In her posthumously published The Sense of Wonder, Rachel Carson, the marine biologist whose writings on environmentalism and conservation are as relevant as ever, wrote, “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the … Read more
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
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
But I grew up in a landscape large enough to hold what I felt when the world of people pushed me away. There, where badgers roamed, where herons speared small fish in shallow pools, I found my place. I took my sketch pad and tackle box to the banks of that small creek and washed … Read more
At the opening of Full Color, Plan-B Theatre’s 34th season opener, the setting is pleasant and inviting: eight people enjoying each other’s company and feeling comfortable at home, outside a tent in nature. As each person shares a story, the production’s epiphany expands organically, one narrative at a time. While the audience is welcomed to … Read more
Between 2010 and 2020, Utah’s population grew at a faster rate than in any other state and more than 52% of that growth occurred in minority populations. Today, more than 1 in 4 Utahns identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC), compared to 1 in 5 in the 2010 U.S. Census. As the … Read more
As appealing as collaboration is, many arts organizations are more likely to make a bit of an awkward, even contentious mess of it. In some instances, performing arts organizations choose the safer route for collaborating, by setting a broadly articulated theme for everyone to contribute their distinct piece to the effort. But, if groups sincerely … Read more
While Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is among the most familiar pieces in the classical musical repertoire, it might surprise more than a few just how little we actually know about what the composer’s expressive intentions were when he composed in 1874 the piano score in memory of his friend, the Russian painter and … Read more
The two actors in the fabulous Plan-B Theatre production of Melissa Leilani Larson’s Bitter Lemon persuade the audience to reconsider Shakespeare’s Macbeth, not just as a chronicle about the fatalistic machinations of power but also as the moral conflict about good and evil. This conflict is manifested in Larson’s character creations of Lady Helen Macduff … Read more
In February, Plan-B Theatre mounted a world premiere production of Balthazar, Debora Threedy’s fresh reimagining of The Merchant of Venice’s Portia. As The Utah Review noted at the time, Threedy’s play is a well-crafted piece of fan fiction. In her two-hander script, she successfully sustained the broader integrity of Shakespeare’s literary world while reconfiguring characters … Read more