NOTE: This is the second installment in a review of Plan-B Theatre’s 2013-2014 season. The final installment looks ahead to the company’s 24th season, which is slated to be the most extensive in Plan-B’s history. At the bottom of the post is a preview video. In the decade leading to 2000, the American Library Association’s … Read more
NOTE: This is the first of three installments about Plan-B Theatre’s season. The second installment will highlight the upcoming ‘And The Banned Played On’ event which will be held May 3 at The Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts. ‘So: the Season of Eric. And I’m Eric; apparently sufficiently known (or at least notorious) to … Read more
Describe Blue Man Group. Ready Go. Impossible. Improbable. The theatrically indescribable Blue Man Group hit Salt Lake City with a splash on opening night Tuesday. The group will perform at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus through April 6. Tickets are still available in limited quantities to all remaining shows. Defying categorization, Blue … Read more
In each of the short plays that comprise Eric Samuelsen’s latest work ‘3,’ Platonic notions of order and perfection are treated with stunningly effective realism. Plan-B Theatre’s latest premiere brings audiences close to the Mormon soldiers of ambition – women who crave validation, status and institutional acceptance and who desire getting something tangible or identifiable … Read more
Although he calls it an “odd quirk” in his writing process, listening to certain kinds of music has been quite helpful for Eric Samuelsen in shaping the rhythmic and thematic flows of his plays. For example, in a play-in-progress about 11th century papal politics, he finds listening to rock ‘n’ roll from the late 1950s … Read more
Pygmalion Theatre Company closes out it’s production of “The Women of Lockerbie” by Deborah Brevoort at Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center this evening (March 22). The play is based on the real-life events following the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people. Set seven years after the plane crashed … Read more
Love, passion and death are guarantees in opera and Turandot is no exception. It’s the tale of a cold-hearted princess who requires suitors to answer a series of riddles in order to win her hand in marriage–but a wrong answer results in death. The opera is extravagant on several levels, with a massive cast, an … Read more
NOTE: Les Roka appreciates Mark Alvarez, an attorney and immigration expert who happens to have studied economics as an undergraduate student, for reviewing Plan-B Theatre’s latest premiere, ‘Clearing Bombs’ which runs through March 2. There are still a few seats available for the remaining performances and ticket information can be found at www.planbtheatre.org. Photos courtesy … Read more
The literary arts have emerged as a potent platform for addressing bullying. Recent books such as the compilation ‘Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories;’ ‘One,’ a picturebook by Katherine Otashi, and ‘The Misfits,’ in which one of the main characters is inspired by her interaction with J. K. Rowling’s books to form a political … Read more
‘Having spent much of the past three years reading and writing about this subject, I wonder whether it is even worth engaging with these arguments. The aversion to government spending, and government activity generally, which animates many Americans isn’t actually based on economics, or logic: it is an emotionally driven belief system, founded upon a … Read more