CEDAR CITY — Pop quiz! What attracts 130,000 audience members per year, has won a Tony Award, and has been running for 50 years? Of course, the answer is the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Today marks the opening of the Festival’s 50th anniversary season and UTBA is down in Cedar City covering it all. Here is [...]
Open-Air Shakespeare is a Delight
June 28, 2011 By 2 Comments
PLEASANT GROVE — Shakespeare’s plays are something that everyone seems to run into at some point in their lives. It is required reading in most high school curricula, and anyone who takes any English literature post-high school is bound to run into some there as well. Movies have been based, sometimes extremely loosely, on almost [...]
Nothing to fear from Goldilocks at Desert Star
June 28, 2011 By 3 Comments
MURRAY — Desert Star is somewhat unique in the dinner theater genre. They know what works for them and they do it well. They have created a very well-oiled machine to turn out family-friendly entertainment that keeps people coming back year after year. Even in these lean times for many theater companies, Desert Start seems [...]
Cursing the Pimpernel a little myself
June 27, 2011 By 7 Comments
MURRAY — The UTBA reviews a wide variety of productions, and, in my reviewing experiences, I’ve been in the audience for a good mix of shows. So, as I attended Murray City’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, I found myself wondering what scale or standard I should use to measure up this particular performance. Should I divide [...]
Do you know what it takes to make an Ormitha Macarounda?
June 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
10 Questions with Jo Winiarski, Set Designer
June 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In preparation for our the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 50th anniversary, we’re resurrecting one of our readers’ favorite features: our 10 question interviews. Choosing Jo Winiarski for our first interview of the summer was a no-brainer. Last year I wrote about Winiarski’s set for Great Expectations saying that it was, “. . . almost an extension [...]
Powerful Reminder of the Cost of Freedom
June 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Empress is Alive with "The Sound of Music"
June 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Fun "Kung Fooey" Could Do More
June 20, 2011 By 3 Comments
SALT LAKE CITY — As a reviewer and theater-goer, when I attend a show, I truly want to be entertained. I want all the performers to be wonderful, and the shows to be entertaining, moving, spectacular, etc. And for the most part, I am generally entertained. You have to go into a show, however, with [...]
Light Showers for Singin’ in the Rain
June 14, 2011 By 1 Comment
OREM — Singin’ in the Rain has been one of my favorite musicals since I first saw it years ago. The story is reminiscent, the music is well known, and the dancing pretty much begs me to join in. The setting is Hollywood in the 1920’s. Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont are the biggest stars of the silent [...]