Bruce K. Freestone &
Denise Burson Freestone
Life Upon the Open Stage
Benefiting the Libraries Endowment for the College of Liberal Arts
BRUCE K. FREESTONE has been an outspoken advocate for the performing arts in Colorado for thirty years. Co-founder with his wife Denise in 1973 of OpenStage Theatre & Company, he has served as director, designer, actor and technician. In addition, Bruce is the Company's Producer and sits on the Board of Directors. He serves as the Technical Coordinator for CSU's Lory Student Center; is a member of I.A.T.S.E., the international stagehands union; has worked behind the camera with several major studios on Colorado film locations; and has performed in countless commercials, instructional films and videos, and at industrial trade shows. He has appeared in numerous OpenStage productions, most recently in the OpenStage/Bas Bleu collaboration, Angels in America, and in Moon Over Buffalo, Tartuffe and Henry IV, Part 1, as well as directing numerous OpenStage productions and directing The Sound of Music for Fort Collins Children's Theatre this past fall. Bruce was a founding member and currently serves on the board of Arts Alive Fort Collins. He was the 2003 recipient with Denise of the prestigious Tree of Peace Medallion from Arts Alive Fort Collins.
DENISE BURSON FREESTONE co-founded OpenStage Theatre in 1973 with her husband Bruce and serves as Artistic Director for the Company. During her extensive theatrical career, Denise has worked as an actress, director, producer, designer, technician and dancer and has directed and performed in numerous OpenStage Theatre productions. Her most recent work includes the role of Annabella Gotchling in OpenStage Theatre's A Bright Room Called Day, performing in the OpenStage/Bas Bleu/CSU collaboration, Angels in America, directing The Women and Proof and performing as Charlotte in Moon Over Buffalo, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Professor Vivian Bearing in Wit, for which she received Best Local Actress in the Fort Collins Coloradoan Best of Fort Collins and the OpenStage Theatre OPUS Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. She was nominated in both 2002 and 2003 for Best Actress in a Dramatic Leading Role and in 2004 for Best Actress in a Dramatic Supporting Role by The Denver Post. Under the Freestone's leadership, OpenStage Theatre has received the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Colorado Community Theatre Coalition's Distinguished Merit Award and special commendation from the Colorado Legislature and the Fort Collins City Council. Bruce and Denise are the 2003 recipients of the prestigious Tree of Peace Medallion from Arts Alive Fort Collins. She currently serves on the City of Fort Collins' Economic Vitality and Sustainability Action Group.
For more information about Open Stage, please visit their Web site at http://www.openstage.com.
Recommended Reading:
Open Stage- Vision, Mission, Values(PDF).
Introduction for Open Stage Collection in CSU Libraries Archives (PDF).
The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner (primarily pages 1 thru 18).
Editorial Remarks by Jon Jory, former producing director of Kentucky’s Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Theatre Magazine, October 1996.