Sometimes, love and romance are fantastical tales of immortal connections reignited through the experience of reincarnation. There also is the mystifying sense of love at first sight. And, then there is déjà vu, that sensation we are familiar with in our dreams but also some of us have experienced it in real life when we … Read more
The remarkable Sackerson theater company’s latest production A Brief Waltz in a Little Room: 23 Short Plays about Walter Eyer is one of the most incisive renderings of the consequential meanings and impact of a sense of place in Utah. Since Utah was settled more than 170 years ago, an all-abiding cult of perfectionism has shadowed, … Read more
Famous or unhistoric, the individual embodies a convoluted, mysterious existence. Fortunately but stubbornly so, we have finally given up our allegiance to the grand ‘great man’ style narrative that took hold in the 19th century. We all have our eccentricities, secrets, conflicts, fears, shames and yearnings – each capable of transcending the mundane days or … Read more
More than the first half of Sackerson’s marvelously inventive premiere production of The Distance of the Moon overflows with magical expectations. Weaving together the lines of Italo Calvino’s short story converted to dialogue, the story line additions of playwright Morag Shepherd, the spot-on choreography of Breanne Saxton and the translucent sound design of Shawn Francis … Read more
For this holiday season, the wonderfully unconventional Sackerson theatrical company turns to the peculiar magic of The Distance of the Moon, one of the short stories that Italo Calvino wrote more than a half century ago as part of his unique Cosmicomics collection. At its surface, this fantastical tale springs from the incidental scientific premise … Read more
The challenge in any holiday season is to find fresh entertainment that carries a theme without resorting to conventional tropes or clichés. Two local companies have offered their own version of a holiday program not set necessarily in the season but with a spirit that fits perfectly into the celebration: Sackerson’s ongoing production of The … Read more
“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” “What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. “It is … Read more
Two local masters of minimalistic theater are staging plays about children this fall — though stark contrasts in treatment. One is a macabre junk opera take on old German stories about children who misbehave or refuse to follow sound advice. The other is a new play about two siblings grieving over the loss of their … Read more
A young German physician in the 1840s, Heinrich Hoffman, disappointed that he could not find a suitable children’s book for his three-year-old son, decided to write his own as a Christmas present. The following year, Zacharias Löwenthal, a German publisher, read Hoffman’s work and decided to publish it under the pen name of Reimerich Kinderlieb. … Read more