Chicago comedian Kelsie Huff is no stranger to a rough crowd. “My first standup I went to a bar near Wrigley Field, which is very sporty and very douchebaggy,” Huff says. “I thought, ‘I’m just gonna tell one of my stories!’ and got a lot of ‘Show us your tits!’ instead.”

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island rounds out the CSF’s 2012 season. It shares Mary Rippon outdoor theatre space with Twelfth Night and Richard III, so its set can sprawl and the action on it flow fast and furious.

It’s a testament to the playwright, cast and director of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Noises Off that something as subtle as a missed stage direction can become a hilarious running joke in a play.

An ambitious project, Women of Will examines Shakespeare’s evolution as a writer through the prism of his female characters. It is not one play but actually five distinct plays that span Shakespeare’s entire folio in chronological order.

Say what you will about Tybalt or Iago, Edmund (the bastard!) or Lady Macbeth. For my money, the greatest Shakespearean villain is Richard. He opens Richard III as the Duke of Gloucester and ends it as the King of England. He is, by his own hand or through his devices, a serial killer of prolific pedigree.

You would not expect to meet Aunt Eller and Curly, two of the homespun characters of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic American musical Oklahoma!, at the opera house. But up in Central City this summer, that’s exactly where they are.

Plenty of comics know that tragedy can make for some great comedy, but few have mastered it the way Christopher Titus has. After all, he’s got plenty of great material to work with: a dead, crazy mom; a dead, alcoholic dad; a dead marriage; and a dead television show, all which have shaped him into one of the darkest comics around.

For the 55th time, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival brings ol’ Will back to Boulder. This year’s annual celebration of one of the world’s greatest playwrights showcases two Shakespeare, one Shakespeare-related and two non-Shakespeare plays: Twelfth Night, Richard III, Women of Will, Noises Off and Treasure Island. The festival kicked off last weekend in splendid style with Twelfth Night.

After months of deliberation, the final plays have been chosen for this year’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival, bringing together top theater directors to put on shows that will last throughout the summer months.

It’s not often that one has the opportunity to see psychological horror played out on stage. Pratfalls and buffoonery abound. Studies in tragedy crop up weekly. Musical theater is so prevalent that it has become its own sub-genre. But plays devoted to the terrors that come from within one’s own mind are few and far between.