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, April 25 @ 7pm

Director: Dave Mortensen
Featuring: Brighton Hertford, Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin, Elise Groves, Jenessa Bowen, Stephen Drabicki, Tito Livas, Aaron Adams
Reader: Joy Haynes

This pitch black comedy has an illicit affair, a couple hanging on by a thread, bears at the window, and an adorable missing dog named Mr Bundles. No one's happy, people stop being nice, and blood spills in a story that mashes up violent myth and ideas about "good neighbors" to explore what happens when the mercury rises.

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

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