Colorado has a long tradition of summer theatre. The Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder is the second-oldest summer Shakespeare theatre company in the country, and the Creede Repertory Theatre in Creede has been presenting summer stock for over 60 years.

In the Gunnison Valley, in the 1980s, the Western State College Summer Theatre presented four plays on “American themes” in an eight-week season. And, of course, The Crested Butte Mountain Theatre is the longest continuously running community theatre in Colorado. The Gunnison Valley Theatre Festival started in the summer of 2021, and Firebird Theatre began producing late summer-early fall Shakespeare in 2023.