Salt Lake Acting Company - New Play Sounding Series

As our record-breaking New Play Sounding Series enters its 26th year of nurturing exciting works from some of the country's most gifted voices, we're pleased to announce the February 17th reading of local playwright Shawn Fisher's new play, THE (obsolete) UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS. Shawn Fisher

After many miles and days of hiking through relentless rain, six waterlogged strangers converge on a tiny mountain shelter that they are forced to share. Deb, a wilderness-loving professor of ornithology, and her wife Marley, an urban food truck chef are journeying to save their marriage by rediscovering why these two opposites fell in love in the first place. "Brando" is about to be kicked out of college and takes his awkward fantasy-loving younger step-brother, Paul, into the mountains where they discover the meaning of strength, loyalty and brotherhood. Bee, an impulsive 16 year old, and her new 40-year-old companion Edward travel the trail together, until their relationship is challenged by Bee and the others at the camp. As they each attempt to dry out and struggle for their own small patch of relief, they soon discover that some journeys are not meant to be taken alone.

THE (obsolete) UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS marks Fisher’s fourth play to receive a NPSS reading. According to the playwright, “It’s easy to convince myself that something I have written is either fabulous or disastrous, both of which are almost always wrong. There is always something worth keeping and something that needs changing, but until we experience an audience’s response and hear their feedback, it’s a lot of guesswork.” In regard to the importance of feedback from SLAC patrons, Fisher adds, “[the audiences] truly give us a sense of how the plays are being received. This is the most vital final link between the private process of sitting alone at the keyboard and a fully produced public performance of a play. I am so grateful that SLAC and the supporters of the New Play Sounding Series give us the time, space, and support to do this.”

Clockwise from top left: Mollee Barse, AJ Black, Cat Evangelho, Anne-Marie Kate, Matt Koenig, Cameron Neeley, and Alex Smith

Appearing in THE (obsolete) UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS are Mollee Barse (Marley), AJ Black (Brando), Cat Evangelho (Debra), Anne-Marie Kate (Bee), Matt Koenig (Edward), and Alex Smith (Paul). Richie Call serves as director, Cameron S. Neeley will read stage directions, and Tanner Sase is stage manager.

Founded in 1994, Salt Lake Acting Company’s New Play Sounding Series (NPSS) is the longest-running reading series of its kind in Utah. Past works that have been workshopped in the NPSS to later receive full productions at SLAC (and elsewhere) include SILENT DANCER and HARBUR GATE by Kathleen Cahill, MERCURY by Steve Yockey, STAG’S LEAP by Sharon Olds, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS by Mike Daisey, A SLIGHT DISCOMFORT by Jeff Metcalf, and THE RECEPTIONIST by Adam Bock. Elaine Jarvik’s FOUR WOMEN TALKING ABOUT THE MAN UNDER THE SHEET, featured during last season’s NPSS, will receive its world premiere at SLAC March 12-22, 2020.

THE (obsolete) UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS is free and open to the public. Reservations are required and can be made via SLAC’s website or by calling 801.363.7522.

SLAC acknowledges

for their generous support of the New Play Sounding Series.

New Play Sounding Series
Free Reading

Monday, September 24 @ 7pm

Director: Shannon Musgrave

Actors: Lily Hye Soo Dixon, Ava Kostia, Adriana Lemke

On the brink of her next round of funding, Sarah Boyd, Founder and CEO of Tactix, must hold her company together through a pesky journalist's questions and glaring doubts thrown her way surrounding the promises her company has made. It's a heavy load, and Sarah knows that she is the only one great enough to bear it.

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

Doors open at 6:30pm. Open seating; first come, first served. 

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. 

On Monday February 2nd, the words of Tony Kushner will once again reverberate off the walls here at the Salt Lake Acting Company. SLAC is proud to present TINY KUSHER, a series of five short one-act plays by Kushner that is presented in conjunction with the Tanner Humanities Center's lecture with Mr. Kushner on February 5 at Kingsbury Hall, with support from Lee and Audrey Hollaar. Kushner's work is no stranger to the SLAC stage; SLAC was one of the first regional theaters to produce ANGELS IN AMERICA in 1995. It was brought back to the SLAC stage in 2010 for the company's 40th anniversary. Keven Myhre, Executive Producer at SLAC and director of the 2010 re-envisioning of the play, said that ANGELS was the one play that "encapsulated SLAC's mission to produce vibrant new work in contemporary theater... [it] defined that moment in our history."

TINY KUSHNER, unlike ANGELS, won't keep you in your seat for seven hours. Out of the five short plays, all but one feature characters who really existed, including Laura Bush. In typical productions of TINY KUSHNER, only four actors play the multitude of these eccentric personalities, but SLAC will be using a total of twelve different actors for each play. Director Robin Wilks-Dunn says, "When I heard Tony Kushner was coming to Kingsbury Hall, I thought it would be a nice community event to do a reading of one of his scripts that hasn't been done in Salt Lake before. And I thought the perfect partner would be Salt Lake Acting Company."

If you have never had the chance to hear the words of award-winning Tony Kushner in person, TINY KUSHNER is the perfect opportunity for you. You'll get five different samples all for the price of nothing! Bon appetit, theater goers! It is not to be missed.

-Olivia Custodio