“Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver" at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre -- July 31 through August 10.
Thursday, July 31, through Sunday, August 10
Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, 311 Riverview Drive, Clinton IA
Closing its 2025 summer season with a celebration of one of America's greatest and most beloved entertainers, the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre stages Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver from July 31 through August 10, this transporting stage salute inspiring Chicago Theatre Review to rave, "it’s assured that every theatergoer will fly back home on a 'Rocky Mountain High.'"
A revue of the late singer/songwriter’s music, Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver was originally conceived by producer Harold Thau and adapted by Peter Glazer, and features orchestrations, vocal arrangements, and musical supervision by Jeff Waxman. In the show, almost 30 of Denver’s songs – including “Rocky Mountain High,” “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” “Annie’s Song,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and “Calypso” – are performed against a backdrop of visual images of America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time of social unrest and political protest.
Born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. in 1943, Denver was a songwriter, record producer, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success came as a solo singer. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver began his music career with folk-music groups during the late 1960s, and by the start of the '70s, he was one of the most popular and best-selling acoustic artists of the decade, with AllMusic.com calling him “among the most beloved entertainers of his era.” Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he also composed. He had 33 albums and singles that were certified gold and platinum in the U.S by the RIAA, with estimated sales of more than 33 million units, and he recorded and performed primarily with an acoustic guitar, singing about his joy in nature, disdain for city life, enthusiasm for music, and relationship trials.
Denver's music appeared on a variety of charts, including Billboard's country music, Hot 100, and adult contemporary, with the artist earning 12 gold and four platinum albums with such signature songs as "Take Me Home, Country Roads," "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," and "Sunshine on My Shoulders." Prior to his 1997 death in a plane crash, Denver was inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame, earned an Emmy Award for his TV special An Evening with John Denver, and received three American Music Awards, two Country Music Association Awards, and an Academy of Country Music Award for 1974's Back Home Again, which was named Album of the Year. A year after Denver's passing, he also received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and having lived in Aspen for much of his life, Denver was named Colorado's poet laureate in 1974, with the Colorado state legislature adopting “Rocky Mountain High” as one of its two state songs in 2007.
Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver runs in Clinton from July 31 through August 10, with performances Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 and Sundays and Wednesdays at 3 p.m. Admission is $22-30, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)242-6760 and visiting ClintonShowboat.org.
