In the cathartic wisdom of its satire and musical parodies, Salt Lake Acting Company’s summer show, The Gaslight Zone encourages its audiences to shed the fears, boldly confront and oppose the current confederacy of narcissistic weak, insecure, incompetent, stupid men and their lily-livered sycophants.
Hilariously seductive in all the right places, the 2026 edition, directed and choreographed by Cynthia Fleming, bristles with the right rhythms, bolstered by an uniformly outstanding cast. The triumvirate of writers Austin Archer, Olivia Custodio and Penelope Caywood deliver the goods with proper sendups of three of the most famous episodes of The Twilight Zone and some truly brilliant lyrics that hit spot on in song parodies, most notably Mulan’s I’ll Make a Man Out of You, Green Day’s American Idiot and Raye’s sizzling hit Where Is My Husband!, with its vibe echoing the jazz and soul elements of the classic Motown sound. The minimal band is gobsmackingly good for their assignment, with Zach Hansen as music director and keyboardist along with Spencer Kellogg on guitar and winds.
The empress of ceremonies for the show is Broad Serling a/k/a Jenna Say-Kwah, played with glorious luminescence by Scotty Fletcher. For this critic, this is definitely among the top three performances seen on a Salt Lake City theatrical stage this year. Channeling Serling’s historic role as sagacious host on his television series (in one brief moment, Fletcher replicates Serling’s speaking cadence with keen accuracy) and wearing a dazzling wardrobe designed by Dennis Hassen, Fletcher expands upon the narrator’s assignment, as they work their way deep into the fabric of the summer show tableaux while not disrupting the internal rhythm in each scene.
Fletcher’s stunning beauty in this unique nonbinary role is naturally regal, reminiscent of the idealized mythological figures who confidently straddled and blurred the boundaries of gender identity, with the omniscience of virtuous strength and wisdom coupled with an omnipresent allure that can captivate every member of the audience whenever they are on stage. You know that broken, weak men like Trump (for example, the memes and AI slop he posts with obsessive frequency) and Pete Hegseth (incessantly fixated on masculine imagery as he seesaws between homoerotic and homophobic impulses) must secretly fantasize and envy the beauty and strength embodied in the show’s central character. Even just one battalion of Fletcher’s Broad Serlings would send these wimps scurrying for escape and the closet.
The cast, equally at the top of the ensemble performing standards, includes Becky Jeanne Knowles, Angel Martinez, Marc Nielson, Makayla Palos Rodriguez, Bryce Romleski, Harrison Timm, Sophie Jean White and Akina Yamazaki.
The Twilight Zone episode sendups work well. As noted, in The Utah Review preview, the first one came from the series’ first season, which aired in 1960, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, a brilliant take on mob mentality and mass hysteria. That episode focused on bizarre occurrences on a small neighborhood street after what seems like a meteor streaking through the sky. As H.P. Lovecraft wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” In the show’s parody, The Papers are Due on Vermillion Street, a group of typical Utah white,mostly Mormon neighbors give into the insidiousness of racial and ethnic profiling, after hearing that ICE is in the area.
The second episode treated in the show, also from the first season, is Eye of the Beholder. That episode brilliantly flipped the syntax of the famous adage, as the story shows how norms of beauty and ugliness are artificially constructed by society and the state. A woman is forced to undergo a series of surgeries to normalize her appearance per the guidelines of dominant society. The sendup reminds us of the undiluted ugliness of the Mar-a-Lago face.
Making for the show’s best riff on a Twilight Zone episode, It’s a Good Life, which was based on a story by Jerome Bixby, perfectly fit the sendup with a mercurial King Trump threatening anyone who dares to challenge his delusional omnipotence. Of course, in the original source material from that televised episode, it was the boy Anthony Fremont who was pure evil and holds his family and neighbors in thrall to every juvenile wish he possesses.
As Trump, Marc Nielson is frighteningly on the mark. For instance, this past Sunday when Spain won The World Cup, Trump tried to bulldoze his way into the presentation of the championship trophy. Meanwhile, as the victorious players snubbed the president, many shook hands and even hugged Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Trump noticed the snub and just announced new tariffs on Canadian goods such as wine, whiskey, honey and, of course, hockey gear.
To go along with the Twilight Zone sendups, the creative team also wrote commercials, just as they might have played during the primetime days of The Twilight Zone. These were produced by Joshua Legate, video programmer and Kenny Riches (director of the feature-length narrative Mouse which has won numerous awards on the film festival circuit), videographer and editor.
The show continues its run through Aug. 16. For those itching to see actor Robert Scott Smith’s portrayal of Joseph Smith, a favorite from recent editions of SLAC’s summer show, take note of the company’s Aug. 8 fundraiser, which includes his appearance along with foods, drinks, silent auction and a performance of The Gaslight Zone.
For tickets and more information, see the Salt Lake Acting Company website.