THE ESSENTIAL A&E PICKS FOR JAN 2 - 8 

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Utah Symphony: Modern Times in Concert
It's one of the most iconic images not just in classic film, but in all of cinema history: Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character, caught up in massive factory gears like a product being processed. It can be found in Chaplin's 1936 classic Modern Times, a critique of the industrialized world that was the first of the legendary filmmaker's movies in which his voice was heard.

Yet the predominant sound in Modern Times is the orchestral score—composed by Chaplin himself, as he had become interested in the wake of his successful City Lights music with getting even more ambitious. Assisted by composer/conductor Alfred Newman, arranger Edward Powell and future Hollywood music legend David Raksin, Chaplin created a massive 89 minutes of music for the film—but the circa-1936 recording equipment didn't really do justice to the number of musicians involved in creating the work. That's why it's such a unique and amazing opportunity to hear the score with a full orchestra, as the Utah Symphony plays to a screening of Modern Times this week. As conductor Timothy Brock wrote in notes for his own performance of the work, "This music serves the image not only by merely reflecting the emotional content of a scene, but by using its properties simultaneously as a film effect: the orchestra becomes, like ballet, the fluid line between emotion and practical response."

Utah Symphony accompanies Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times for one night only at Abravanel Hall (123 W. South Temple) on Thursday, Jan. 2 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $12.50 - $72, and available at utahsymphony.org. (Scott Renshaw)

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Sarah Silverman @ Kingsbury Hall
Sarah Silverman is one funny lady. And one of the most prolific—and one of the most controversial. She's unafraid to speak out on such subjects as racism, sexism, homophobia, politics or world affairs, and to use her monologues as a soapbox when getting her points across. It often gets her into trouble, and yet even her critics have to admit she's as fearless as she is busy.

And busy she is! A two-time Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, writer, and producer, she first gained fame as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live before launching her own comedy series on Comedy Central, earning her first Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. A veteran of several movies and TV series (she famously starred as Jerry's girlfriend on Seinfeld), she garnered a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her role in the independent film I Smile Back, and later turned her memoir The Bedwetter into an off-Broadway musical. Her late-night talk show, I Love You America aired on Hulu, all in addition to a weekly self-titled podcast and a critically-acclaimed comedy special Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love (currently streaming on Max). The latter title may be a misnomer, however, given that her controversial comments garnered the wrath of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and two Baptist preachers who issued her death threats. (Hopefully they don't practice what they preach.)

Sarah Silverman's Postmortem tour comes to Kingsbury Hall on Friday, Jan. 3 at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $69 - $140 at vividseats.com. (Lee Zimmerman)

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Park City Shows: Gwyneth Goes Skiing
As we approach the time for the Sundance Film Festival to return to Park City, it's an opportunity to remember that the little mountain ski town has been the location of both dreams coming true for young filmmakers, and some infamous incidents (Harvey Weinstein, anyone?). Once such curious case involved the February 2016 Deer Valley ski slope encounter between actor/entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow and retired optometrist Terry Sanderson—a collision that turned first into a legal dispute, and ultimately into a new comedy-musical play by U.K.-based Awkward Productions, titled Gwyneth Goes Skiing, which made its U.S. premiere at the Egyptian Theatre in May 2024.

Creators Linus Karp and Joseph Martin—who star in the show's two main roles—attempted to find humor in the high-profile case (ultimately resolved in 2023), turning it into an audience-participation experience in which attendees become the jury deciding who was at fault. Along the way, there are plenty of gags about Utah and Park City, which the creators were interested to see how they would play when the show came to town last year. "We're two people coming in from abroad to make a show about a local event and local people in a very comedic way," Karp and Martin told the Deseret News in May. "We didn't want to make it seem that we came here to make fun of people."

Gwyneth Goes Skiing returns to the Egyptian Theatre (328 Main St., Park City) Jan. 8 – 18 for 12 performances. Tickets are $39 - $69; visit parkcityshows.com to purchase tickets and for additional event information. (SR)