‘The Shining Queen’ returns – sort of

Jay Frank, playwright and actor, will bring his one-man show, “The Shining Queen” to the Aspen District Theatre for a pair of performances this weekend. The play, which he debuted here last summer, tackles one of Aspen’s most enduring mysteries – the fate of the Silver Queen. The 18-foot-tall statue was constructed by the city of Aspen for display at the World’s Columbian Exposition, better known as the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, but was never returned. Frank’s intriguing theory as to the statue’s ultimate fate – and the woman whose likeness it captured – comes via a captivating local history lesson combined with “The Da Vinci Code”-style symbology. Anyone who missed it last summer has a chance to see Frank retell the story on Saturday.The play will be offered only for students today, followed by a performance for the general public on Saturday at 7 p.m. Admission for the public show is $20; tickets are available at the Wheeler Opera House box office.Frank, best known as a cast member of MTV’s “The Real World – London,” is a regular summer visitor to Aspen and something of a history buff.He plays all eight roles in the one-man production, which he began writing in 2003 after he uncovered the tale of the Silver Queen while he worked on a historical treasure hunt to entertain his girlfriend and her sister.The play – fiction interwoven with factual historical accounts – features Frank on stage and slide-projected photographs to help tell the story.