The top 10 of many fine moments in 2016 for the Utah Enlightenment

There were many fine moments this year for the Utah Enlightenment. In compiling the list of what I believe were the 10 best defining moments of Utah’s cultural awakening for 2016, the pool of choices was more than satisfying in breadth and depth. There has been a great deal of recent press, for example, about … Read more

Good, poignant and devilish dimensions of Yuletide in Plan-B Theatre’s latest Radio Hour episode

Plan-B Theatre’s Radio Hour series returns this year for its 11th episode, and while this is the third time the one-hour live broadcast production appears during the end-of-the-year holiday season, Yuletide also beckons some chilling elements that have defined many of the series’ best episodes which have premiered during Halloween. A master of the short … Read more

Welcome to the union! Plan-B Theatre’s One Big Union is a Utah Enlightenment jewel

Come, all ye workers, from every land, Come join in the grand Industrial band. Then we our share of this earth shall demand. Come on! Do your share, lend a hand! – Joe Hill At the beginning of One Big Union, the cast of six actors walks through the audience, welcoming members to the evening’s … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s newest production One Big Union highlights Joe Hill, Wobblies

In the century since Joe Hill, the Swedish immigrant miner, musician and union activist who was executed in Salt Lake City after being wrongfully convicted of murder, there have been only a very few plays about this figure who recently has emerged from the footnotes of history in relevant ways. Last year, John McCutcheon, an … Read more

SB Dance’s All Saints Salon promises artistic, adult-only Halloween haunted house experience

The haunted house enterprise for Halloween in Salt Lake City is nationally known, including Fear Factory that Travel Channel named as one of the best of its kind in 2015. This weekend, SB Dance will take 80 audience members (ages 21 and older) in each of four performances through All Saints Salon, its own interactive … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s The Edible Complex excels as imaginative children’s theater

Children’s theater – or precisely, solid, artistically satisfying stories told with imaginative theatrical flair for young audiences – is often underappreciated for what it can achieve. Not only does it engage children to begin hopefully a lifelong appreciation of live theater but it also can inspire them to think about their own experiences with the … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s The Edible Complex slated for Utah schools fall tour

The Edible Complex

A 2015 report by Common Sense, a nonprofit organization that researches the impact of media and technology for children, emphasized that body image is learned early in a child’s development and that while media play a powerful role in developing perceptions about that image, other factors including the cultural group and the communities in which … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: 40 Years New for festival city

Each year, the Utah Arts Festival is the most effective barometer of the strength, impact and potential of arts in the state. At 40, the festival is really a cosmopolitan miniature city in which more than 80,000 people will sample from the largest slate of programming, artists and performers ever presented at one time in … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Utah’s historically significant dance companies to perform

In addition to the premiere of a dance composition by Ballet West’s Adrian Fry and performances by Christopher Ruud’s Stars of Ballet West (watch for a preview next week), three historically significant Utah dance companies will present performances to help commemorate the festival’s 40th anniversary. Many of the works were given either world or Utah … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: The ‘internationally acclaimed aliens’ of Neighbourhood Watch Stilts International

Having visited more than 40 countries in more than 20 years, the Neighbourhood Watch Stilts International members have become thoroughly versed in the curious and even sometimes bizarre intricacies of the bureaucracy underlying the process of obtaining visas for the purposes of international performance. However, for the group of seven performing artists who will be … Read more