Cavalcade’s Variety Show works magic for performers, audience

By ANN WRIGHT

Ann.Wright@gjsentinel.com

Call it magic or call it charm, the Variety Show has a creative energy all its own. “There’s really a lot. You get spoken word, you get music from every aspect,” said Rick Hudak, who performs in the show regularly. “I’m from a bluegrass background but there are people from jazz backgrounds and there was a guy two months ago who did a play, a one-man skit. There’s a lot poetry, slam poetry. It’s super cool.”

Once a month, the Variety Show takes over the Cavalcade, 201 E. Aspen Ave., in Fruita. It’s a smaller all-volunteer nonprofit venue, but large on originality with a loyal following.

Cavalcade was opened by a group of friends more than 14 years ago, and the Variety Show came about as a way to pay the rent, said Cullen Purser, who along with his wife, Jeannine, was part of founding group.

The Variety Show started with Purser performing music and a serial story called “The Prophet of Melon” in the vein of the radio show “A Prairie Home Companion,” he said.

Purser continued to give installments of the story as the Variety Show’s set list grew with performers from across the Grand Valley and even some visitors to the area.

Eventually, “The Prophet of Melon’s” main character became so grumpy that Purser had to let the story go. He made short films for the show for a while and now performs in the duo T&C Mining Co. with Tori Mining.

In the meantime, the Variety Show developed its own culture with people sharing the creative part of themselves that may have taken a backseat to life or career, but is something they are really good at, Purser said.

While there are regulars on the Variety Show’s set list, there also is the unexpected. It’s a “petri dish where an occasional unbelievable moment happens,” Purser said.

In December, a musician who busks across Europe singing opera and playing the accordion, showed up at a Cavalcade Thursday Open Mic and was drafted to perform in the Variety Show where he blew everyone away.

There also are musicians or poets just getting comfortable with a microphone and learning what they can pull off and sometimes surprising themselves and the audience. “It’s a safe place to try,” Purser said.

“It’s a good vibe,” said Irelynn Liesmer, who has performed in the show for a couple years as Irelynn & Unmarked Roads with her sister, Kaylee Miller, and Trevor Hall.

“It’s a time for a bunch of different people with a variety of interest to get together and just express themselves in different ways,” said Liesmer, who writes indie pop music. Along with playing her originals, the group performs country, rock and folk covers.

The Variety Show is a comfortable, nonjudgemental space, and each month the show is different, she said, noting that she often gets helpful feedback from the audience: “This type of song suits you really well.”

“I’ve never seen a negative response from anybody,” said Hudak, who also gets together weekly with his band — eight musicians, some with lengthy performance backgrounds, who call themselves Woodshed — to practice and develop original songs or covers for the Variety Show or gigs around the valley. They like the Variety Show for its laid-back atmosphere and its accepting and diverse crowd, he said. As the stage is changed between acts, one of the Cavalcade’s volunteers likely will be up telling jokes that cultivate a congenial back and forth between stage and audience, which is good because there’s not a whole lot of room between the two in the venue, he said. “If you want to get local flair, that’s what you’re going to get,” he said.

The Variety Show has lived up to his vision, Purser said.

The only thing it might lack is magic, as in real magicians who could perform now and again, he hinted.

Otherwise, the show “is amazing,” he said.

Rick Hudak sings with other members of the band Woodshed at the Cavalcade in Fruita on Jan. 11.

Photos by AARON ACKER / Special to the Sentinel

T&C Mining Co. perform at the Cavalcade in Fruita on Jan. 11.

Ron Honea performs at the Cavalcade in Fruita on Jan. 11.

Irelynn & Unmarked Roads perform at the Cavalcade in Fruita on Jan. 11.

Ben McLam performs at the Cavalcade in Fruita on Jan. 11.