Red Willow
a ritual of preparation for resistance
Created by Control Group Productions
An expeditionary performance taking guests on a 2½ mile journey through South Platte Park from dusk to night.
March 19 - April 4, 2026
What rites of spring can prepare us for the coming onslaught?
How do we prepare ourselves and our communities to stand and resist?
Red Willow is a ritual preparation for resistance, shared over a 2½ mile journey with audiences through the woods at dusk. Through live performance and participatory rituals, we work to galvanize ourselves into responsibility and action confronting surging fascism, climate catastrophe, and escalating brutality against people and land.
Bringing together an ensemble of white men Red Willow examines what they carry — inherited power, the conditioning of masculinity, and what it means to take responsibility rather than simply benefit. Through performance, the work creates space for healing and accountability, not absolution, and considers how each of us mobilizes our privileges to show up in solidarity within movements of resistance.
In dialogue with a wide-ranging collection of Resistance movements, mythologies, and the Land itself, Red Willow invites us to bring ourselves to the question of what world we believe in and how we engage in a fight for it without losing ourselves.
From the Director:
Patrick Mueller
Photo Credit: Amanda Tipton
Red Willow emerges from the question “what rituals of springtime would serve this current moment?” We’ve been exploring seasonal rituals through our Treeline series of works, but this question gathered a very different heft in the face of the current administration’s first 100 days (synchronous with early concept development for Red Willow), and continuing through the horrorshow year we’ve witnessed from an administration that is actively at war with our Land, our neighbors, and our values, as it methodically dismantles our democracy and the rule of law.
The work explores the act of standing up into resistance – how we metabolize fear, how we galvanize ourselves to action, how we align that action in service to and with community. We confront masculine presence/action in violence and conflict, ranging from lone wolf assassins and fascist paramilitaries to Ukrainian Defenders, Turtle Island Plains warrior societies, and Celtic resistance to Roman invasion. We work to parse these spaces for what we can and should take in and put to work, and how to separate out the toxicities that swirl through chauvinist cultures of violence.
Throughout the Red Willow process I was navigating a massive, life-changing health event: an evolution of longstanding back issues leading to spine surgery last summer, followed by six months of rehabilitation. For much of 2025 it was unclear if the project, or our organization, could continue on their courses. The isolation, pain, disability, and instability (mental, social, financial, systemic) I experienced across the last year amplified the fear and powerlessness I felt in the face of the larger political context, as I lay there incapacitated, unable to meet my basic responsibilities to my family and myself, let alone stand with others in resistance or offer support to the parts of my community most in need. How we show up imperfectly, in ownership of our pain and the wounds we bear, became a core consideration within the work.
Red Willow is not primarily about whiteness and maleness, but that's the frame through which I chose to consider the act of standing up. It was important for me in guiding the project's development to collaborate with a group of artists who are affiliated with these identities and their histories, and have had to navigate how to be (seen as / acting out an identity of) a man within this context. I see a unique set of responsibilities for white men in this moment: to shift/heal many ways that we've learned to act, and to mobilize our privileges into service and solidarity.
This perspective grows particularly out of our ongoing Native-led Breathing Healing work, which has among other things centered the need for white men to co-lead change and healing within white mainstream society – grounded in allyship and deep listening, but initiated internally within that identity group. The performances are addressed to everyone who feels the need to stand up right now, to help us each and all together sit with the question of what that means for us. We don't preach conclusions, but rather invite audiences into a journey we take together. I hope you’ll join us for that journey.
—Patrick Mueller, March 20, 2026
Creative Team
Concept & Direction: Patrick Mueller
Ensemble: Nicholas Caputo, Michael Gunst, David Ortolano, Adam Geluda Gildar, and Patrick Mueller
Visual Design: Irene Joyce
Sound Design: Nicholas Caputo
Stage Management: Josh Morton and Riley Christian
Red Willow Reading List
These voices and stories sit beneath the work, offering context, tension, and deeper echoes for those who wish to explore further:
Bruno LaTour, Facing Gaia – a call for a New Climate Movement in recognition that war is being waged on Nature.
Martin Shaw, Snowy Tower – a discussion of Parzival, the Fisher King, and the quest for the Grail.
Nick Estes, Our History is the Future – a reflection on Indigenous resistance movements.
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny – lessons on tyranny and resistance, drawn from the 20th century to share in the 21st century.
Ballet Russes, The Rite of Spring, premiere May 1913, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées; Sergei Diaghilev, impresario; Igor Stravinsky, composer; Vaslav Nijinsky, choreographer.
Production Notes
Weather & Environment
This is an all-weather event in a city-maintained open space. Please check the weather forecast and plan accordingly, including sturdy footwear and clothing that will keep you warm outdoors for 90 minutes. We particularly recommend thick warm socks, or plastic bags over your socks and inside your shoes. We will have layers (jackets, blankets, hats) and plastic bags on-hand at the start location for guests to use.
We will cancel performances for weather conditions that prevent safe driving to the site, or that endanger performer and audience safety. This includes temperatures forecast to be less than 20°F at any time during the event.
Accessibility
Here is our production Accessibility Guide. Please contact us at patrick@controlgroupproductions.org with any questions.
Mobility general: This event involves a 2.5 mile journey through a city-maintained open space, on pavement and gravel trails with minimal grade. The journey lasts 80 minutes, and does not provide designated seating for audiences.
Wheelchairs: Please contact us if you would like to attend in a wheelchair. All routes are designed for accessibility for manual chairs; however, during this season weather and trail conditions vary considerably, and some routes may be difficult or impossible to roll through. We warmly welcome intrepid wheelchair riders on this journey, attending with a mobility assistant (no 2nd ticket needed) and manual chair. With advance notice we may be able to provide these to guests in need.
Sensory general: At this event audiences have broad discretion around where they stand and walk, allowing them to manage their proximity to performers, sound system, and other sensory elements.
Visibility and Photosensitivity: This event occurs at dusk, with limited visibility. Audience members have flashlights for trail visibility, and event personnel use moving flashlights and worklights to support visibility. There are no strobe effects, but the movement of the lights may create similar effects.
Physical Contact: This event includes elective moments of minor physical contact between performers and guests. This is limited to hands, arms, and shoulders, and guests may step away from performers at any time to indicate that performers should not initiate contact.
Subject matter: This event includes depictions and discussion of violence and intimacy.
Restrooms: There are public restrooms available near the start location at Carson Nature Center and the 7Eleven (purchase may be required). There are no facilities along the rest of the route.
PARKING: Guests should park here in the RTD parking lot, cross the street, and meet us in front of the 7Eleven here. Folks who are running late can try walking down the sidewalk into the park and taking this trail to find us.
CANCELLATION POLICY: Due to the limited tickets available for each show, and the limited staffing of our small non-profit organization, all sales are considered final. As possible, we will consider ticket cancellation or change requests made at least 5 days in advance. We will prioritize requests linked to financial hardship.
