Midsummer Celebration Returns OpenStage to Its Roots in Library Park

By Helen Taylor

 

On Sunday, June 14, Fort Collins art lovers will gather in the courtyard at the Center for Creativity in Library Park to support OpenStage Theatre & Company. The second annual Midsummer Celebration, with its cascade of merriment, will mark the season of warmth and light and highlight the magic of theater. It will also link the present to the past, offering OpenStage veterans a homecoming of sorts and a reminder of the company’s oh-so humble beginnings.

OpenStage, now in its 54th year, hasn’t always been ensconced in The Lincoln Center’s well-appointed Magnolia Theatre. In fact, when the company took shape, there were virtually no performance venues in the city outside of Colorado State University. So free performances were held in parks in churches.

It was the 70s, and the city was reluctant to let a small troupe of self-proclaimed hippies put on plays in City Park. But relationships were forged and eventually, OpenStage founders, Bruce and Denise Freestone, worked with the Fort Collins Museum and the city to secure a new performance space.

The greatly expanded Old Town Library had recently opened to the east of its original location, which was built in 1903 with philanthropic support from Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie, who believed that a free public library was the best possible gift for a community, funded the construction of 1,681 free public libraries nationwide between 1886 and 1917. The museum took up residence in the old Carnegie building and offered the Freestones use of its small parking lot.

In 1977, OpenStage tucked a production of The Physicists, a dark comedy by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, into a corner of the lot where the courtyard is today. They brought in portable bleachers to seat an audience of 50 or so and hung parachutes purchased from JAX to create a backdrop.

Response to the production was enthusiastic, and the following year, they returned for a production of East of Masonville in the round. Audiences sat on the grass this time, and the actors passed a basket after each performance.

Finally, in 1979, OpenStage was permitted to charge admission for performances in Library Park. Their production of The Servant of Two Masters, a farcical romp written in the tradition of the Italian comedia dell’arte, was staged on the small berm in the northeast corner of the park.

Nothing was easy back then, the Freestones recall, but they were a tight-knit group—a family, really—willing to do whatever it took to bring art to their community.

More than 50 years later, they still are! How fitting, then, that at this year’s Midsummer Celebration fundraiser, OpenStage actors will perform a preview of the company’s 2026-2027 season in virtually the same spot where their predecessors entertained audiences so many years ago. 

 

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Midsummer Celebration

Sunday, June 14, 2026 from 3-7pm

At The Center for Creativity

Join us for our annual fundraiser to support OpenStage, featuring live entertainment and art, music, games and merriment, live and silent auctions, plenty of local food and drink, and an afternoon packed full of theatrical Midsummer fun!

 

Get your tickets today!