About Shadow Theatre Company

Founded by Jeffrey Nickelson in 1997, Shadow Theatre Company (Shadow) answered the artistic and spiritual necessity of creating an African American theatre for the Rocky Mountain region.

Eleven years later, Shadow moved into a new state-of-the-art building, made possible in part through a partnership with the City of Aurora. Besides becoming Shadow's main performance venue, the new headquarters will serve as an arts incubator for the local community.

Shadow's performances continue to reflect upon the social morés of our time, challenging audience members to reconsider their own values, attitudes and actions. In addition to our theatrical season, each summer Shadow provides an intensive, five-week artist-in-residence program for area youth that culminates in a full production led, produced, directed and performed by program participants.

Shadow has presented 51 productions and received countless awards including the Mayors Award for Excellence in the Arts and numerous Denver Post Ovation Awards and nominations.

MISSION
Our mission is to develop cultural awareness through theatre and to provide an understanding, respect and appreciation of our history and culture as expressed from the heart of the human condition.

VISION
Shadow Theatre Company consistently seeks to provide a vehicle of artistic expression for Colorado's indigenous actors, artists, and writers that will be non-exclusive to any and all cultural communities and take responsibility for educating children through an "edutainment" format designed to empower youth by promoting positive peer influence witha primary focus on African-American and Latino youth.

Shadow Theatre Company strives to challenge the community-at-large to participate in our determination to be an example of the re-emergence of community-based independence.

Jeffrey Nickelson (1956 - 2009) was the founder and executive/artistic director for Shadow Theatre Company from 1997 - 2009. He has directed and produced over 60 plays, and has performed as an actor in over 100 plays over the course of his 30 year career. He was posthumously awarded the 2009 Mayor's Cultural Legacy Award, the 2009 Ovation Award for Lifetime Achievement and the 2010 Best of Westword's Best Theatre Booster award.

He began his acting career here in Denver under the tutelage of the late John McCallum. Classically trained, Mr. Nickelson was a graduate of the award-winning Denver Center of Performing Arts' National Theatre Conservatory and the British American Drama Academy with the Yale School of Drama in Oxford, England. He was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his work as a community leader, producer, director and actor. The Denver Drama Critics' Circle nominated him for Best Actor in a Lead Role for Levy in the Eulipions' production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Best Actor in a Musical nomination for the Shadow Theatre Company production of In Search of Eckstine: A Love Story.

Mr. Nickelson has co-starred in the television productions "Crossroads Cafe", "America's Most Wanted" and "Picket Fences". He will be remembered for his performances on the stage as Coalhouse Walker in the Boulder Dinner Theatre's Ragtime, Smokey Joe in Smokey Joe's Cafe, Troy Maxon in Fences, Percy in The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show, Frederick Douglass in The Spirit of Frederick Douglass, Macbeth in Macbeth, Dr. Glorious in Sedona, The Wiz in The Wiz, Darryl in Don't Lose, Osiris in Osiris, Yasha in The Cherry Orchard and Ira Aldridge in Innocent Thoughts.