Red Willow
a ritual of preparation for resistance
Created by Control Group Productions
March 20 - April 4, 2026
Concept & Direction Patrick Mueller
Creation Ensemble
Script Patrick Mueller & Ensemble
Stage Management Riley Christian
Production Assistant Josh Morton
Sound Design & Performance Nicholas Caputo
Visual Design Irene Joyce
Dioramas Nox Denney
Raven Adam Gildar
Goat Michael Gunst
Bear Patrick Mueller
Boar David Ortolano
Director’s Note?
Creative Team
David Ortolano
Boar
With over 25 years of experience in event production, live performance and arts leadership, David Ortolano has produced and managed hundreds of performances across Colorado and North America. A former Director of the Performing Arts Center and Theater Design Faculty at Naropa University, David has collaborated with world-renowned artists including Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, Tectonic Theater, SITI Company NYC, Carly Simon and the Dalai Lama. As founder of the Boulder International Fringe Festival and co-founder of Band of Toughs theater company, they have developed innovative, award-winning productions and large-scale festivals. Currently serving as Executive Producer of the Blind Café Experience—an immersive concert and dining experience in complete darkness—Recent performances include Patrick in Gin & Gothic: A Bronte Rocktale experience, and live musical accompaniment in various music and theater events. David continues to bring creativity, technical expertise, and cultural inclusivity to every project. Their career reflects a deep commitment to fostering community, cultivating diverse talent, and producing transformative artistic experiences.
Irene Joyce
Visual Design
Irene is an interdisciplinary artist continuously adventuring to work with new mediums. She has worked with Control Group Productions since 2017. She also works at a local apothecary making herbal medicine and is inspired by nature and holistic healing modalities. She is a mother of one amazing teen and has a small business in nutrition for mental wellness targeting brain health and sustainable recovery.
Adam Geluda Gildar
Raven
Adam Geluda Gildar is a Denver-based multi-media artist. They create painting, collage, sculpture and audio visual works as well as durational public performances. Their work explores repetition and fragmentation as gateways into individual and collective experiences outside of linear time at the edge of intellect and embodiment. A recurring theme in their practice is the deep interrelationship of apparent linguistic binaries such as memory and forgetting, grief and joy and the absurd and profound.
Select recent projects include Time After Time, (Lane Meyer Projects 2024-25), a series of looping participatory karaoke performances as part of the collective Adam GG and the Right on Time, as well as the solo exhibition Timequake: Between the River and the Sea at (Colorado State University, 2025) engaging the grief and dissonant narratives about people and land underlying looping cycles of violence in Palestine/Israel.
Michael Gunst
Goat
Michael Gunst has been working in the field of movement based theatre for just under 50 years as a creator,performer,collaborator of original works,director,teacher and just an actor. His most recent work Moment in Time is inspired by real-life situations captured in black and white photographs, this performance paints an evocative portrait of the human condition.
He has performed and toured with The International Mime Company of New England in Mexico. Faustwork Mask Theatre,Toronto, Circus Flora, St Louis, Asolo Theatre,FL, Studebaker Theatre of Boston MA, where he has collaboratively created 5 different shows that toured nationally and internationally to Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Holland and England. With his solo work Michael created and produced “Four Wishes” a Puppet Mask Theatre show based on a Native New England Indigenous teaching story that has been performed in schools and festivals in the U.S. as well as Canada. As an Associate Member of The Band of Toughs, Boulder,CO Michael has helped bring Local Boulder and Denver audiences several different genre bending performances of self produced works. For several years as a teaching/performing artist Michael was on the rosters of Young Audiences in Maryland, Houston, Rochester,NY and Think 360 Arts of Denver. Locally he has performed with Germinal Stage, Denver Civic, Nomad, and Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Michael has also had recurring roles on Nickelodeon’s Weinerville show. He received an MFA from Brandeis University’s Professional Actor Training Program.
Josh Morton
Production Assistant
Josh Morton is a flexible Denver creative with a love for theatre and film. He has experience both on and off the stage, with a particular interest in writing and directing. A member of Red Willow's Stage Management team, he is excited to be working on such a creative and collaborative piece of immersive theatre and applauds the passion the cast and crew has brought to this project.
Riley Christian
Stage Management
Bio
Nicholas Caputo
Sound Design & Performance
Nicholas Caputo (@finnocitta + @scrub.jay_) is a musician, sound designer, and audio engineer based out of Denver, Colorado. Raised on the shores of South Florida and the swamps of Central Florida, nature and the sublime has always been at the center of his work. Through meditation practice, DIY punk rock touring, and a life long pursuit of multi-instrumentality he has used music and its production as a way of transcending Self, fueling creative curiosity, and expanding the field of improvisation. Releasing work under the moniker finnocitta he produces music for dance, film, stage, and meditation.
Patrick Mueller
Concept & Direction, Bear
Bio
Nox Denney
Dioramas
Bio
Red Willow Reading List
These voices and stories sit beneath the work, offering context, tension, and deeper echoes for those who wish to explore further:
Bruno LaTour, Facing Gaia– a call for a New Climate Movement in recognition that war is being waged on Nature.
Martin Shaw, Snowy Tower – a discussion of Parzival, the Fisher King, and the quest for the Grail.
Nick Estes, Our History is the Future– a reflection on Indigenous resistance movements.
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny– lessons on tyranny and resistance, drawn from the 20th century to share in the 21st century.
Ballet Russes, The Rite of Spring, premiere May 1913, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées; Sergei Diaghilev, impresario; Igor Stravinsky, composer; Vaslav Nijinsky, choreographer.
