A new immersive theater work by Zach Morris/Third Rail Projects
Aug 13-Oct 5, 2025
Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) Off-Center at Broadway Park®

What do the things we leave in our wake say about the life we’ve lived?

In Sweet & Lucky: Echo, you’ll follow performers through a warehouse of memories, where vignettes of a couple’s life materialize out of thin air – like pages of a scrapbook springing to vivid life. In the space between love and loss, remembering and forgetting, we’ll uncover their most tender moments. Falling in love. Building a home. Weathering storms.

Together, we’ll remember.

by Kat Valdez/TheDefiantCurtsy.com

At one point during the Aug. 15 preview performance of Sweet & Lucky: Echo, our guide invited us to pair up with someone we didn’t know and take turns dictating recipes using a small pencil and blank recipe card.

My new buddy, Kristi, sporting brightly-colored tattoos on her arms, (including my favorite, “We’re Not Dead Yet”), laughed and recited her chocolate chip cookie recipe with ease. She said she likes to bake for friends.

What did I want to share? The first dishes that sprang to my mind were my mom’s Jello creations when my sister and I were growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. I could picture the shiny red and green translucent treats, Tupperware-molded into Bundt cake-like shapes, containing tiny slices of Mandarin oranges and grapes in suspended animation.

But it was my mom’s spaghetti sauce that won. Her sauce was better than any we’d tasted at restaurants and parties. I laughed while telling Kristi that we didn’t know my mom’s secret for her fantastic sauce until years later…sugar added to a store-bought jar.

We placed our recipe cards in a red, heart-shaped casserole dish (how cheery!), and placed it on the stage platform with what later grew to a tableau of 42 (I counted ’em) casserole dishes.

The immediate image that came to mind was one of a wake, with loved ones gathering to honor the memory of two special people in their lives.

Welcome to the world of Sweet & Lucky: Echo, where random objects from a couple’s home stir up a lifetime of memories.

My companion in adventure, Lore, had never been to an immersive theater performance. I tried to describe a few I had experienced over the years (Control Group Productions’ Immortality and The Catamounts’ The Last Apple Tree) but it was impossible. Immersive productions are experiential, and will evoke different emotions for every participant. Every person’s journey and experience is unique.

After the staff member scanned our tickets, we each received a recipe card “Ceci’s Coconut Arroz con Leche” and were told we’d be in the Coconut group. The other half of the crowd would be in the Peach group.

We walked to The Keepsake Bar for a refreshing beverage (I chose the grapefruit soda poured into a cup overflowing with ice, a welcome treat on a 97-degree day, and Lore enjoyed a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon), then took a seat in the lounge.

As audience members trickled into the lobby, I noted the diversity of people: all ages, abilities, and ethnicities. A teenager with his mother. Retired couples. Groups of friends dressed in jeans or business casual or more creative outfits. This diversity was reflected in the cast members, including the two performers — Abner and Amalia — who kicked off the evening.

After welcoming remarks by DCPA Off-Center Director Charlie Miller, who mentioned this preview performance was only the third time they’d performed Sweet & Lucky: Echo for a public audience (opening night of this world premiere was the next day), we split into Coconut and Peach groups, walked down the hallway and entered a warehouse-type space filled with boxes on metal shelves around the perimeter of the room.

A lifetime of memories housed in cardboard boxes labeled “Attic,” “Keepers,” “Den,” “Kitchen,” etc.

A scene familiar to anyone who’s lost a loved one.

This experience was not for the idle (although you could choose to opt out of any activity). We formed an assembly line to move boxes from one pile to another. We moved to different corners of the space (kitchen, den, nooks and crannies created by the moveable metal shelves) and watched a flashback of the couple (two men) greeting guests at a dinner party.

We listened to them argue about what ornaments would go on the Christmas tree (“Only blue” “No…only green, red, and gold”). We sat on benches and in chairs at dining tables, and examined photographs and read aloud the handwritten dates and notes on the back, some sparse, and some more detailed: “November 1993.” We hummed, then sang a song led by Kate (played by Amanda Berg Wilson) that was the couple’s favorite.

Come running
Come to me

In one small group, we held battery-powered candle tealights in our palms, and our guide instructed us to choose a few objects from a pile and display them with the tealights among the boxes on the metal shelf. I chose a dark-wood bookend with two puppies looking over the top, and a baseball.

Revealing any more spoilers would deprive potential audience members of the thrill that comes from unveiling a mystery. Let’s just say you’ll walk away touched by the magic and good vibes of a communal experience with kind strangers.

Kind strangers who shared the experience of “remembering” and honoring two people who—just like in the movies—had a meet-cute, fell in love, and shared many happy years together.

We should all be so lucky.

(In fact, it was easy to develop an instant crush on one of the main characters played by Parker Murphy. Me: “I like his jacket.” Lore: “I like his face.”)

Afterward, in the lobby, we checked out a display of recipe cards hung on strings in the shape of a sailboat (symbolizing a key part of the story) written by previous audience members.

As Lore and I skimmed through the recipes, I thought about my own parents, aged 84 and 92, whose house is full of objects my sister and I will one day need to sort through.

It will be a painful experience, I’m sure, but one that I hope will be peppered with moments of joy as we remember them and our lives together.

Kat Valdez has been thinking deep thoughts ever since the performance. She looks forward to DCPA Off-Center’s next immersive theater project. Until then, she continues to enjoy writing at the thrilling intersection of pop culture and racial equity.

ADVISORIES
Sweet & Lucky: Echo touches on themes of aging and mortality. Audience members will be invited to interact with performers, other guests, and physical objects as part of the experience and may, at times, be separated from their group.

AGE RECOMMENDATION
Recommended for ages 13+

Trivia

• Broadway Park is a warehouse-type building, not a park with grass and trees. Glad I did a bit of research before applying insect repellent.
• The gift shop offers Sweet & Lucky: Echo-branded items such as worry stones, leather-bound journals, magnets, sailboat label pins, keychains (casserole dish), and the like.
• The Keepsake bartender was a jovial fellow who engaged in lively banter with guests.
• Restrooms: Two gender neutral, one for Women (two stalls) and one for Men.
• A variety of fast-casual restaurants are within a mile or two of DCPA at Broadway Park. The nearby Illegal Pete’s offers the same menu as the one in Fort Collins, but with louder music and a more rocking vibe. Lore and I enjoyed the patio as we inhaled our food. The drive down I-25 isn’t too bad if you leave FoCo at 3:00 p.m. and use the ExpressToll lane to bypass traffic as you approach Denver.

Read more about Sweet & Lucky: Echo in this DCPA article explaining how it differs from the original production and how this version was conceived and developed.

TheDefiantCurtsy.com Pop culture through an equity and inclusion lens