Red Willow
Concept & Direction
Patrick Mueller
Creation
Ensemble
Script
Patrick Mueller & Ensemble
Stage Management
Riley Christian and Josh Morton
Sound Design & Performance
Nicholas Caputo
Visual Design
Irene Joyce
Diorama
Nox Denney
Raven
Adam Geluda Gildar
Goat
Michael Gunst
Bear
Patrick Mueller
Boar
David Ortolano
a ritual of preparation for resistance
Created by Control Group Productions
Three Sisters Planting Instructions & Info
Your casing will be sealed with a pebble. Hit the pebble with a rock to open the casing and retrieve the seeds.
Each casing contains 3 corn seeds, 2 beans, and 1 squash seed for you to plant. After the last frost, follow the instructions below: plant corn first, one inch deep and 10 inches apart in a circle. Once the corn is about 5 inches tall, plant the beans between each stalk. About a week later, plant the squash around the perimeter. After harvest, make Three Sisters succotash for nourishment. For more detailed instructions click the button below.
From the Director:
Red Willow emerges from the question “what rituals of springtime would serve this current moment?” We’ve been exploring seasonal rituals through our Treeline series of works, but this question gathered a very different heft in the face of the current administration’s first 100 days (synchronous with early concept development for Red Willow), and continuing through the horror show year we’ve witnessed from an administration that is actively at war with our Land, our neighbors, and our values, as it methodically dismantles our democracy and the rule of law.
The work explores the act of standing up into resistance – how we metabolize fear, how we galvanize ourselves to action, how we align that action in service to and with community. We confront masculine presence/action in violence and conflict, ranging from lone wolf assassins and fascist paramilitaries to Ukrainian Defenders, Turtle Island Plains warrior societies, and Celtic resistance to Roman invasion. We work to parse these spaces for what we can and should take in and put to work, and how to separate out the toxicities that swirl through chauvinist cultures of violence.
Throughout the Red Willow process I was navigating a massive, life-changing health event: an evolution of longstanding back issues leading to spine surgery last summer, followed by six months of rehabilitation. For much of 2025 it was unclear if the project, or our organization, could continue on their courses. The isolation, pain, disability, and instability (mental, social, financial, systemic) I experienced across the last year amplified the fear and powerlessness I felt in the face of the larger political context, as I lay there incapacitated, unable to meet my basic responsibilities to my family and myself, let alone stand with others in resistance or offer support to the parts of my community most in need. How we show up imperfectly, in ownership of our pain and the wounds we bear, became a core consideration within the work.
Patrick Mueller
Photo Credit: Amanda Tipton
Red Willow is not primarily about whiteness and maleness, but that's the frame through which I chose to consider the act of standing up. It was important for me in guiding the project's development to collaborate with a group of artists who are affiliated with these identities and their histories, and have had to navigate how to be (seen as / acting out an identity of) a man within this context. I see a unique set of responsibilities for white men in this moment: to shift/heal many ways that we've learned to act, and to mobilize our privileges into service and solidarity.
This perspective grows particularly out of our ongoing Native-led Breathing Healing work, which has among other things centered the need for white men to co-lead change and healing within white mainstream society – grounded in allyship and deep listening, but initiated internally within that identity group. The performances are addressed to everyone who feels the need to stand up right now, to help us each and all together sit with the question of what that means for us. We don't preach conclusions, but rather invite audiences into a journey we take together. I hope you’ll join us for that journey.
—Patrick Mueller, March 20, 2026
*If you’re interested in digging deeper into our process and sources, see the bottom of the page for the core reading list that informed Red Willow.
Meet the Creative Team
Concept & Direction, Bear
Patrick Mueller (Artistic Director) grew up in Lakewood, Colorado. He studied dance and performance art at Pomona College (Claremont, CA), Ohio State University, and Hollins University & American Dance Festival. He currently lives three blocks from his childhood home, with his wife Kristine and their amazing child Levi.
Patrick has performed internationally with dance companies in the U.S. and Europe, including Ben J. Riepe Kompanie (DE), Mancopy Danse (DK), Troika Ranch Dance-Theatre (NY), and Wild Heart Dance (CO). In 2016 he originated a role in Sweet & Lucky, DCPA Off-Center's immersive opus by Third Rail Projects (NY). In 2017 he served as choreographer for DCPA Off-Center's immersive production of the musical The Wild Party.
Patrick has taught dance technique and theory at Naropa University, Red Rocks Community College, Colorado Conservatory of Dance, and at various other studios, schools, and festivals.
As artistic director of Control Group, Patrick serves as Lead Vision-Holder for most company projects, and regularly performs and designs lights and physical environments.
Patrick Mueller
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.
David Ortolano
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.
Irene Joyce
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.
Adam Geluda Gildar
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 (created with Betsy Tobin) 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.
Michael Gunst
Stage Management
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.
Josh Morton
Stage Management
Riley Christian is a theatrical jack-of-all-trades (though hopefully not a master of none). While currently Stage Managing for Red Willow, Riley is also a playwright, director, performer, artist, and occasional technician. Most recently, Riley performed in and wrote for Out in :60 Seconds at The Center on Colfax, and operated tech at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for The Pleasance Courtyard. Riley is currently working on an original play about cowboys and a novel based on Celtic mythology. (If you’re a literary agent, please reach out!) You can find Riley at rileylaurel_13 on Instagram.
Riley Christian
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.
Nicholas Caputo
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.
