Les Roka
A federal bank examiner who is relocating from Chicago to San Francisco stopped by Caffe d’bolla in downtown Salt Lake City, based on the recommendation of a friend in Milwaukee. A young Utah man had budgeted carefully for one of his regular visits to the shop which has become one of the nation’s most respected … Read more
Two exceptional documentaries of magnificent story-telling by women directors – one about Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and the other about a small group of elderly women who have lived for 30 years within the forbidden zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster – will be screened in free, public presentations later this month … Read more
Early in her novel Alibi Creek, Bev Magennis, succinctly sets the place of her story: Tucked in a fold of the Mariposa Mountains, Brand had been overrun by unfamiliar faces, the locals showing their disapproval by shunning greetings, refusing to indulge in small talk, and forgetting names. Walker, however, saw this small, steady influx of … Read more
One of the many joys in Kingdom of Heaven, Plan-B Theatre’s first take on an original musical, is the set of songs that lift Jenifer Nii’s already substantive story about a dutiful, faithful Mormon housewife who comes to terms with a newly emerged part of her identity as a drag king performer. The songs are … Read more
For this week’s spring program, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company will offer three dance compositions – including two world premieres with original soundscapes in music – that imbue the simple Black Box Theatre venue in the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts with fresh cultural and emotional energy. For both performers and audience members, the works … Read more
The genre of musicals in the 21st century is getting a flattering facelift. Hamilton, for example, with its tantalizing alchemy of stimulating passion for history through ingeniously accessible rap and hip hop stands out for how racial barriers in the making of art and culture can be dismantled. Fun Home, staged as theater in the … Read more
Two films – a documentary that premiered at Sundance in January and this year’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture – that delve into painful memories involving either the murder or sexual abuse of children are part of the upcoming Utah Film Center’s free, public schedule of screenings. The April 6 screening of Spotlight, the … Read more
The long immigration corridor from all parts of Mexico to all parts of the United States has brought some of the most gratifying results to the American restaurant industry, especially with ambitious, eager and talented chefs. No doubt, Carlos Gaytán, who spent three days last week in Salt Lake City in culinary events to raise … Read more
The art of writing a good time travel story can be difficult to the point of confounding, tentative, and enigmatic. The pilot script for Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone series was titled The Time Element, concerning a man who is in therapy with a psychoanalyst. Serling’s script lay untouched for a year before producers decided to … Read more
Carlos Gaytán, a pioneering Mexican chef whose Chicago restaurant has attracted global attention and praise, will come to Salt Lake City later this week to help raise scholarship money for Artes de Mexico en Utah in an event sponsored by the Consulate of Mexico in Salt Lake City. Gaytán will be preparing meals for private … Read more