Blue Man Group splashes into Salt Lake through April 6

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

NHMU exhibit demonstrates clearly Utah’s passion for making, eating great chocolate

One of the best indicators of just how enthusiasm for fine chocolate has grown in Utah in less than a decade is the response to the chocolate exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City. It’s not uncommon for the exhibit, which chronicles neatly the long cultural and anthropological history of … Read more

Fresco features Mezzo Chocolate tasting menu

In partnership with The Natural History Museum of Utah and their current exhibit, Chocolate: The Exhibition, local chocolate makers and restaurants are partnering together to create a special chocolate dish to celebrate the exhibit. For March, Fresco Italian Café’s chef Logan Holt is pairing with Mezzo Chocolate to create an amazing three-course chocolate meal for … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s ‘3’ addresses the ‘casualties of perfectionism’ among Mormon women

3 by plan theatre featured image

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

The Women of Lockerbie play is gut-wrenchingly good

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

Utah Opera’s Silk & Spices Festival, March 19 & 20

To celebrate the Utah Opera’s spring production of Turandot, they are highlighting the Chinese culture and cuisine during the Silk & Spices Festival. The opera is set in Peking so Silk & Spices highlights Utah’s growing Chinese culture— including Salt Lake’s new Chinatown on State Street near 3300 South. For two evenings only, enjoy a … Read more

Utah Opera Presents Turandot

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

Clearing thoughts on a tough subject: Highly entertaining Plan-B Theatre’s ‘Clearing Bombs’

'Clearing Bombs'

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

Utah ‘Transmormon’ film by OHO Media, VideoWest garners Artistic Vision Award at Big Sky Film Fest

Eri Hayward, today

‘The most striking thing about the crowd is their ordinariness: just a bunch of earnest suburban moms and dads, accompanied by young children still so androgynous-looking that the trans kids are indistinguishable from their non-trans siblings.’ — Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone Magazine, Nov. 7, 2013 Eri Hayward, the young Utah woman at the heart … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s ‘Clearing Bombs’ seeks to bring sense to the clash of economic principles

plan b theatre clearing bombs featured image

‘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