robert scott smith

Utah Arts Festival 2025 Feature Profile: Making its first festival appearance, Salt Lake Acting Company to offer sneak peeks at its summer show, The Secret Lives of the Real Wives in the Salt Lake Hive

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EDITOR’S NOTE: For preview coverage of the 49th Utah Arts Festival, which runs June 19-22, The Utah Review is presenting individual or group profiles of artists, performers, entertainers and some newcomers to the event. Visitors will also see the first significant change of the last 15 years in the festival map. There are several new … Read more

Escapist entertainment of the first order: Salt Lake Acting Company’s Bat Boy: The Musical is fiercely satisfying

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Remember when fake news was simply freakish entertainment? When the Weekly World News had run dry on its long streak of ‘Elvis Is Alive’ stories, editorial staff member Dick Kulpa came up with ‘Bat Child Found in West Virginia Cave.’ When the story ran in June, 1992, Weekly World News sold 975,000 copies.  Other ‘Bat … Read more

Poetic excellence as literary, dance worlds merge in the live creature and ethereal things concert: Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory, Red Fred Project

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In the hands of the collaborators for the recent Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company concert, the stories of the Red Fred Project were transformed into a vibrant, colorful, innocent, joyful, poignant and glistening landscape. For the project’s young authors and their curator Dallas Graham, the live creature and ethereal things concert was like an animated film made … Read more

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s ‘the live creature and ethereal things’ concert is rarefied collaboration of joy with Red Fred Project, Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory

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Artistic collaborations lead to many strategic benefits. They can make a lesser known creative group more visible, expand the potential audience base, secure additional financial resources and fine-tune longer term objectives for organizations that must prove their relevance in a community. Most importantly, they can lead to a unique performing and creative moment on the … Read more

Jump by Plan-B Theatre, Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory achieves unique poignance

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When the play Jump opens, the audience is enjoying the pithy, rapid banter between Erick, the young confident skydiver (Matthew Sincell), and Phil (Darryl Stamp), a 60-year-old first-timer, as they prepare for the fateful jump from 12,000 feet above the ground. The audience laughs as Erick tries to ease the nerves of Phil, who rattles … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s The Kreutzer Sonata with NOVA Chamber Music is a blockbuster opener for 25th season

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At one point in The Kreutzer Sonata, the obsessively mad Pozdnyshev breaches the taboo of chamber music etiquette by invading the space of the violinist and pianist who are in the midst of communicating a rare serene moment in this famous Beethoven work. His stance is almost menacing and he walks away resuming his blistering … Read more

Watch, Learn, Listen: Plan-B Theatre, NOVA Chamber Music Series join forces on Eric Samuelsen’s The Kreutzer Sonata

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NOTE: This is the second part of the preview of Plan-B Theatre’s 25th season. See Part I here. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matthew 5:28). His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man … Read more