  How does this quote inform your understanding of the play by the end?
8. Jo tells a story about her own son’s violent episode. How does this episode change our perception of Jo’s character?
9. Jo and Kathleen have a disagreement on spanking?  What do you think about spanking?
10. How did you feel the set, lights, costumes and sound added to your experience of the play?

The Denver Public Library recommends these library resources to enhance your theater experience of Truth Be Told:

READ

Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know by Ben Bowlin, Matt Frederick, and Noel Brown

A thinking person’s fun, wonderfully written conspiracy book from the hosts of the popular podcast of the same title. They approach each theory they examine with both empathy and fact-finding, showing all sides while encouraging critical thinking.

WATCH 

Hannah, dir. Andrea Pallaoro (2018) 

As the character Kathleen grapples with truth and denial in regard to someone she loves, the French film Hannah follows a woman who is caught between denial and reality. Hannah is a sparse film that examines the thought processes of a woman living with the consequences of a husband who is imprisoned for a crime.

LISTEN 

We are the Light by Matthew Quick 

Matthew Quick’s We Are The Light follows the town of Majestic, PA through the eyes of an uneasy man at the center of tragedy, Lucas Goodgame. Following a mass shooting at the town’s theater, the town must either band together to heal or let itself be torn apart. Told through letters written by Goodgame to Karl, his Jungian analyst, Luke Kirby’s heartrending narration brings this story to life.

DOWNLOAD 

A mother’s reckoning: living in the aftermath of tragedy by Sue Klebold

Kathleen is struggling to reconcile the reports of her son’s tragedy with her memory of her child. Sue Klebold had to do the same in 1999 when her son killed his classmates at Columbine. These two mothers both hold memories of their happy children, search for answers about the loss of their sons, and want to tell their version of an honest story.  Klebold’s unforgettable grief memoir is full of questioning, suffering, and mistakes.

Go Deeper - TRUTH BE TOLD.docx