The cast of 13 Fires gears up for five summer performances across Boulder County, kicking off Juneteenth in Longmont. Credit: Alexei Wood
Curtis Rogers didn’t grow up knowing the history beneath his hometown. As a child in Indianapolis, he moved throughout the city’s limestone architecture without understanding what had been erased to build it. That changed when he found theater in his mid-20s and was cast in a play about Indiana Avenue, once known as a Mecca of Black culture.
“Being in The Price of Progress in 2019 really sparked my interest in this history,” Rogers, 33, says. “It totally changed my relationship to the city. I had no idea Indianapolis was once a hub for Black entrepreneurs and artists.”
Now Rogers is bringing that history to Boulder County through 13 Fires, a new community theater production he wrote and will direct for five performances across Longmont and Boulder.
Supported by the Executive Committee, African American Cultural Events, Boulder County, the play opens June 19 at Longmont Theatre Company before moving to the Dairy Arts Center June 24-26 and the Boulder Public Library’s Canyon Theater on August 8.
“We need to honor the legacy of Indiana Avenue by keeping these stories alive,” Rogers says. “The things depicted in the play really happened and continue to affect people.”
13 Fires takes audiences back to Indiana Avenue, a once-thriving Black neighborhood in Indianapolis filled with Black-owned businesses, churches, newspapers and cultural landmarks.
The area drew legendary performers like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington before it was dismantled through eminent domain, redlining and rising taxes tied to the expansion of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
Rogers became interested in the community after acting in a show about Indiana Avenue, which led him to research its history. His play draws heavily from reporting by journalist Wildstyle Paschall for New America about how discrimination, development pressures and neglect reshaped the neighborhood.
In 1956, an electrical fire tore through a substandard apartment at 614-6 Douglass Street, killing two toddlers. The unit was a three-room addition crudely attached to the back of a duplex, built with makeshift materials including cardboard partitions. Their mother had repeatedly complained to their landlord about faulty wiring. The night of the fire, she stepped out to make a call to hire an electrician. By the time she returned, both her children were dead.
“The family’s tragic situation is portrayed in the play, but the names are changed,” Rogers says. “I tried to keep it as true and respectful to the actual history as possible.”
In 13 Fires, that history unfolds through Rochelle Williams, who is trying to hold together a household stretched to its limits. Her father, James, carries what Rogers describes as a “revolutionary spirit,” while Grandma Ruth offers a quieter spiritual grounding.
“They’re all living in a pretty shabbily constructed shack due to their displacement,” Rogers says. “In addition to telling this family’s story, I wanted to question some of the processes and policies that led up to this event, as well as what we can do to prevent similar harm in the future.”
At first, Rogers didn’t think 13 Fires would work in Boulder.
“I didn’t really plan to bring it here,” he says, “because I didn’t think the story of Indiana Avenue would really track too much here.”
Conversations with local community members changed his mind. The Front Range, too, has its own histories of exclusion. Rogers points to the destruction of the Goss Grove neighborhood, an area near Boulder Creek once known as the Little Rectangle, which was the center of Black life in Boulder at the turn of the 20th century. He also highlights Denver’s Five Points and Aurora, where housing pressures continue to shape who gets to belong.
“This happens everywhere,” Rogers says. “There’s a pattern of redlining, gentrification and displacement here in Colorado and beyond.”
That connection is built into the Boulder County production. The Juneteenth performance in Longmont will focus on the challenges and recent accomplishments of the Black community. Dairy Arts Center talkbacks will turn toward housing policy, while the August performance will expand to Indigenous displacement in Colorado.
Rogers also wanted the process to reflect the play’s themes. Some performers are unhoused or housing-insecure, a choice rooted partly in his own experience. He faced severe housing instability from roughly 2018 to 2022 and credits theater with helping change his trajectory.
“Theater was a healing thing,” he says. “I had artists who invested in me during that time and really believed in me, and it’s just a part of me to pay that forward.”
For this production, Rogers is directing the play for the first time. The original version premiered at the District Theatre in Indianapolis in 2024 after he won a playwriting competition through Indy Black Light Training and Development. In Boulder County, the script has been tightened with feedback from local artists.
“I hope this brings up for people the history here and starts a conversation about similar patterns that happened here,” Rogers says, “and more importantly, what we can do to prevent this from happening again.”
ON STAGE: 13 Fires. Friday, June 19, Longmont Theatre Company, 513 Main St. | Wed.-Fri, June 24-26, Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder | Saturday, Aug. 8, Boulder Public Library - Canyon Theater, 1000 Canyon Blvd. Free to $28.75
