AMERICAN IDIOT is packed full of exuberant energy and spectacle, but lacks depth
SALT LAKE CITY — What do you get when you mix a Green Day concert and Broadway? The answer is American Idiot, the 2009 jukebox musical based on the songs…
ELF is nothing short of “sparklejollytwinklejingley”
SALT LAKE CITY — During a pivotal scene in the second act of Elf: The Musical, Buddy—a human raised by elves at the North Pole—finds his girlfriend Jovie, after she…
IT’S A WONDROUS LIFE: a cheerful take on a classic story
SALT LAKE CITY — The Off Broadway Theatre knows how to do the holidays. From the moment I walked into the meticulously and aesthetically decorated lobby, opulent despite its small…
MIRACLE ON 42ND STREET wasn’t the miracle I was looking for
MURRAY — Desert Star Playhouse’s Miracle on 42nd Street is based on Miracle on 34th Street, interspersed with some creative gags and song and dance numbers. The overall plot is…
GETTING OUT: An immersing story of reinvention
SALT LAKE CITY — Getting Out tells the story of a woman named Arlene who is on parole following her second stint in prison for the second-degree murder of a…
Leave LOVE ALONE alone
SALT LAKE CITY — In the aftermath of a tragedy, a family must put the pieces together. As they sort through the events that led to their loved one’s death,…
New World Shakespeare’s MACBETH makes an earnest attempt
SALT LAKE CITY — The Leonardo, called a “contemporary science, technology, and art museum,” hosted New World Shakespeare’s modern Macbeth this Halloween season. Directed by DRU, New World Shakespeare set…
OF MYTH AND MUD is well designed, but murky
OGDEN — Sarah Saltwick’s play Of Myth and Mud explores the power of women in an assortment of vignettes based in world mythology. While independent of one another, these short…
Come and play on AVENUE Q
SALT LAKE CITY — It is always an interesting experience entering the Babcock Theater at the University of Utah. This space has a long history of hosting some of the…
33 VARIATIONS ascends to triumph
SALT LAKE CITY — Why did Ludwig Von Beethoven devote four years of his diminishing life writing 33 variations of a mediocre waltz? This question has remained largely a mystery…