Salt Lake Acting Company - New Play Sounding Series

We're delighted to announce our first in–person New Play Sounding Series reading in over two years: Sleeping Giant by Steve Yockey. The free reading will take place in SLAC’s Upstairs Theatre on Monday, May 2nd at 7pm.

Salt Lake Acting Company audiences will remember two previous world premieres authored by Yockey: Blackberry Winter (2015) and Mercury (2017). Since seeing Mercury receive its world premiere at SLAC, Yockey has gone on to become a multi award-nominated (WGA, PGA, Emmy) creator of the popular HBO Max series The Flight Attendant.

Sleeping Giant, a new play which will also receive a full production at SLAC next season, is described by the playwright as follows:

When a firework-filled marriage proposal goes very wrong, the accompanying explosions wake up something very old that’s been sleeping in the nearby lake for thousands of years. What follows are intimate, darkly comic, and sometimes startling vignettes about the lengths people go when they desperately want something to believe in.

“After truly killer experiences with Blackberry Winter and Mercury, SLAC has become a vital and dynamic creative partner,” stated Yockey. “Their artists and their audiences just get it. And Cynthia [Fleming] sets the bar for artistic excellence. I'm thrilled to be back.”

Comprising the cast of the NPSS reading of Sleeping Giant are SLAC alum Alexis Baigue (Stupid F***ing Bird), Lily Hye Soo Dixon (Mercury), Tito Livas (Mercury) and Cassie Stokes-Wylie (Death of a Driver). Kimi Handa Brown, playwright from last year’s NPSS reading of Daddy Issues, will read stage directions. Directing the reading will be Emilio Casillas in his SLAC directorial debut. Casillas is also a co-writer of the upcoming #SLACabaret 2022.

RSVP Here

While admission to the NPSS reading of Sleeping Giant is free, reservations are required. They can be reserved directly via the link above, or by contacting the SLAC Audience Relationship Team at or 801-363-7522.

Please note: all SLAC attendees must show proof of full vaccination and wear a properly-fitting mask. Please visit our COVID-19 safety guide for more information.

Production images from Mercury and Blackberry Winter. All images by David Daniels.

New Play Sounding Series Free Reading
Monday, February 1 @ 7pm

Director: Tracy Callahan
Featuring: Daniel Beecher, Anne Louise Brings, Anne Cullimore Decker, Cragun Foulger, Bob Nelson
Stage Manager/Reader: Sarah Danielle Young

WINTER is the story of an older couple who has an end-of-life pact, until one of them backs out. This new play from Julie Jensen, inspired by the story "Robeck" by Margaret Pabst Battin, is a beautiful tale of family and the right to die.

SLAC thanks the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their generous support of this vital program.

New Play Sounding Series Free Reading
Monday, November 9 @ 7pm

Director: Nancy Borgenicht
Featuring: Meg Gibson, Tamara Howell, Valerie Kittel, Susan Levin, and Shannon Musgrave
Dramaturg: Kathleen Cahill
Stage Manager: Justin Ivie

In this intimate sequence of poems, which tell the story of Sharon Olds' divorce, the author opens her heart, sharing the feeling of invisibility that comes when we are no longer standing in love's sight; the surprising physical passion that still exists between a couple during parting; and the loss of everything from her husband's smile to the set of his hip. Adapted for a theatrical reading by Nancy Borgenicht, STAG'S LEAP is both an elegantly personal story of divorce and a universal journey through love, sex, sorrow, memory, and new freedom.

SLAC thanks the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their generous support of this vital program.

*First published in Stag's Leap (Alfred A Knopf) copyright Sharon Olds 2012

New Play Sounding Series Free Reading
Monday, September 21, 2015 @ 7pm

Director: Shannon Musgrave
Cast: Olivia Custodio, Danny Egan, Brighton Hertford, Patrick Kintz, William Richardson
Stage Manager/Reader: Sarah Danielle Young

Sloane isn't sure why exactly her husband Timothy brought home a probably dangerous drifter. It's something about "doing a good deed." Of course, it's hard to think straight when her kleptomaniac neighbor keeps dropping by to chat and steal. And then things get violent. BLEEDING HEARTS is a dark farce about the disappearing middle class and the way people can slowly forget how to put themselves in each others' shoes.