Utah Presents and LAJAMARTIN get creative to keep performing artists working
by Scott Renshaw
The Unexpected Son paints an unconventional portrait of an unconventional Mormon family.
by Scott Renshaw
While fan conventions take a pandemic hiatus, here's how to capture the experience safely at home.
by Bryan Young
Arts & Entertainment
Utah Presents and LAJAMARTIN get creative to keep performing artists working
"The show must go on" is one of the most enduring principles of the performing arts, a collective mission statement that no obstacle is impossible to overcome.
By Scott Renshaw
August 5, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
UMOCA's director talks about the challenges of reopening, and engaging the community during a pandemic.
Four months later, UMOCA's doors are finally reopening to the public July 15, at a time when there's still incredible uncertainty about the pandemic.
By Scott Renshaw
July 15, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Choreographer Nicolo Fonte brings Stravinsky's revolutionary work to a new format.
What is clear is that it was a daring, revolutionary work that inspired audiences to reconsider their preconceptions about the art form they were watching—which makes it perhaps the ideal work for re-imagining in the time of a pandemic.
By Scott Renshaw
July 8, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
A locked-down hotel provides fodder for the virtual theater of The Open Syrup
Yet the ability to turn claustrophobia into comedy inspired one creative team's decision to take an existing concept, transform it for virtual presentation, and offer viewers a chance to laugh a little in the middle of all the craziness.
By Scott Renshaw
July 1, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
With theaters closed, SB Dance brings live performance right to your curbside.
Stephen Brown has always taken an unconventional approach to constructing live performances. But there's "unconventional," and then there's having to turn everything you know about presenting a show upside-down.
By Scott Renshaw
June 24, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Stories to remind you that fantastical fictions can explore our real, messed-up world.
One of the places to find the most empathic stories, though, is the world of geekdom. For as long as the genres have existed, they have been "woke" in exploring complex themes through allegory.
By Bryan Young
June 17, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Utah Symphony's pandemic-era world-premiere works offer composers opportunities and challenges.
Maestro Thierry Fischer and the Utah Symphony took one of the more counterintuitive approaches possible: What about soliciting and performing brand-new works for full orchestra?
By Scott Renshaw
June 10, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Sonderimmersive turns Romeo & Juliet into live drive-in theater with Through Yonder Window.
For theater companies around the country and around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a need to think creatively about where and how it might be possible to produce live theater in this time, when most traditional theater spaces might not seem safe for potential attendees.
By Scott Renshaw
June 3, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Local comedians talk about getting back on stage after the pandemic pause.
It feels like a hundred years ago, but local stand-up comedians remember it was only March when they were performing in front of large audiences, and able to find laughs in this strange new concept called coronavirus.
By Scott Renshaw
May 27, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Some Utah institutions dip their toe into reopening during a challenging time.
For the many businesses and gathering places that were forced to close as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the process of thinking about how they would re-open again began immediately.
By Scott Renshaw
May 20, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Sara Zarr's Goodbye from Nowhere shares a story of big family gatherings into an isolated world.
There's a bit of an irony to releasing a novel centered around big, rambunctious family gatherings in a time of social distancing. Then again, there's virtually nothing about this time that feels normal, including for authors trying to get their books out into the world.
By Scott Renshaw
May 13, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
For Utah-based Disney vloggers, theme park closures force some adjustments
As much as the world has changed for everyone, you might think it would change less for someone whose livelihood involved creating content for a YouTube channel. But when your focus is Disney theme parks—as it is for Chris and Amanda Provost, who operate the Utah-based Provost Park Pass channel—a drastic change is required.
By Scott Renshaw
May 6, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Mapping Literary Utah creates an online home for the state's rich writing tradition.
When she was an aspiring poet growing up in Seattle, Utah poet laureate Paisley Rekdal recalls feeling frustrated at the idea that the place she was from was not a place where writers came from—and particularly, writers who looked like her.
By Scott Renshaw
April 29, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
Support local artists and galleries through the online homes for their work.
While most Utah arts venues are closed to promote social distancing, visual artists themselves offer their work for sale online, either through their own websites or through the galleries that represent them.
By Scott Renshaw
April 22, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
A stalwart local art organization shifts its mission due to COVID-19.
While it might be easy to understand the financial impacts on a performing arts organization of lost ticket sales from cancelled events, the impact of COVID-19 on Art Access is more complex, in part a function of the specific timing of social distancing measures.
By Scott Renshaw
April 15, 2020
Arts & Entertainment
A trio of streaming playlists with the fun, hope and comfort we need while stuck at home.
These are, to put it mildly, strange times. We're all locked up in our homes, hoping to prevent the spread of a very serious virus that's wreaking havoc across the world.
By Bryan Young
April 8, 2020
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