Review

Ballet West’s world premiere production The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a delightfully spooky gallop: two City Academy students review the company’s newest entry in its Family Classics Series

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Editor’s Note: In extending its tradition, The Utah Review, with  the assistance of Christal Jackson, an English teacher and ELL coordinator at City Academy, asked two students to review Ballet West’s world premiere production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Pamela Robinson-Harris, Ballet West’s rehearsal director, who has been  the creative force behind Family … Read more

Nothing but net: Pioneer Theatre Company’s Utah professional premiere production of Rajiv Joseph’s King James is Final Four worthy

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Nothing but net. Pioneer Theatre Company’s Utah professional premiere production of King James by Rajiv Joseph is flawlessly executed. With Final Four-worthy performances by Eli Mayer as Matt and Khiry Walker as Shawn, the production, directed by Miriam Laube, is perfect for the Meldrum Theatre at the Einar Nielsen Field House, where plenty of Utah high … Read more

Spiritual exuberance in Utah’s diverse ecosystem: Liberty Blake’s abstract collages at Phillips Gallery

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Visiting Liberty Blake’s studio is like stepping into a portal that gives the fortunate visitor a glimpse into the muses and the spiritual journey which the artist traverses. Her workplace and what she surrounds herself with allow us as visitors to appreciate the foundations of her visual expressive language in the body of abstract collages … Read more

salt 17 at Utah Museum of Fine Arts: Adama Delphine Fawundu’s cross-continental creative dynamics bring poetic harmony to a museum collection’s living archives

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The most significant takeaway from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts ongoing salt exhibition series, has been demonstrating the diasporic knowledge of culture as so spiritually, socially, ethically and epistemologically potent that its most meaningful and historically accurate expressions emerge not through the neutral space of conventional categorization, but rather by honoring the diasporic origins … Read more

Stellar acting makes for Plan-B Theatre’s exceptionally good world premiere of Darryl Stamp’s Dumbed Down

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In Darryl Stamp’s Dumbed Down, Isaiah (played by Chad Brown)  cares little for literature, especially by white authors. However, he says, “I did kinda liked that Poe dude, because he wrote some dark stuff. I mean that eyeball did sound nasty looking in that one story, but dude snitched on hisself! That was so stupid! … Read more

Like a living pop-up book, Ballet West opens a toy treasure chest in sensational, touching Utah premiere production of Trey McIntyre’s Peter Pan

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To borrow the words of Adam Sklute, Ballet West’s artistic director, Trey McIntyre’s Peter Pan becomes “almost a living pop-up book.” The company’s Utah premiere of this 2002 evening-length ballet affirmed these words, with sensational and touching impact in every facet of the production. It was a toy treasure chest: Wiliam Lynch’s raw charisma and … Read more

Salt Lake Acting Company’s world premiere of Elaine Jarvik’s Sunny in the Dark a sensitively acted, delightfully humorous cosmological quest

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Ten years ago, Elaine Jarvik’s science fiction play Based on a True Story (in a Plan-B Theatre world premiere production) took its audiences to 2046, where commercial time travel is an option on the P-F highway (past-future) which stretches 15 billion years in either direction. There are time refugee centers for persons whose trips trap … Read more

PYGmalion Productions’ Utah premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Becky Nurse of Salem is sharp-witted, superbly acted, crisp in its rollicking pace

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At a time when many are trying furiously to erase the past rather than expose it, a play like Sarah Ruhl’s Becky Nurse of Salem: A Contemporary Comedy about a Historical Tragedy, hits the zeitgeist punch with illuminating humor and intelligent drama which telegraph the real meaning of witch hunts. With Morag Shepherd’s sharp-witted direction, … Read more

Chamber theater at its intellectual elegance: Voodoo Theatre Company’s production of Kristina Leach’s Grasmere is fine docudrama

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Focusing on the experiences of some of the greatest figures in English literature, Kristina Leach’s Grasmere, a theatrical docudrama that weaves historical facts with speculative fiction, can only work if the chamber ensemble of four actors truly comprehends the actual legacy to which they have been tasked to interpret on stage. In the case of … Read more

Balancing emotions of grief and coming out: Pioneer Theatre Company’s world premiere of Ten Brave Seconds blends ebullient youthful bravado, raw emotional catharsis

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In the new musical Ten Brave Seconds, by the time Wooster High School student Mike is looking for a refuge and reset in Mr. G’s classroom, it has been a hellish day of spiraling emotions for the boy. From the time when he woke up that morning, one blunt confrontation after another has repeatedly exploded … Read more