Review: Bad Books

Review: Bad Books  | Curious Theatre Company & Local Theater Company | Denver & Boulder, CO | Curtain Up! | Eric Fitzgerald

Currently at Curious Theatre Company, Sharyn Rothstein’s play Bad Books cracks open a volatile conversation simmering beneath everyday life. This taut, clear‑eyed play reflects the quiet consequences of our choices and amplifies them all the way to the back row. It becomes a bracing commentary on the tangled influence of social media and the cultural unease shaping our moment. And it is about consequences – the consequences that follow when seemingly careful decisions unravel.

This production is a co‑presentation with Boulder’s Local Theater Company and is produced as part of a National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere. Playwright Sharyn Rothstein has been selected to receive NNPN’s David Goldman Prize for New American Plays in recognition of Bad Books.

Guided by director Nick Chase, his steady hand keeps the play’s tensions sharply focused. At its center are actors Jada Suzanne Dixon, a Curious Artistic Company Member and Local Theater Company Associate Artist, joined by Colorado-based Lauren Dennis, who shifts fluidly among several roles, giving the evening much of its texture and momentum.

Left to Right: Jada Suzanne Dixon, Lauren Dennis | Photography credit: RDG Photography

At its core, Bad Books dives straight into the territory its title promises: the policing of stories. The conflict ignites when The Mother (Jada Suzanne Dixon) challenges a single book she believes crosses a line, especially as it relates to her son, pulling The Librarian (Lauren Dennis) into a confrontation that quickly widens beyond the page.

In Bad Books, a typical afternoon at a public library takes an ugly turn when The Mother arrives with a single book she feels is unsuitable for her teenage son. What starts as a straightforward question quickly turns into a tense exchange with The Librarian, whose dedication to access and intellectual freedom conflicts with The Mother’s worries about safety, influence, and responsibility. As the discussion progresses, The Librarian shifts through various roles — from bureaucratic gatekeeper to hesitant confidante — revealing how personal histories, social pressures, and the digital echo chamber influence the stories we permit, resist, and seek to protect.

Dixon meets the emotional demands of the role with remarkable clarity, navigating The Mother’s fear, frustration, and vulnerability with a grounded intensity that anchors the play. Opposite her, Dennis brings impressive versatility, shaping each of her characterizations with subtle yet distinct physical and emotional detail. Together, they create a dynamic that keeps the conversation alive and shifting, revealing the human stakes beneath the debate.

Director Nick Chase shapes the production with clarity and urgency that make its themes feel uncomfortably close to home. Under his guidance, the play becomes a mirror held up to the everyday anxieties, distortions, and moral panics that define so much of modern life. Chase keeps the pacing firm and the emotional stakes sharply in focus, bringing the entire arc to life in a brisk 90 minutes that never loses its grip on the audience. Kudos to Chavez for shaping it all with a steady hand and an unflinching eye.

David J. Castellano’s set is deliberately austere, an adaptable framework that shifts with the play’s emotional temperature while never distracting from the central debate. Nicole Watts’ costumes ground the production firmly in the present, using contemporary silhouettes and textures to underscore the everyday nature of the conflict. The lighting design by Sean Mallary adds the final layer, striking an emotional chord that subtly guides the audience through moments of tension, vulnerability, and revelation.

Sharyn Rothstein’s Bad Books lands as a vital piece of theatre for this moment, holding up an unflinching mirror to the fears, distortions, and cultural fractures shaping our world today. It also confronts the rising tide of censorship, revealing how easily personal anxieties can harden into public battles over who gets to decide what stories are allowed. Under Nick Chase’s assured direction, and through the finely tuned work of Dixon and Dennis, the play becomes more than a debate — it becomes a reckoning. This is one of those rare productions that asks to be seen, considered, and absorbed, a necessary step toward naming and perhaps even purging the demons that haunt our contemporary lives.

Dates: Denver (Curious Theatre Company) January 10 through February 1; Boulder (Local Theater Company) February 5 through February 14

For information and tickets: https://www.curioustheatre.org/event/bad-books/