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

SC16 supercomputing conference provided real-life experiences of collaboration, engagement for everyone on STEM spectrum

For Salt Lake City’s West High School students Nicole Andrade and Kelsie Muhlestein, touring the massive exhibit floor at last week’s SC16 global high-performance computing conference whet their appetites for a STEM field major in college. Kincaid Savoie, one of the University of Utah’s SupercompUtes team members who competed in a 48-hour competition that really … 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

Scenic National Parks Provide Common Ground for Education and Adventure; America’s Largest Outdoor Field Trip in Utah

America fell under the spell of our majestic parks over 100 years ago. Possessed by the severe beauty and tremendous power of nature, we were called to action. Among many others, Teddy Roosevelt’s dedication to help the National Parks sparked humanity to preserve areas for the future of our planet, and those to come after … Read more

SC16’s Salt Lake City conference focuses on diversifying world of high-performance computing

As important as science and technology is to the more than 11,000 professionals, researchers, students and teachers from more than 55 nations who are convening in Salt Lake City this week’s SC16 global supercomputing conference, the focus on women and minorities in the supercomputing world and STEM fields is being expanded significantly in this year’s … Read more

Repertory Dance Theatre’s Brio holiday concert to showcase comedic gems of Shapiro and Smith

In the 20-year relationship that choreographer Joanie Smith of Shapiro and Smith Dance has had with the Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT), dancers have performed many works that bear her company’s distinctive joyous, witty, uninhibited, physically demanding artistic brand. Smith and her husband, Danial Shapiro (who died in 2006), came to Salt Lake City in the … Read more

Spy Hop’s 14th annual PitchNic films prove student filmmakers ready for festival circuit

Impressive as expected, the recent 14th annual PitchNic short film premieres by students at Spy Hop Productions engaged an audience of nearly 500 at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts in many good questions following the screenings. More importantly, the quality of the films indicated that the student filmmakers are ready to submit their … Read more

Ballet West’s season opens with Madame Butterfly

Adapted from the beloved opera, Madame Butterfly flits back to the Ballet West stage to open the 2016-1017 season. A relatively new ballet, the dance version was brought to life by choreographer Stanton Welch and premiered in 1995 in Melbourne, Australia—from which hail the stunning costumes and sets for the Ballet West production. The Ballet … 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

Utah Film Center’s 6th Peek Award honors outstanding Life, Animated documentary

In Life Animated, the magnificent documentary about a young man diagnosed with autism as a child who learns how to communicate with his family and express his emotions and thoughts by immersing himself in the world of Disney animation, Owen Suskind is unquestionably the leading man in this award-winning film. In Owen’s story, that plain … Read more