The disparate works are the final two production in DCTC's 2004-05 season, the last season to be artistic-directed by Donovan Marley, under whose leadership the Colorado not-for-profit received a special Tony Award honor for outstanding regional theatre.

Israel Hicks directs The Madwoman in The Space Theatre through April 30. Previews began March 24.

"Jean Giraudoux's 1942 comic French revolution against an unscrupulous consortium of rich and powerful men who have discovered oil underneath the streets of Paris, has been given a contemporary American setting," according to DCTC notes. "Transported from German occupied Paris to modern day New York City, The Madwoman pits a group of powerful men plotting to seize oil reserves that belong to others against the disenfranchised homeless people of Manhattan who live in the subterranean world of subways tunnels and are called to action by Countess Aurelia, the Madwoman of Tribeca and her three mad friends."

The design team includes Michael Brown (set), David Kay Michelsen (costume), Charles R. MacLeod (lighting) and Matthew C. Swartz (sound).

The company includes Kathleen M. Brady as Countess Aurelia with Harvy Blanks, Michael Cherrie, Bill Christ, Mike Hartman, Keith L. Hatten, Annette Helde, Jamie Horton, Steven Cole Hughes, John Hutton, David Ivers, Christopher Kelly, Randy Moore, Robin Moseley, Leslie O’Carroll, Elizabeth Rainer, Terrence Riggins, Robynn Rodriguez, Mark Rubald, Kim Staunton, Charles Weldon, with John Behlmann, Laurence A. Curry, Rachel Duvall, Karl Hanover, Eileen Little, Rob Karma Robinson, Brent Rose, Amber Voiles and Justin Walvoord. Over at The Stage Theatre in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, "a musical tribute to Appalachian coal miners," Fire on the Mountain, is directed by DCTC associate artist Myler, who co-wrote the show with Dan Wheetman. Opening is set for April 7. Performances continue to April 30.

Myler and Wheetman are creators of the hit musicals It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues, Love, Janis and Hank Williams: Lost Highway. Fire on the Mountain is expected to have a New York City production in the near future. Pevious productions have been seen San Diego and Virginia.

Myler and Wheetman "have created an inspiring new musical tribute to the men who mine for coal in Appalachia and their families who wait for them," according to DCTC. "As told in the miners' own words, Fire on the Mountain is a blend of oral history and traditional music that tells an uplifting story of American families living in the shadow of constant danger — strikes, mining disasters, unionization and the destruction of families and communities."

Designers are Vicki Smith (set), Kevin Copenhaver (costume), Don Darnutzer (lighting) and Craig Breitenbach (sound). The set suggests a "weathered entrance to a mine flanked by large projection screens providing changing images of this uniquely American story."

The cast includes musicians and singers Molly Andrews (Appalachian Strings and a radio veteran of NPR, the BBC and Radio Oslo), "Mississippi" Charles Bevel (It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues), Tony Marcus (Appalachian Strings and Almost Heaven), Mike Regan (Lost Highway: The Music and Legend of Hank Williams) and Dan Wheetman (Appalachian Strings, Lost Highway: The Music and Legend of Hank Williams, It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues).

Making their Denver Center debuts are Margaret Bowman (The Nashville production of Lost Highway: The Music and Legend of Hank Williams), David M. Lutken (Broadway's The Civil War and The Will Rogers Follies) and songwriter/recording artist Ed Snodderly (the film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?").

For ticket information, call (303) 893-4100 or visit www.denvercenter.org.