The Hudson Reed Ensemble will present a staged reading of Elizabeth Aley’s one act play, PARADOX COLORADO Friday, December 4th in the Old Youth Center building at 7 p.m. in Aspen. Free admission.

Aley’s one act play dives headlong into the western slope gas drilling controversy which has become a heated political debate due to the proliferation of gas drilling rigs on the western I-70 corridor.

A great influx of drilling equipment, roads and workers has deeply divided folks in a small rural community on the Western Slope in this humorous and thought provoking tale of greed and glory. The debate is joined by a colorful array of ten characters that each have a stake in whether the town sells out or tries to maintain it’s ranching based economy and traditions.

Buck Anderson, owner of a rundown gas station in town, is counting on money his grandparents stand to make off selling gas drilling rights on their land. However, Verle, Buck’s scruffy sidekick and sometime employee, is worried about the impact drilling will have on the health and environment of the town and their neighbors.

Meanwhile, Buck & Verle’s girlfriends, Rhonda and Darlene are scheming on how to spend some of that money on the town at the Dance & Prance.

Playwright, Elisabeth Aley, a longtime resident of Aspen, has been a reporter for the Aspen Times in the early fifties, a stringer for the Denver Post and later a feature writer for Aspen Today, and the Snowmass Sun. Aley is also a past president of the Aspen Writer’s Conference.

The play has won has won the Roaring Fork Valley Annual Playwright Series.

This reading is a part of the Anita Rosenau Memorial Playwright’s Project.