Ellen Fagg Weist | December 12, 2014 | Salt Lake Tribune
About halfway through a school matinee of Salt Lake Acting Company's "A Year With Frog and Toad," a first-grader in the audience let the cast know he had figured out what live theater was all about.
"Hey. You were the monster," he yelled to actor Terry Lee McGriff, who, after a quick costume change, had made his stage entrance as a bird.
The immediacy of that audience reaction explains everything about the professional theater company's enthusiasm for its annual children's musical, now in its sixth year. In addition to evening and weekend performances, the actors perform eight matinees for Title I elementary schools in the Salt Lake City and Granite districts. Those performances reach some 1,400 students, many of whom haven't attended a stage show before.
