“Have you seen Hamilton yet?” It’s the question often heard around Salt Lake these last few weeks since the first touring production of of the Broadway musical came to town. “You and your words… You built palaces out of paragraphs, you build cathedrals” –Eliza In the Tony and Grammy award-winning musical created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, … Read more
Listen live at RadioWest, and click on the ‘listen live’ icon in the upper right hand corner. Also, listen here. The show will be rebroadcast today (April 26) at 7 p.m. and will be available in the RadioWest archives. For a preview of Radio Hour Episode 12: Stand, written by Matthew Ivan Bennett and produced … Read more
NOTE: On Thursday, April 26 at 9 a.m., The Utah Review will live blog the only live performance of Radio Hour Episode 12: Stand, produced by Plan-B Theatre and KUER-FM’s RadioWest program. Tune into KUER-FM 90.1 and follow The Utah Review during the broadcast. Utah playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett is impeccably an artist of Renaissance … Read more
This spring has blossomed with numerous adventurous concerts and performances, including several world and U.S. premieres, with works presented by the Repertory Dance Theatre, Sackerson and NOVA Chamber Music Series. SACKERSON: SCARLET For a small theatrical company without a permanent home, Sackerson has managed consistently to electrify the Salt Lake City performing arts scene with … Read more
When the play Jump opens, the audience is enjoying the pithy, rapid banter between Erick, the young confident skydiver (Matthew Sincell), and Phil (Darryl Stamp), a 60-year-old first-timer, as they prepare for the fateful jump from 12,000 feet above the ground. The audience laughs as Erick tries to ease the nerves of Phil, who rattles … Read more
NOTE: The review of Etiquette is written by Matthew Ivan Bennett, a Utah playwright whose work has been premiered by Plan-B Theatre. Bennett’s next premiere is Radio Hour Episode 12: Stand, which will be presented by Plan-B Theatre and KUER-FM’s RadioWest program live on April 26 at 9 a.m. Etiquette may sound like the title … Read more
Nearly nine years ago, Shirley Dygert, then in her mid-50s, went on her first tandem jump at the Skydive Houston drop zone in Texas. Her husband, who had plenty of thrilling experiences of his own as a cliff diver, stayed on the ground to photograph his wife’s first jump. As a 2014 Sports Illustrated feature … Read more
More than 50 years ago, Susan Sontag’s essay Against Interpretation became one of her most famous and widely scrutinized writings. Sontag wrote in the last line of the essay, “In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art,” – a declaration that resonated in her deep admiration for Franz Kafka’s work and, in … Read more
In one of opera’s most famous and most captivating arias, Tosca sings Vissi d’arte, which translates literally to “I lived for art.” The aria from this Giacomo Puccini opera is an anguished prayer because Tosca, a singer, faces the most impossible choice. To save her lover (the painter Cavaradossi) from the death sentence, she must … Read more
NOVA CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES: ON THE THRESHOLD OF WINTER, CHAMBER OPERA, MICHAEL HERSCH Michael Hersch is an extraordinary composer. His chamber opera titled On the Threshold of Winter, which recently was presented in an astonishing production by the NOVA Chamber Music Series, makes as huge demands on audience members as it does on the soprano … Read more