Closing reception this weekend for four Utah Museum of Contemporary Art shows, including In Memory and Atis Rezistans

Four exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) are set to close this weekend (Feb. 22). The museum will hold a closing reception for the quartet of shows on Friday, Feb. 21, from 6 to 9 p.m. In Memory, Milad Mozari: Language of Movement, Atis Rezistans | Ghetto Biennale, and Antra Sinha: The … Read more

PYGmalion Theatre Company set to premiere Morag Shepherd’s The Big Quiet, about two LDS sister missionaries

While there have been plenty of stories about male missionaries in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rendered in film, television and theater, there has been a dearth in stories about Mormon sister missionaries. However, last year’s release of Heretic, a horror film about a pair of sister Mormon missionaries who hope to … Read more

Leicester Productions’ delightful new short doc The Pho King chronicles story of SLC man’s efforts to connect community through a popular Vietnamese dish

It is fitting that The Pho King, a new locally made short documentary film, will have its premiere today (Feb. 15, 2 p.m.) in the event space at Fisher Brewing Company in downtown Salt Lake City. Directed by Jeovanni Xoumphonphackdy and supported by the nonprofit documentary-focused Leicester Productions, The Pho King is an astute, snappy … Read more

Unconventional, bold, beautifully woven tale of legend and history: Plan-B Theatre/UtahPresents production of KILO-WAT

In the first half of the ingeniously crafted play KILO-WAT by Aaron Asano Swenson, Ken, the Japanese-American podcaster, takes the audience through the family roots and foundations in the story about Wat ‘Kilo-Wat’ Misaka as a sports star. A Utah native of Japanese descent, he played point guard to lead the University of Utah basketball … Read more

Like a perfectly fitted glass slipper: Cinderella showcases Ballet West at the heights of its artistic strengths

“Out of old tales, we must make new lives,” the great literary scholar Carolyn Heilbrun once wrote. For London audiences still feeling weary after World War II, the Cinderella fairy tale took on a spectacular new life in the ballet choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton to the music of Sergei Prokofiev.  Seventy-seven years later, Ballet … Read more

Sundance 2025: SALLY is splendid portrait about the public, private sides of the life of first American woman to go into space

A splendid portrait of the first American woman and the youngest American astronaut to travel into space, SALLY, which premiered at Sundance, excels at weaving the public and private dimensions of Sally Ride’s life together into an engrossing narrative. Directed by Cristina Costantini and representing her third documentary to receive its premiere at Sundance in … Read more

’Lightning, legacy and the things we carry’: Plan-B Theatre, Utah Presents set for premiere of Aaron Asano Swenson’s KILO-WAT

In the opening of Aaron Asano Swenson’s new play KILO-WAT, Ken Kushida, a Japanese-American podcaster, sets the stage for telling the story about Wat ‘Kilo-Wat’ Misaka, a Utah native of Japanese descent who played point guard to lead the University of Utah basketball team to an NCAA championship in 1944 and the NIT championship in … Read more

Sundance 2025: With magnificent visuals and music score, Justin Lin’s Last Days is interesting narrative take on tragic death of evangelical missionary

The 2023 National Geographic documentary The Mission, directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, captured the story of John Chau, 26, an Oral Roberts University graduate and evangelical missionary who was killed in 2018 by arrows when he attempted to make contact with one of the most isolated Indigenous peoples, on remote North Sentinel Island … Read more

New sets, costumes for Ballet West’s third staging of historical masterpiece, Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, set for Feb. 7-16

Few stories have been so versatile for adaptation than Cinderella. There have been versions for children’s theater, pantomime, opera, comic theater, vaudeville, burlesque, melodrama, risqué sendups, Christmas shows, rock music adaptations with Cinderella as antiheroine, television productions, mainstream and art films in many languages (more than 140 versions just of the fairy tale) and the … Read more

Sundance 2025: Twelve short films that stood out for The Utah Review this year: comedy, horror, documentary, drama, animation

This year’s Sundance slate included short film programs, including focused tracks in animation, documentary and midnight-appropriate stories. The slate is filled with outstanding examples of the short film category, from around the world. The 57 shorts were selected from 11,153 submissions this year.  The Utah Review presents 12 that were standouts in a superlative lineup. … Read more