In recent decades, Iranian visual artists — photographers, painters, filmmakers and animators — have communicated through their work how the politics of history and memory are the cogent pivotal driving forces of constructing and preserving identity, which has been under existential threat since the 1978-79 revolution that toppled the Pahlavi dynasty and installed an Islamic … Read more
As appealing as collaboration is, many arts organizations are more likely to make a bit of an awkward, even contentious mess of it. In some instances, performing arts organizations choose the safer route for collaborating, by setting a broadly articulated theme for everyone to contribute their distinct piece to the effort. But, if groups sincerely … Read more
The 10th Great Salt Lake Fringe (GSLF) is in the books. Once again, the venue of the Alliance Theater, connected to the Utah Arts Alliance, at Trolley Square, was ideal for this event. Total attendance was 1,796, and a total of $18,848 was paid out to the artists for 21 shows. The average payout per … Read more
The first weekend of the 10th Great Salt Lake Fringe (GSLF) is in the books. Shows for the second weekend resume Friday, Aug. 2 and run through Aug. 4 at the Alliance Theater, connected to the Utah Arts Alliance, at Trolley Square. The Fringe campus is accessible in the near downtown area, just north of … Read more
Solid ensemble chemistry, a nice selection of musical sendups and the especially strong performances of Zeb and Skruuck, the extraterrestrial character leads, have combined to make Salt Lake Acting Company’s (SLAC) summer show Close Encounters in the Beehive the perfect light fare during this hot, dry season. Directed and choreographed by Cynthia Fleming and with … Read more
A show-stopping moment in the Voodoo Theatre Company’s Utah premiere production of Clare Barron’s Dance Nation comes when Ashlee, who is just coming into her teen years, delivers the mother of all monologues that any adolescent girl could ever dream of speaking. Running approximately three and a half pages in the script, Ashlee knocks the … Read more
When it comes to the founding of Utah’s tremendous art movement, its own “this is the place” moment occurred not in Salt Lake City nor Provo. Spanish Fork or Payson but instead in Springville, just about the same time as the town was being established in the 1850s. As Vern Swanson, retired director of the … Read more
In Tom Misuraca’s gay romantic comedy In Dogs We Trust, a wonderful first date for the young couple of Darryl and Noah quickly sours on a Sunday morning at a West Hollywood dog park, when Noah brings the wrong dog back to Darryl. While it might be a deal breaker before what seems to be … Read more
The question of and quest for personal dignity come through with sharp bites in the outstanding production of Paul Zindel’s The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, with Immigrant’s Daughter Theatre in collaboration with Hart Theater Company. Directed by Morag Shepherd, the production reinvigorates for a contemporary generation a 1965 play which some critics … Read more
Next to the Sundance Film Festival’s tremendous short film program, the 21st edition of the internationally acclaimed Fear No Film program at the Utah Arts Festival is the second most distinguished short film slate in Utah. Coordinated by Derek Mellus, who also is the film production manager for the Utah Film Commission, Fear No Film … Read more