There’s a particular moment in every summer repertory season when the calendar begins to look alarmingly thin.
For months, the theatre has been filled with rehearsals, costume fittings, hurried meals, half-finished conversations and actors passing one another backstage on their way into entirely different worlds. Then, almost without warning, we find ourselves in the final stretch. The lights are still bright, the band is still playing and the stories are still very much alive.
But we can see the ending from here.
This Week on Stage
Thingamajig Theatre Company’s 2026 summer season continues this week at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts with three very different Broadway musicals sharing the stage. ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ returns Wednesday and Thursday, July 29 and 30, at 7pm. The following two evenings belong to Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Company’, Friday, July 31, and Saturday, August 1, at 7pm. Then, on Sunday, August 2, at 3pm,
‘Come From Away’ brings the weekend to a close.
Seeing these three productions arranged beside one another is a reminder of what musical theatre can contain. Fiddler on the Roof asks how we hold onto tradition when the world insists on changing around us. Company looks at love, marriage and the complicated business of allowing ourselves to be truly known. Come From Away tells the remarkable story of ordinary people responding to an extraordinary moment with generosity, humor and an abundance of sandwiches.
They come from different eras and speak in very different musical languages, yet each is ultimately concerned with community: how we build it, how we preserve it and what happens when other people enter our lives and rearrange the furniture.
A Night to Celebrate
That sense of community was especially present Tuesday evening during our annual Broadway Gala. The Gala is always one of the most joyful nights of our year, but this one felt particularly meaningful. Our theatre was filled with patrons, artists, volunteers, friends and supporters celebrating not simply the productions onstage, but the people and shared experiences that make those productions possible.
Live theatre can look effortless when it is working properly. The curtain rises, the lights change and someone begins to sing. Behind that apparent ease are months of planning and the combined labor of actors, musicians, directors, designers, technicians, stage managers, interns, staff members, volunteers and supporters. There are thousands of individual decisions hiding behind every seemingly spontaneous moment.
And then there is the audience.
A production does not fully exist until people gather to witness it. Every performance is altered, however subtly, by the people sitting in the room. A laugh arrives a little earlier. A silence grows a little deeper. An actor discovers something new because an audience is listening in a new way. That exchange is the strange and wonderful bargain of live theatre. We create the evening together, and when it is over, it can never be repeated in precisely the same form.
The Home Stretch
This summer has given us many such evenings. The season continues through Saturday, August 29, which means there is still another month of performances ahead. Yet after Tuesday’s Gala, it is difficult not to feel that we have turned toward home.
It has been a remarkable season for Thingamajig Theatre Company, and we are immensely grateful to everyone who has joined us. Thank you for purchasing tickets, bringing friends, supporting our artists, volunteering your time, spreading the word and continuing to believe that professional theatre belongs here in Pagosa Springs.
A theatre company in a small mountain community survives because that community decides it should. Year after year, Pagosa Springs has made that decision.
We do not take it for granted.
Looking Ahead
As the 2026 summer season approaches its final weeks, we are also looking toward what comes next. The announcement of Thingamajig Theatre Company’s 2026–2027 season will be coming soon, with another year of plays, musicals and theatrical surprises waiting just beyond the curtain. For now, however, there are still songs to sing, stories to tell and performances that exist only once.
The ending may be visible.
But the show is not over yet.
Thingamajig Theatre Company’s summer repertory season continues through Saturday, August 29. For tickets, visit pagosacenter.org or call the box office at 970-731-SHOW (7469).