Robert and Judi Newman Center for Performing Arts of the Department of Theatre's Byron Theatre, was also designed and carved by Denver artists Madeline Wiener and Kathy Caricof. This sculpture depicts three characters from the Commedia Dell’Arte, Italian quasi-improvisational theater popular during the Renaissance. Colombina (Columbine), who hides behind Arlecchino (Harlequin), is demure and gentle, while Arlecchino gestures to the throne on which passers-by can sit to join the audience. The smaller figure represents Pantalone, a miserly, scheming masked character in tattered clothing. He clutches a purse, out of which coins are falling. Note also the hat on the ground that is filled with coins, as if the
Pierrot the "complaints" of his first published volume of poems (1885) into "Lord" Pierrot's mouth—and dedicated his next book, "The Imitation of Our Lady the Moon" (1886), completely to Pierrot and his world. (Pierrots were legion among the minor, now-forgotten poets: for samples, see Willette's journal "The Pierrot", which appeared between 1888 and 1889, then again in 1891.) In the realm of song, Claude Debussy set both Verlaine's "Pantomime" and Banville's "Pierrot" (1842) to music in 1881 (not published until 1926)—the only precedents among works by major composers being the "Pierrot" section of Telemann's "Burlesque Overture" (1717–22), Mozart's 1783 "Masquerade" (in