By admin 
Theatreworks at the Ent Center for the Performing Arts opens its season with “Sweeney Todd,” the twisted tale of a homicidal barber set to music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. On Sunday, a longtime New York Times theater critic will give a talk ahead of the matinee show about Sondheim’s legacy and “Sweeney Todd.”
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We’ve also got the 46th annual Breckenridge Film Festival, opening night for the Boulder Ballet and a mural festival featuring deaf and hard of hearing artists.
Sept. 17-23
Stephen Sondheim and “Sweeney Todd” talk. During Ben Brantley’s 27-year career as a theater critic for the New York Times, he found himself consistently returning to one composer: Stephen Sondheim.
On Sunday, Brantley will be at the Ent Center for Performing Arts in Colorado Springs to chat about the preeminent American composer and lyricist during the Center’s “Prologues” series.
Sondheim’s songs were often shot through with the darker aspects of contemporary society — the disintegration of the nuclear family, the fraying of the American dream.
“That was what people wound up responding to. The early reviews said he was cynical, he was too cool,” Brantley said. But over the course of his criticism career, Brantley learned that the exact opposite was true. “All the feeling was there, he was a composer who felt too much of everything,” he said.
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That the composer refused the cheery American optimism in many musicals is one of the reasons Brantley thinks his works are seeing a resurgence among younger generations. “He’s a perfect voice for our age of ambivalence,” he said. “When people are filled with conflicted feelings.”
Theatreworks presents “Sweeney Todd,” for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics, through Oct. 4. Brantley’s presentation precedes the 4 p.m. show Sunday.
Free; 2 p.m., Sunday; Ent Center for the Arts, 5225 N. Nevada Ave., Colorado Springs
Other events to consider
- KissFist Mural Fest. The state’s only mural festival for deaf and hard of hearing artists is back this year in Boulder, bringing together nine artists from all over the country for three days of painting, workshops and a weekend maker’s market. Free; 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Friday-Sunday; NoBo Arts District, 4895 Broadway, Boulder
- Boulder Ballet. A three part, one-night-only show to open Boulder Ballet’s 2026-27 season at the renovated Chautauqua Theater, with live music performed by the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra. $45-$70; 7:30 p.m., Saturday; Chautauqua Auditorium, 100 Morning Glory Drive, Boulder
- Breck Film Fest. Four days of screenings, panels and after parties during one of Colorado’s longest-running film festivals. Choose between four passes to get access to a wide-ranging lineup of almost 80 independent films. $65-$300; Thursday-Sunday; Various venues in Breckenridge
Note: This is a curated list by the reporter to give readers a sense of arts and culture events happening across Colorado that they may not have otherwise known about. This is not meant to be an exhaustive account of things to do.
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