James Lopez

What are you up to in June? Come see my new show EXPOSURE at not one but TWO fringe festivals! June 6&7 come see my new show in Denver and June 12-14 come see it again in the returning Fort Collins Fringe Festival! I am so excited to be part of two great festivals in Colorado and hope you can join me. Tickets in bio. About the show: Exposure is a most modern magic show for a most modern audience. Combining wit, storytelling, atmosphere, and sleight of hand magic, Exposure aims to be the perfect combination of late night debauchery and elegant experience. Everyone has always had a fascination at some point with magic. For many magicians there is a balance they play between enjoying being fooled and knowing how something is done, there is a fine line between magic being real and the disappointment when you find out the secret. Magicians are constantly trying to find the balance not only for ourselves, but for our audiences, how deep do you go so that you fall in love with the allure of magic without revealing too much? Join James as we explore that allure and learn what magic is, share a some secrets of magic, and reveal what it means to truly be fooled. #magic #fringefestival #amostmoderagician

Cinque Terre That is where we decided to go and celebrate my mom’s retirement after 40+ years at State Farm. As a celebration to her we went to her favorite country and her enjoyed her favorite past time, relaxing on the beach. In a small area with the clearest of water and freshest seafood. Surrounded by acres of vineyards and steep trails leading to pilgrimages to saints and women of faith. This was a true vacation worthy of such an achievement. My mama has gone through such hard times losing so much in her life but I was so happy that we got this time to drink our weight in wine and celebrate together. I love my mum. Italy too is one of my most favorite places in the world. I felt so inspired and alive there I had forgotten how powerful of a place it is for me and my creativity. Stairwells that led to nowhere, portals to blue, snails etching out on their shells the secret to life in a language lost to man, for the first time in a long time I felt love. That feeling of magic missing in my life returned overwhelming me at times. It was a beautiful feeling to feel that again, something I thought I left in Milano long ago. It reminded me about creation for the sake of beauty. I’ve been so caught up in the business of art I haven’t made anything in ages. This trip reminded me of the beauty of art. And what life is meant to be like. Half drunk contemplating existence, dreaming of wonder and whimsy in the fresh air. So glad I got this chance with my mom to see and experience of this. #vacation #retirement #beautyiife

Gotcha. Everyone was so sweet and supportive that I felt guilty leaving you all hanging. It’s amazing how much support I have and how willing everyone is to make my stupid choices feel like bold decisions. So I’m not not saying I’ll do this one day, just not today. #aprilfools

It’s been a long time coming. For the last two years I’ve been struggling with where I am going to live long term, what I want to do with my life. So I’ve decided to find myself and my new home. Give up a lot of my possessions and move on. From my old life, old loves etc etc. goodbye Colorado hello Americana road trip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you read to here and are worried about me more than usual don’t be, my landlord parked his audacious RV outside my house months ago and I was really lacking in April fools actions this year. So a little truth but gotcha. #aprilfools

Working with @thelopezident is such a delight in a myriad of ways. We are so grateful that he shared his experience of being a Fellow at the 2024 Master Class. 🔸🔸🔸 Applications are still open to be a Fellow at the 2026 Master Class! Apply to help build an Odyssey: be a designer, curator, and even performer(if you’d like to) in a one-of-a-kind 24 hour experience created by a team of brilliant minds for an audience of ONE. 🔸🔸🔸 You’ll join us in Greece and we’ll teach you all you need to know to be an arbiter of this extremely special project. Don’t miss out!

Right before my dad passed my therapist gave me a note card that said “you deserve this” meaning the success and friends and support in life. I’ve never been one to believe I’ve deserved this or have it. But to see you all meant so much. So thank you for your support and the space and holding for me.

I figure I’ll take this down eventually as per his wishes but I couldn’t but help share the news of the passing of my dad, Bob Lopez. Last week i received a call that he had a cardiac arrest and didn’t wake up. He had been battling health issues a lot lately and we had known that we were going to wake up one day to this news. Even though our joke was with all of his bodily failures he would live till 88. He knew this was inevitable and coming soon. I was devastated, even though you know something is coming you can’t but help feel the pain when it’s real. My dad kept a lot to himself, we had a handshake agreement about his will and death, it was agreed upon after a bout of heavy drinking. No fanfare, no service, just a quiet passing into the history of the world. A brief blip on than earth. My pops was my best friend and one of the most important people in my life. I am who I am because of him. If it wasn’t for my dad I wouldn’t be out in the middle of the Nevada desert on a solo road trip, if it wasn’t for my dad I would travel the world or ride motorcycles or just be inherently “cool” My dad wasn’t perfect, he was an alcoholic, a recluse, wholly depressed, but he lived a full life that included all the ups and downs. He left this life the same way he came in, at a net zero. Losing him has been the hardest and I still can’t process it. I have lost all of my male figures in my life before 40. My dad, my brother, my stepfather. To my pops. Cheers you little shit.

The turnout at my show for @denfringe has been absolutely phenomenal. I couldn’t imagine a better and more supportive group of weirdos to share with. The audition has been just an absolutely blast to screw around with and share some of my favorite stories and magic effects. The Learned Lemur @the_learned_lemur has been one of the most amazing venues to play in. Anyways 5/7 at 9:30 and 5/8 at 6:30 Im@recording these next two shows so please come and fill out the audience. Tickets are super cheap. Also in my bio K bye #fringefestival #magic #theater #storytelling

I have been so busy that I really haven’t taken the time to actually appreciate what I have been working on this last year. Over a year ago, a former project pitch I had sent to the DCPA was picked up to be produced in partnership with Denver Center for Performing Arts Off-Center and Auraria Campus. The project originally a Don Quixote fable set on Auraria evolved into a larger community driven project meant to share the stories and history of Auraria Campus but without the filtered lens of colonialism or white saviorism. We wanted to explore a way to invite community into a safe space and offer support and guidance to share their stories how they wanted them to be expressed, art, theater, interactivity etc. but more importantly we wanted these stories to be felt through all of the senses in real time. What did these moments we hold dear really feel like? Through a gracious trust of support and encouragement, we created An Auraria Parable. A piece that explores the Auraria Campus through the stories of the people who have inhabited that campus and finding ways to break the cycle of invitation and displacement we have seen. This work was such a beautiful project to work on. Over the last year getting to meet so many people and hear so many amazing stories, it was truly humbling to find so much complexity and passion and care in Denver. My goal with this project was to always be more of a facilitator and create the magical realism and liminal space for these stories to be set. The project has greatly evolved from the original pitch from years ago made between me and my creative partner Jenny Filipetti but the project evolved into something much more meaningful and engaging. I look forward to sharing it with the world. What’s crazy about this whole thing is that projects like this couldn’t exist without the art form of immersive being defined and explored like it is now. Through the encouragement of so many peers in the industry, I feel truly honored to use these skills I’ve developed over the last few years to make this a reality. #immersive #performingarts #denver

@thelopezident , AMAZING show at @gnarlystheater ! And, @alec.adabra I think you really can do magic. That BLEW MY MIND. 🤯🤩 Can’t wait to see you both perform again!!

So where does that leave us in 2025? Many of you don’t know but I wrote a book in 2020 based on the 33 ⅓ series. I wrote it about my favorite album Boxer by The National. This album became important to my identity and a way of living that I wanted to achieve. It was a super important guidepost for so long about who I wanted to be, how I wanted to live, and what I thought things were about in life. In the book I talk about how all my life I dreamed of being lost in this melancholy life of heartbreak and creativity. I would wear suits and think fondly of this dream space for myself and this dream person I was to be with. I achieved that for myself and thought I was living “happily ever after” But that dreamt of person of myself was a moment I achieved. Not the end goal and as such, life continued on and I had to find out what was on the other side. Instead of continuing in this dream life I imagined for myself for so long I find my self living with a reclusive alcoholic and feel like I am constantly behind on everything. I dont have a strong vision fo where I am going. Subconsciously I feel it but consciously it feels lost and overwhelming at times. There is a lot of loneliness even in a life surrounded by such amazing human beings, I have seen a lot of death and transition this last year and it scares me to see so many people I looked up to become stagnant or disappear from my life. 2025 is the first time in a long time I have to find a new goal for myself and new definition for what a good and successful life is. I have been told that this is a big year for us Gemini bebes. We are going to come into some great successes all over the board. I hope that 2025 I can finally get some clarity and move into a new stage of life and find the happiness that I am seeking, the love I yearn for, and just continue building up this beautiful little community of oddballs and weirdos that I surround myself with daily. Anyways kids, here’s to this year, it will be good yeah? It’s already lining up to be another crazy year of impossible things. Maybe this hoodlum will finally feel good about being me.

The final third part of this year was clouded by the loss of my stepfather Rich. He had been battling cancer for over a year, since we had come back from Tuscany last year and finally succumbed to the pain. It was had to try and find peace for myself and enjoy all of the traveling and adventures i was having knowing he was in pain. But he finally found peace. There was something so beautiful watching my mom take care of her partner and the level of love they had for each other. Something I was truly envious of and loved watching as they became closer even in those final moments. I wanted to really try to take this last year and try to find myself and own everything I was doing. I wanted to feel good about life and cherish every moment and feel like I was doing good. I was worthy of the work and the life I wanted for myself. It was nebulous and hard to feel ok feeling good about me when everyone around me was hurting. But you push through and life finds a way to keep living. This year looking back I was truly humbled and just amazed at how much I did. Even if i was doing it to try and seek external validation, there was a lot of internal success and accolades I felt during this adventure.