THE ESSENTIAL A&E PICKS FOR NOV 11 - 17 

• Penguin Random House

Amor Towles: The Lincoln Highway
In his 2016 best-selling novel A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles crafted a decades-spanning epic that took place almost entirely in one location: the Moscow hotel where its aristocratic protagonist was placed under house arrest after the Russian Revolution of 1917. His follow-up, The Lincoln Highway, takes an almost diametrically opposed to time and location, packing a unique road-trip dynamic into a condensed 10-day timeline ranging from the Great Plains to New York City.

In 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is returning home to his family's Nebraska farm after more than a year incarcerated at a Kansas juvenile work farm. After the death of his father, his plan is to take his 10-year-old brother and head west—perhaps to find work, perhaps to find the mother who abandoned them years earlier. But Emmett's plan is sidetracked when two fellow work-farm inmates release themselves unofficially into the trunk of the car that's returning Emmett home, beginning an adventure that takes them to New York City in post-WWII America. Towles' vivid sense of character and multiple points of view ground an exploration into the idea of heroic narrative, and how much people can change their nature in order to get a fresh start.

Towles is joined in conversation by novelist Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile) for a live virtual event sponsored by The King's English Bookshop, on Thursday, Nov. 11 at 6 p.m. Tickets are $38, which include the Zoom link and an autographed copy of The Lincoln Highway. Visit kingsenglish.com for additional event information. (Scott Renshaw)

• Courtesy Photo

RDT Link Series: Sandbox featuring And Artists and Dan Higgins
For independent performing artists, it's always a challenge finding the resources and venues to present your work to the public. That's why Repertory Dance Theatre's Link Series is such a benefit to both those artists and to the community, allowing artists to partner with RDT yet create their work with full artistic autonomy. This week, the Link Series presents Sandbox, a split bill of world premiere choreographic work by Dan Higgins and Salt Lake City-based company And Artists.

Higgins (pictured) is in fact a member of the RDT company; the Bay Area native has been seen in RDT performances including Double Take, Flying Solo, Homage, Emerge and Regalia 2021. As a choreographer, he has presented his work as part of the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, in addition to projects throughout the intermountain West including Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. As for And Artists, the company has been in existence since 2018, created by Rebecca Aneloski with a tongue-in-cheek name that emphasizes a focus on collaborative creation. As a statement on the company website indicates, "The name 'And Artists' exists ... to highlight the unethical and dishonest practice of choreographic attribution in collaborative dance-making, misrepresenting the creative process ... in naming only one choreographer."

Sandbox plays at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center Leona Wagner Black Box (138 W. 300 South) November 11-13, with performances 7:30 p.m. nightly. Tickets are $22 general admission, available through arttix.org, and face coverings are required for all attendees throughout the performance, regardless of vaccination status. Visit rdtutah.org for additional event information. (SR)

• Courtesy Photo

New World Shakespeare Company: The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice has long been one of the more thematically complicated plays in the Shakespearean canon, tangled up in the possible homoerotic love of the characters Antonio and Bassanio, as well as the treatment of the Jewish moneylender Shylock. On the cusp of celebrating its tenth anniversary, New World Shakespeare Company present The Merchant of Venice with a unique cultural framework.

The fundamentals of the narrative are likely familiar, involving the decision by merchant Antonio to help finance his friend Bassanio's romantic pursuit of the heiress Portia by means of a loan from Shylock, and the accompanying threat—now a part of the cultural lexicon—that a default on that loan will cost Antonio "a pound of flesh." Directors Elise C. Hanson and Jeff L. Stinson approach this world of wealth, status and prejudice by setting it in the world of high-fashion houses, as the characters wear their attempt to present themselves to the world literally on their backs in the form of haute couture. Can you tell who is the protagonist, and who is the villain, while everyone is looking fabulous?

New World Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice runs Nov. 11-21 at The Box performing arts venue at The Gateway (124 S. 400 West), including a "pay what you may" performance on Friday, Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m., and an audience discussion performance on Sunday, Nov. 14 at 5 p.m. A portion of the production proceeds will be donated to the Anti-Defamation League. Visit newworldshakespeare.com for tickets and additional event information. (SR)

• Music Theatre International

All Together Now!
It's been a rough couple of years for live theater, as performing arts companies attempted to navigate the pandemic and figure out ways to emerge from lockdown after bearing the burden of no ticket revenue. As part of the effort to get many small community and school theater groups back on their feed, Music Theatre International has put together a musical revue program that can be used by any company across the country, without licensing fees, as a way to put more ticket money directly into the hands of artists.

All Together Now! is scheduled to be performed concurrently in all 50 states on the weekend of Nov. 12-13, with each company making their own selections from the available lineup of more than 30 popular showtunes, and deciding whether to perform them revue-style, or in costume. Those songs include "Be Our Guest" (Beauty and the Beast), "I Dreamed a Dream" (Les Misérables), "Pure Imagination" (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" (Fiddler on the Roof), "Consider Yourself" (Oliver!), "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" (My Fair Lady), "Take a Chance on Me" (Mamma Mia!) and "Seize the Day" (Newsies). It's a chance to hear some of the greatest songs in the musical theater canon, and know you're supporting companies even more directly.

Twenty-six individual schools and community companies will be participating in All Together Now! in Utah alone, including Southern Utah University, JAKS Youth Theatre Company, Kensington Theatre Company and more. Visit mtishows.com for a full list including the performance nearest you. (SR)