Denver’s Mary Bacon: Proud of a city “that confronts itself every night”
In this new YouTube series, we briefly introduce you to the actors performing in our plays in a fun way. Episode 29: Meet Denver native Mary Bacon, who is playing journalist Helen Thorpe in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s world premiere staging of “Just Like Us” through Nov. 3, 2013, in The Space Theatre. Thorpe lives one block away from where Bacon, the daughter of two journalists, grew up in the Park Hill neighborhood. Call 303-893-4100 or go to www.denvercenter.org. Video by John Moore. Run time: 2 minutes, 20 seconds.
By John Moore
Actor Mary Bacon is the daughter of two journalists. And for the first time in 20 years, she is back on stage in her hometown playing one of the most reluctantly well-known journalists Denver.
Bacon is appearing through Sunday (Nov. 3) in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s world premiere staging of “Just Like Us” as the author Helen Thorpe, who lives a block from where Bacon grew up in the Park Hill neighborhood.
The play tells the true story of four Denver high-school seniors, all straight-A students, all born in Mexico to parents who entered this country illegally. Thorpe, who is married to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, serves as the narrator. Thorpe set out to follow the girls’ lives for five years, to chronicle how their opportunities would become divided by their immigration different immigration statuses. Eventually, current events draw Thorpe further into the story than she ever could have expected.
Like a good journalist might, Bacon was attracted to the play because of the nature of the project itself: A Denver theatre company telling a true Denver story to an audience of Denverites.
“What impressed me the most was that here was this community – my hometown – that was going to confront itself onstage every night,” said Bacon, whose impressive resume includes appearing in the original production of “The Last Night of Ballyhoo” at the Olympic Arts Festival in Atlanta. She also has originated roles in new plays by Horton Foote (“Harrison,TX”) and Theresa Rebeck’s “The Scene.” Immediately following “Just Like Us,” Bacon will appear in the world-premiere staging of the new Charles Busch comedy, “The Tribute Artist,” opening in late January in New York.
Her late father, Jack Bacon, was a 52-year newspaperman, including stints with the United Press International, Denver Catholic Register and as supervising editor of 13 weekly Sentinel newspapers. When the Minneapolis Star-Tribune sold the Sentinel chain in 1991, Jack Bacon became part-owner and editor of the Aurora Sentinel to make it a locally owned and operated newspaper again. Bacon’s late mother, Rose, was a reporter for the Sentinel Newspapers as well.
Mary Bacon’s husband is Andrew Leynse, longtime artistic director of Primary Stages, a prominent New York theater known for debuting new works by playwrights such as A.R. Gurney. Leynse is also the artistic director of the Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival in Steamboat Springs, where many of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s developing works are workshopped each summer.
Bacon met her future husband while they were students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Shortly after graduating, Bacon appeared in her only other Denver Center Theatre Company production, “Room Service,” in 1994. The couple are parents of a 4-year-old African-American son named Abadi.
We talked with Bacon about her upbringing in Colorado and her return to the Denver stage.
John Moore: So why did you take this role?
Mary Bacon: There was something about coming home with this project that seemed much more interesting to me than doing a play that’s been done a million times. I took the job because of the bravery of the Denver Center, and because of the the book’s bravery in saying, “Hey, Denver: Look at us.” That is what theater is supposed to do. Plus, I have a political bent in me – partly because of my mother, and partly because I have an African-American child. 
John Moore: What is it like for you to be playing Helen Thorpe?
Mary Bacon: I am not trying to imitate her at all, because I can’t. I asked Kent very early on, “This is a very famous person everyone in Denver knows. Is it going to be weird for me not to do an impersonation of her?” He said, “No, we are not interested in that.” I said, “OK, then I am going to do what I always do.” I was taught the way to act is not to layer on all this crud. Start with the circumstances of the persona, then figure out what they need that is necessary. That’s how I approach things. I am playing this person in this circumstance. And the truth is, I am just using my own experience as a white person, because that’s who Helen is in this play. She is “the white audience.” What we are hoping the play does is help that audience examine its behavior and maybe change its thinking a little bit.
John Moore: How do you think your father would have liked this?
Mary Bacon: I really wish he was here. My father would be a very liberal voice in all of this. My parents actually moved churches, from Blessed Sacrament in Park Hill, to Loyola, which is at 23rd and York, because Loyola does so much more advocacy work. It’s a super-diverse there. The parish is half African-American. My parents probably would have been more proud of me in this play than in anything else I have ever done. And do you know what was so cool? I called Dave Perry, who is now the publisher of the Aurora Sentinel. Dave and my dad were super-close friends. Dave sent me this editorial he wrote about moving to their new digs. It was so moving. Dave has a sense of humor that is just like how my father wrote.
(Here’s an excerpt):
In another old desk drawer I found the plaque honoring veteran Journalist Jack Bacon as Colorado Press Association Journalist of the Year in 1996. Jack was editor of this and many other papers. He was an old wire-service guy, could hold a smoldering cigarette butt and type like the wind even though he’d blown one of his fingers off years earlier. He was a class act that grumbled out the door of the newsroom every night at impossible hours and came back a while later knowing that today was going to be a new and fun day.
John Moore: We both learned about theatre as kids at the Original Scene (a youth theater group based at 19th Avenue and Pennsylvania Street in Denver). Over 20 years, the Original Scene produced dozens of actors who have gone on to perform on Broadway in musicals and plays. The names include John Carroll Lynch, Rebecca Eichenberger, Nick Sugar, Paul and Annie Dwyer. Jada Roberts. Playwright Laura Eason. But it was mostly a place for a kid to belong. What are your memories?
Mary Bacon: I remember the first show I saw there was “The Man of La Mancha.” My brother, Joe, was one of the squires. This is so cheesy, but I remember putting my foot on that stage afterward and thinking, “This is so magical.” That place was just kind of holy. The fact that we did it at night. It wasn’t an after-school play. There was a professionalism to it. Everyone wanted to do it. We were from all over the city, and that was really cool. The shows were really good. I remember the first thing that (the founder, the Rev. Dennis Dwyer), said to me. He said, “Mary Bacon! I want you to say one word in your sleep, over and over again: Projection! Projection! Projection! Projection!” And I didn’t even know what projection was.
John Moore: And how are you supposed to that word if you are asleep?
Mary Bacon: Right? The Original Scene was such a refuge for so many of us. I remember Fr. Dwyer saying Mass on stage before every show. And then at the end he would say, “St. Ignatius, pray for us. St. Cecilia, pray for us.” And I just figured those must be the patron saints of theatre. Later on, I found out that they weren’t.”
John Moore: So what does it mean to you to be stepping out on the Stage Theatre in your hometown after all these years?
Mary Bacon: I am learning a l lot more about Denver than I ever knew. I have been learning a lot about a population in Denver that I didn’t know anything about, because it’s so segregated. Now I know that it is – I didn’t even know that then.
John Moore: From your New York vantage point, how would you describe Denver’s place in the ecology of national new-play development?
Mary Bacon: I wouldn’t be here if Denver weren’t making an impact. The playwrights they are producing? Marcus Gardley? Theresa Rebeck? I work with her all the time. Every one of us in New York knows all of those playwrights. You wouldn’t be able to get those actors to come out here for the (Colorado New Play Summits) if it weren’t making an impact. That’s the No. 1 thing Kent has done, I think, and I am extremely impressed by it. And then Denver Center has one of the biggest funders of New Play Development in the country in Jim Steinberg. When you have him on your side, it’s huge. He’s on the board of trustees at the Denver Center, and he’s on the board of trustees with the Public Theatre in New York. That matters.
John Moore: So tell us about your next job. This is a little bit of breaking news.
Mary Bacon: It’s the new Charles Busch play, and it is one of the funniest parts I ever will have played. It centers on this old lady living in a house in Greenwich Village. She has a friend staying with her who does drag shows in Las Vegas (played by Charles Busch). His best friend (played by Julie Halston) is this alcoholic real-estate agent. So when the old lady dies in her sleep, he takes on her identity and the two friends scheme to sell the house for themselves. But then I show up from Wisconsin. I play this mousy niece of the woman who died. I am so excited to play with Julie Halston. She is one of my very favorite actors, and she is also one of the best, and kindest.
John Moore: What is your final takeaway on “Just Like Us”?
Mary Bacon: I watch this story play out every night and by the end, I am always very, very moved. And it hits at different points in the play each night. That is the power of this play. What Helen says at the very end? That’s my parents. That’s their attitude, and I am glad that she arrives at that conclusion over time, rather than feeling that way from the beginning.
“Just Like Us” ticket information:
Through Nov. 3.
Showtimes: 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; 1:30 p.m. Sundays.
At the Stage Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets.
303-893-4100 or the denver center’s home page
Additional coverage:
Just Like Us: Theatre that makes the political personal … and entertaining
Video podcast: Denver business leaders say time is now for “Just Like Us” - and immigration reform:
Video montage: Performance highlights:
Video podcast: Playwright Karen Zacarias, author Helen Thorpe:
Coming next: Meet Jonathan Earl Peck, who plays Everett Whiteside, a gifted but possiby deranged outsider artist in the comedy, “The Most Deserving.”
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