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
It has been more than a decade since Utah Opera has staged the operatic blockbuster Aida by Giuseppi Verdi, and the energy at the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre on opening night was palpable. The production, which runs through March 20, is strong, ambitious, and exciting, but not without a few missteps. Aida is the … Read more
“Music is essential. It is universal,” Carolyn Tanner Irish, Chair of the Board at O.C. Tanner Company, writes. “It brings goodness, light and beauty into our lives.” For the seventeenth time, the Utah Symphony and Mormon Tabernacle Choir joined together for the O.C. Tanner Gift of Music series on February 19 and 20, 2016. The … 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
“Or, as Mom used to say: it’s a box. You get into it. You push some buttons. It takes you to other places, different times. Hit this switch for the past, pull up that lever for the future. You get out and hope the world has changed. Or at least maybe you have.” – Charles … Read more
There is much to celebrate in the frenetic vitality and in-your-face relevance of the punk ethos in Foster Body. The Salt Lake City band’s current lineup comprises Robin Banks and Korey Daniel Martin, both dynamic visual artists who also happen to be musicians, and Dyana Durfee and Jeremy Devine, well-respected musicians who are refreshingly comfortable … Read more
The February performance of Ballet West is historically a romantic production and this year’s premiere of John Cranko’s version of Romeo and Juliet is no exception. Most will be familiar with William Shakespeare’s telling of the long-standing feud between the Montague and Capulet families and what happens when young lovers from each family (Romeo and … Read more