The Little Theatre that Could – Gazette Article
By: Jennifer Mulson
July 12, 2026
Once upon a time, a clown and an actress fell in love and built a theater in a tiny
Colorado town.
That fairy tale is still unspooling today, a quarter of a century later.
Jim Jackson and Birgitta De Pree were two sweethearts and solo theater makers
when they dreamed up the Millibo Art Theatre.
It was October of 2001, and as they hiked in Manitou Springs, the newlyweds
spoke their wishes into the universe, unaware that someday they would
celebrate 25 years of owning and running a successful theater.
“We had this wonderful conversation about what the theater we’d dream up
would look like,” De Pree said. “We said we’d have a children’s series, a series for
grown-ups where we do new works, and maybe nurture young artists.”
And then fate stepped in and said hello, remember me? Because one week later,
the couple met with Deborah Thornton, who was then managing the Business of
Art Center (now Manitou Art Center) in Manitou. At the end of their meeting, they
happened to mention their theater vision.
Inspired, Thornton, who was working to renovate the stone building at 515
Manitou Ave. into a theater space, wrote a grant. Three months later, Jackson’s
solo clown show for children, “Art Guffaw,” debuted in the space. Following that,
De Pree’s solo children’s show, “Elephant,” solidified their growing reputation as a
children’s theater.
“It was such a heart-filling time,” Thornton said. “I think of all the children rushing
in for the children’s theater. He got mats, so kids sat on the floor. The impact
they’ve had on individuals and on the theater community with their generous,
thought-provoking, and joyful mix of theater is huge.”
Today, almost 25 years later, the couple lounges in the lobby of their 109-seat
theatre, now housed in an old church off South Tejon Street in the Ivywild
neighborhood. They moved here in 2013 after their sophomore home off Busch
Avenue, near 21st Street.
“You always think someone else is going to make something happen, or you can
join something,” De Pree said. “And this was just an example of if you have a
vision and it’s the right time or right place or right people, you can make
something happen.”
The lobby reflects the ethos of the MAT – colorful, eclectic, whimsical. Filled with
a bar where people can get a glass of wine or buy a sweet treat, often one of
Jackson’s home-baked goods. Memorabilia, flyers and articles decorate the walls,
throwbacks to the decades of children’s and adult shows, cabarets, puppetry,
circus and aerial arts shows, and solo acts by national performers. About 400
shows have graced the space.
“(Jackson and De Pree are) like warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies,” said MAT
operations manager Katie Medved, who starred last year as Nora in the MAT’s
production of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” directed by her husband, Christian
O’Shaughnessy. “But they’re also such visionaries. They have a high quality of
artistic vision. Being comedians or doing comedic theater – that’s hard to do, and
they make it seem so approachable and easy when it’s not.”
This year’s Valentine’s-themed production, helmed by De Pree, née Babette
Matdiva, her gregarious alter-ego, featured comedic sketches written and
produced by Jackson, De Pree and several other local actors.
The Babette character – a statuesque redhead with a curly, quirky bob and
beguiling accent – was born in the theater’s nascent years, when they needed an
emcee for a show. She now appears once or twice a year.
“I was going to get a traditional French wig, but they didn’t have one,” De Pree
said. “So this bizarre, curly, little red wig appeared, and I put it on, and I’d just
recently done a play with a Bulgarian accent, and it sort of all just merged
together, and this character found me. This outrageous, vivacious, passionate
woman started to emcee the shows and became this person who is now part of
the MAT.”
Born to entertain
De Pree likes to tell the story of how she and Jackson could have met.
Jackson, A canon City native, and De Pree, born in Washington, D.C., to a Swedish mother and American father, who grew up in Africa due to her father’s job in the
foreign service, could have met at an international theater festival in
Philadelphia, where Jackson performed. De Pree went to every single show at the
festival except one – her future husband’s.
“Because he was from Colorado,” she said.
“I’ll see him anytime,” Jackson added.
How they really met was a year later, while speaking on a panel about
performing for children, and realizing that Jackson’s show at the festival was the
one that got away.
“I laugh about that because I’ve had many opportunities to see his show, so it
worked out OK,” De Pree said. “We love that story because we were probably at
the same party years before we met.”
Jackson had been a Manitou resident since 1992, using the town as a home base
while traveling the country, performing on street corners and stages such as New
York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and The Kennedy Center, and in the
Royal Lichtenstein Quarter-Ring Sidewalk Circus, a three-person ensemble billed
as the world’s smallest circus, and Chipperfield’s Circus, a touring British circus.
Before relocating to Manitou after they married, De Pree lived in Denver, where
she’d earned a master’s at the National Theatre Conservatory, which was part of
the Denver Center for the Performing Arts before it closed in 2012. After
graduating, she worked throughout the state as an artist in residence, creating
her own children’s shows, and planning a life as a repertory theater actor.
But Manitou and the dream of Millibo called, giving them both a place to explore
their shared love for creating family theater and shows for grown-ups.
“The adults are laughing at something, and the kids are hearing them laugh, and
even if they didn’t get it, they’re curious,” Jackson said. “They’re like, oh, they’re
laughing, so now I can laugh. We forget that adults have a huge influence on how kids see
the world, in spite of everyone saying social media is the biggest influencer for kids”
Over time, Thornton has watched the MAT provide a stage and give a voice to
many burgeoning and professional actors, directors, writers and theater
technicians in the Pikes Peak region.
“They’ve helped teens with the perspective of what you can do with a voice in
theater. Birgitta’s been part of giving women a voice in theater,” Thornton said.
“The two of them are such a dynamic voice. There’s something also about an
intimate theater. They started in an intimate space, and continued in an intimate
space, and it brings us right into people’s emotions.”
Masters of their universe
To sit with the couple is to inadvertently take a master class in devised theater – a
method of making new work by improvising with an ensemble. It tracks that De
Pree is also a theater professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
“When you leave a good theater experience, you’re more awake, more alive ,
more connected,” De Pree said. “You can be moved by a film, but when you see it
live, there’s this wonderful danger of it matters that I’m here. This moment is
between us. With a film, you can turn it off and come back. You can’t do that in
theater.”
Straight plays are also part of the MAT’s repertoire, such as “A Doll’s House,”
which blossomed from a casual conversation into a full production.
“I asked Birgitta how it is running a theater of your own, and it evolved into you
want to produce your own show? Great, let’s go,” Medved said. “The trust and
guidance and providing us the space to do that is so rare, and for someone who
says I trust you, but I’m here, and it’s also a little push out of the nest.”
This is what the Jackson and De Pree are so good at – encouraging, embracing,
inspiring and guiding all the creatives in their midst and those from around the
U.S., such as Bill Bowers, a New York City-based mime and actor who’s performed his solo
shows at the MAT almost a dozen times since the theater’s early years.
“It’s my favorite place to play,” Bowers said. “They’ve been great about offering
me the theater as a place to create something new. I’ve made two shows with
them. They’re big bundles of possibility. They’re both very genuine beings and
incredibly interested in welcoming people into their space.”
Jackson and De Pree are not only world builders in the theatrical sense, but also
in their community. In 2011, they renamed their theater, originally Manitou Art
Theatre, to Millibo, a portmanteau of Millie Harrison and Bo Frese, two MAT
performers who died unexpectedly in 2011 and 2010, respectively.
“It’s home. That’s true for me and many other artists in this community,” Medved
said. “It feels like a landing place where you’re accepted for your creativity and
encouraged to explore how you see the world.”
Sustaining a theater isn’t for the cowardly, and surviving the pandemic was a trial
that killed many an artistic endeavor across the globe. But the MAT survived, and
continues to do well enough that they’re able to pay their staff and the 80 to 90
actors who perform every year.
“That’s important to us because we make our living in the theater and other
people should be able to, too,” Jackson said. “And we wish that that were more
possible.”
Theater is an expensive artistic endeavor, and a show rarely pays for itself, which
isn’t just a MAT issue; it’s industry-wide. Ticket sales usually cover about half the
costs of a show, which makes funding from foundations and individual donors
vital.
The MAT is doing better than the average, though, thanks in part to income
generated through summer camps for kids. Jackson also jokes about the theater
being run on bake and bar sales, but it’s all part of ensuring the MAT feels like a
welcoming home and not a cold and scary arts institution.
“This community gave us the opportunity to create this space that would have ben really
hard in a more established city.” De Pree said. “Our vision was so welcomed here. We
got so much support. It was going to be about making theater, and it is, but the big thing is it’s really about making theater in a
community. That’s the joy of this place. It’s making theater with this community,
and people feel a sense of ownership.”
