KEEP UP ON DENVER ARTS AND CULTURE AT WESTWORD.COM/ARTS CULTURE Mommy Track JANAE BURRIS IS LONG OVERDUE FOR A COMPEDY SPECIAL. BY TEAGUE BOHLEN What makes Denver actress and comedian Janae Burris want to put on a double night of standup just two weeks before giving birth to her fi rst child? “Pregnancy brain, probably,” Burris laughs. The one-woman comedy show, called Long Overdue, will be at the Aurora Fox Arts Center on Saturday, April 16, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Tickets for both shows are still available, but going fast. Burris is a native of California, where she received a degree in avant-garde theater from the California Institute of the Arts in 2005. She’d wanted to go to art school her whole life. “It made a difference,” she says. “Getting that degree, having those experi- ences, made art seem important. I’d been in art most of my life, but when I went to that school, it was like, this is real, this is a career, this is worthwhile.” While doing the acting hustle in and around L.A. after college, she remembers, she kept getting asked at auditions if she’d done any standup. “I said no on too many occasions. Finally, I thought, ‘I should fi gure this out,’” she says. “So I took a class.” The class included her fi rst gig, at the Hollywood Improv. “After eight weeks, we got a six-minute set. It was a nice audience that fi rst time out,” she recalls. “I felt encouraged after that. It took another seven years to get funny, but still.” She moved to Fresno for a couple of years to be around family, which she spe- cifi cally does not recommend (the city, not her family). “Have you ever been to Fresno?” she 18 asks. “Skip it. My sisters went to college out there; my whole family lived there. After living there, I was like, ‘I will move anywhere.’ When my partner at the time got a job opportunity in Colorado, I was like, ‘Yes, I will go there.’ And it turned out that Denver was awesome.” That was in 2014, and Burris quickly became a fi xture in local comedy, building an impressive résumé. She’s opened for such acts as Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che and Denver’s own Josh Blue. Her comedy has been showcased at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. She’s the fi rst woman of color to be promoted to the pro list at Den- ver’s Comedy Works, and she’s a founding member of the standup comedy girl gang Pussy Bros with Christie Buchele and Rachel Denver comedian Janae Burris performs standup at the Aurora Fox Arts Center. Weeks, who made their television debut on NBC’s First Look. Burris has worked her way back into act- ing, as well. “It took a couple of years to get back around to theater,” she acknowledges. “The whole point of doing standup at fi rst was so I could get more acting jobs, but in order to be good at either of those things, you have to put in 100 percent of your time.” After establishing herself in comedy, she carved out a summer to work with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. “I got my feet back into theater that way,” she adds. And acting has kept her busy — and successful. Just last year, she won the True West Award for her performance in Queens Girl in the World. Working hard is nothing new to the busy Burris, who just starred in Hurricane Diane at the Aurora Fox, her third such stage role since her pregnancy began. “And I’ve been doing standup this whole time,” she says. “I fi nd myself telling different jokes as I’m becoming a different person. I kind of got in a panic. I’m not going to tell my single-gal- Janae jokes anymore. I’ve got a lot of auntie jokes; I’ve got a lot of I’m-nobody’s-mom jokes. And I’m about to be a mom, and I kind of want this documented. I want this locked in before I’m a whole new person.” When Burris talks about wanting this transition documented, she’s not speaking fi guratively. “I’ve been doing standup comedy for about fourteen years,” she says. “A lot of my friends have done multiple albums, done specials, and I’ve been threatening to do the same for years and just never got around to it.” While nothing is set in stone about turning the performances into an album or a special, Burris is keeping her options open. The two shows are, in part, to make sure all her fans can get a seat, but also because having two shows is necessary to turn it into a special later on. “Suddenly there’s this cosmic-clock thing happening. Things are changing and mov- ing. I don’t want to lose this,” she says. “So a special, most certainly — an album if we can do it. I’ve gotten stuck waiting for things to be absolutely perfect, but with the timing of my pregnancy, it’s been like, ‘There’s no time! Just do it now!’” That’s why the show is called Long Over- due. “It’s long overdue for me to do some- thing,” Burris says. To that end, she’s thinking about starting a Kickstarter campaign. “It’s an opportunity to support a local artist in making something,” she explains. “It’s a small house and only one night, so if people want to support it but can’t make it, they can still contribute.” For details on how to contribute, keep an eye on Burris’s website for announcements. The contributions aren’t only for the special or album, however. “It’s so I can own it,” Burris says. “I had a podcast I almost sold, but they didn’t want to let me own any of it. And it was a podcast about my dad, called Dead Daddy Issues. I couldn’t sell that; I can’t sell off my family story. I still love the idea. I still want to do it. So I want people to know that it’s not just the work; it’s so that we can own our own art.” As for what makes her performance spe- cial for the audience, Burris says, “I don’t think there are many pregnant women doing standup here in town in the next few months. So maybe come check that out. Come and see what that’s about. And who knows? Maybe the baby will come that night. But if so, we’ll have to charge more for tickets.” Janae Burris performs Long Overdue at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday, April 16, at the Aurora Fox Arts Center, 9900 East Colfax Avenue in Aurora; tickets are $30-$50 at aurorafoxartscenter.org. AND SHOW IT GOES... The area between Larimer Street and the South Platte River was largely parking lots and dusty old warehouses in 2003, when Denver issued its River North Plan, covering the stretch of land “northeast of downtown Denver between Park Avenue West and Interstate 70 and its interchange with Brighton Boulevard,” an “area with enormous potential to create a unique com- munity that will take its position among Denver’s great places.” Two artists who had their studios there took note of the plan, but didn’t wait for the city to take action. In 2005, Jill Hadley Hooper and Tracy Weil came up with the RiNo nickname, formed the nonprofi t River North Art District, “and it took off from there,” Weil recalls. And how. The area has changed al- most beyond recognition in the years since, with development on nearly every square inch, and bigger projects begin- ning to replace smaller projects that were new just a decade ago. (Hadley Hooper moved her studio out of the area years ago, and Weil just sold his spot.) But one thing remains a constant: the desire to keep celebrating RiNo as a place “where art is made.” And this week, at its annual meeting on Thursday, April 14, the RiNo Art District will announce a new arts festival, Art RiNo, that will make its debut September 5-11, bringing workshops, art installations and six new murals to six different walls in the district. “Over the past year, we’ve been focused on provid- ing opportunities for underrepresented artists through our monthly RiNo Mural Program,” explains Weil, “and while we’re thrilled with the results, we heard from both our artist community and our members that there was a strong desire to bring everyone together to highlight the exciting art happening here in Denver.” And not just visual arts: The week- long celebration of Denver culture in all of its forms will coincide with the 2022 Westword Music Showcase, which will take place September 9 and 10 in RiNo. “Over the last three decades,” says Westword publisher Scott Tobias, “the Westword Music Showcase has been in LoDo, the Golden Triangle and now RiNo, the best fi t yet, given its emphasis on cultural growth.” The fi rst night of the Showcase, Fri- day, September 9, will see ten venues around RiNo hosting live local acts in a free celebration of the scene; on Saturday, September 10, the action will move to the Mission Ballroom grounds. Watch for details coming April 18 at westword- showcase.com. APRIL 14-20, 2022 WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | westword.com COURTESY JANAE BURRIS BRANDON JOHNSON
