Dark comedies such as Andrea D. Peterson’s (plan c), which is receiving its world premiere in a PYGmalion Theatre Company production, challenge the critic’s charge to give it a constructive review. Humor is an effective defense mechanism to a certain degree. Audiences might struggle in coming to terms with the story of Ginnifer, a woman … Read more
When she was writing (plan c), which the PYGmalion Theatre Company will open this weekend in a world premiere production, playwright Andrea D. Peterson originally thought of titling this new dark comedy, The Day My Vagina Met Richard Gere. In a recent Stage Whisper: Whisper in the Wings podcast interview, she said, “I was at … Read more
It is clear to comprehend why Julie Jensen’s outstanding body of plays have earned her the honor of being Utah’s most widely produced playwright in and out of state. With her exceptional instincts for word economy and layering wholly credible emotional profiles for her characters, Jensen’s plays evoke Utah’s geography while conveying epiphanies that are … Read more
Some 60 years after Marie Curie died (in 1934) from a rare blood disorder caused by her work with radium and polonium, the French government had planned to move her body as well as that of her husband Pierre to the Panthéon. However, the team responsible for exhuming their coffins had to be extraordinarily cautious … Read more
When a play’s story arises from events or figures of Utah history, playwright Julie Jensen, whose works have been produced outside of Utah more frequently than any other local playwright, always succeeds in crafting a credible fictional narrative with a scrupulous eye toward framing the script’s framework with historical accuracy. In her award-winning play, Two-Headed, … Read more
SALT LAKE ACTING COMPANY: EGRESS Aided by excellent acting in a small ensemble cast, the Salt Lake Acting Company’s Utah premiere of Egress, a play by Melissa Crespo and Sarah Saltwick nicely elucidates the metaphors about exits and safety that embody the narrative about the trauma and the steps toward recovering from a horrific breakup … Read more
Spring 2021 news from three independent theatrical companies in Salt Lake City include a $1 million capital campaign, a fine update on the dinner theater genre and a video piece highlighting the multifaceted legacy of Utah women. SALT LAKE ACTING COMPANY: THE AMBERLEE FUND: ACCESSIBILITY ELEVATED Capital campaigns can be a formidable undertaking for small … Read more
In Catherine Filloux’s newest play, White Savior, a Black journalist’s tweet goes viral and tees up the right dose of tension to anchor the story’s acute contemporary relevance. The tweet reads, “White savior complex distracts organizations from seeing the fundamental flaws of human rights law.” It accompanies a video clip of Jean, a human rights … Read more
We often do not think of the stories about pioneers and settlers in the American West in the context of the aftermath of violence and the trauma of coping with the indelible markings of witnessing violent incidents that occurred more frequently than what we might have perceived. We do not imagine the repeated hammering effects … Read more
History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is … Read more