One does not go to Murder Ballad, the wonderful musical by Juliana Nash and Julia Jordan, looking for meaty inventive and intelligent plot elements of a whodunit story. Man and Woman end their relationship, Woman meets New Man but still has feelings for first Man, cheats, and yada yada yada, the situation escalates, ending in … Read more
For the ravishing opening night of Ballet West’s quadruple bill connecting the Broadway stage to classical ballet, one could not have launched this unforgettable evening of Utah premieres better than with Alison Olsen playing the last ten bars of Debussy’s Syrinx for solo flute as the prelude for Jerome Robbins’ Antique Epigraphs. Intimate, delicate and … Read more
Nothing but net. Pioneer Theatre Company’s Utah professional premiere production of King James by Rajiv Joseph is flawlessly executed. With Final Four-worthy performances by Eli Mayer as Matt and Khiry Walker as Shawn, the production, directed by Miriam Laube, is perfect for the Meldrum Theatre at the Einar Nielsen Field House, where plenty of Utah high … Read more
One of the greatest hallmarks in 20th century choreography was a broad movement of multi-media dance compositions performed by the Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil, Pilobolus and MOMIX. Influenced in part by the legendary choreographer Alwin Nikolais, these groups have honed elements including multimedia, costumes, music and lighting techniques. One example was Physalia, a … Read more
In Darryl Stamp’s Dumbed Down, Isaiah (played by Chad Brown) cares little for literature, especially by white authors. However, he says, “I did kinda liked that Poe dude, because he wrote some dark stuff. I mean that eyeball did sound nasty looking in that one story, but dude snitched on hisself! That was so stupid! … Read more
Ten years ago, Elaine Jarvik’s science fiction play Based on a True Story (in a Plan-B Theatre world premiere production) took its audiences to 2046, where commercial time travel is an option on the P-F highway (past-future) which stretches 15 billion years in either direction. There are time refugee centers for persons whose trips trap … Read more
At a time when many are trying furiously to erase the past rather than expose it, a play like Sarah Ruhl’s Becky Nurse of Salem: A Contemporary Comedy about a Historical Tragedy, hits the zeitgeist punch with illuminating humor and intelligent drama which telegraph the real meaning of witch hunts. With Morag Shepherd’s sharp-witted direction, … Read more
Ahead of Plan-B Theatre’s world premiere of Darryl Stamp’s Dumbed Down, which will open this week, audiences should be mindful to see the story not arising primarily from the familiar (and lazy) trope of the school-to-prison pipeline, but to see it on a broader sobering scale of a messy education system with impacts that are … Read more
Focusing on the experiences of some of the greatest figures in English literature, Kristina Leach’s Grasmere, a theatrical docudrama that weaves historical facts with speculative fiction, can only work if the chamber ensemble of four actors truly comprehends the actual legacy to which they have been tasked to interpret on stage. In the case of … Read more
In the new musical Ten Brave Seconds, by the time Wooster High School student Mike is looking for a refuge and reset in Mr. G’s classroom, it has been a hellish day of spiraling emotions for the boy. From the time when he woke up that morning, one blunt confrontation after another has repeatedly exploded … Read more