BROWN FISH a short film by alumnus Troy Deutsch will be showing on Thursday, September 13 at FilmQuest Festival in Provo, UT. The film stars alumni, Sean Kazarian and Kelsie Jepsen who graduated from the Actor Training Program alongside writer and director, Troy. Troy's film is part of the Taste The Rainbow shorts block #10 starting at 8:00 p.m., featuring all LGBT filmmakers. FilmQuest Fest describes the Taste The Rainbow shorts block as "a dynamic, and provocative selection of films from the LGBT community that celebrates love, diversity, monsters, revenge, and the best pot pie you ever tasted." "Our film is now officially crazy enough to be welcomed into the realm of horror/sci-fi/fantasy/and the beyond..." Troy said. BROWN FISH is based on a short play from Troy's collection of one-acts, IN A TILTED PLACE, which premiered at IRT Theater in New York City in 2015. FilmQuest tickets are available for the entire festival, featured films, short blocks and more at www.filmquestfest.com/tickets-all-films-events-2018/. Student discounts available.

BROWN FISH

SYNOPSIS: It all starts with a missing goldfish and a strange smell. Now a young woman’s world spins out of control, as she goes to meet her friend in the park.

DIRECTOR’S / FILMMAKER’S BIO: Troy Deutsch is a filmmaker and playwright from rural Minnesota living in New York City. He studied with Nicky Silver as part of The Vineyard Theatre’s Playwriting Workshop.

IMAGES FROM THE FILM: Image One, Image Two

TRAILER:

On Wednesday, Aug. 29 from 11A – 2P, the arts at the University of Utah are taking over the Marriott Library Plaza. We’re talking live performances on a massive stage, interactive art, free food, free T-shirts, free swag, and all the info you could ever want on the different ways to experience the arts on campus.

Hold on, you know about Arts Pass, right? It’s the one-of-a-kind program that makes it so you can use your UCard to get free or deeply discounted tickets to literally hundreds of arts experiences on campus each year. So you can attend dance performances, concerts, plays, exhibitions, film screenings, and more on the super cheap — and it even includes special student access to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, UtahPresents and Pioneer Theatre Company.

Why? Because more and more research is showing the positive impacts of the arts on education. The findings are significant: exposure to the arts is linked with better critical thinking skills, greater social tolerance, a greater likelihood of seeking out art and culture in the future and better workforce opportunities. (Maybe that’s why we issue tens of thousands of tickets to students every year.)

But, back to the Bash: First things first, pick up a passport from any of the booths, visit other booths to collect stamps, and when your passport is full, visit the Info booth to redeem it for a super soft mint green Arts Pass t-shirt that you can take to get your choice of design screen printed on it right in front of your eyes. Then you’ll grab some food and catch a couple acts on stage.

We’re so excited to have all five academic units in the College of Fine Arts there to let you know what non-major classes you can take to spice up your class load, how to major in the arts, and give you the scoop-diddy-whoop about what experiences they’re providing throughout the year for all U students, faculty, and staff.

Plus, we’ll have all three professional arts organizations (UMFA, UtahPresents and Pioneer Theatre Company) there along with our friends from ArtsForce, Arts Teaching, the Marriott Library’s Creative & Innovation Services, ASUU, Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, and the Union Programming Council.

And we’re stoked to welcome to the main stage:

• A proper bash kick-off from the U’s new Associate Vice President for the Arts and Dean of the College of Fine Arts, John Scheib
• The Department of Theatre’s musical theatre program will perform numbers from their season opener “CHESS” directed and choreographed by Denny Berry
• Ballet grad student James Wallace will take the stage for a stunning performance
• The School of Music’s Percussion Ensemble will host a not-to-be-missed drum circle
• And the modern dance freshman class will do its famous improv jam on the plaza (fan favorite every year!)

Not to mention, we have a couple surprises up our sleeves…

So, come. Experience. And start thinking differently.

Original post from The Finer Points Blog

In Spite of Ourselves written by Alumna, Cate Heiner, starring Actor Training Program students Hannah Ensign and Maxwell Paris premieres at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival this weekend. In Spite of Ourselves is a devised piece based on the poem “All My Love Poems Sound Like Break Up Poems” by Ashe Vernon. Heiner said in an interview with The Chronicle, “My play exists in this weird space between falling in love and falling out of love... it does have a beginning, a mi ddle and an end, but they don’t have to happen in that order and you can decide what they are.” In Spite of Ourselves has 6 performances between August 3-12. For more information visit the Facebook event page. They were in love. Are. Were. Maybe. They’ve grown apart, or back together. This has all happened before, or it’s a sign of what’s to come. They can’t stand each other, and they can’t let each other go.

About the playwright: Catherine Heiner received her master’s degree in Literary and Cultural Studies this spring from Carnegie Mellon University. This year she has also presented at the American Theatre in Higher Education conference, Comparative Drama Conference, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Theatre and Drama Graduate Student Conference. Her work in dramaturgy has included productions of As You Like It, American Idiot, and Self Defense, or death of some salesmen, as well as upcoming productions of The Wolves,The Lion in Winter, and the world premiere of An Evening with Two Awful Men.

About the cast:

Hannah Ensign is a senior in the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah. Previous credits include Meg Long and Captain Jemmy Campbell in Our Country's Good (University of Utah), Ellie in Elephants Graveyard (Anthem Theatre Co), The Vagina Monologues (University of Utah), Maggie in Somewhere In Between (Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival), and Ursula/Outlaw in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Salt Lake Shakespeare).

Maxwell Paris is thrilled to be making his debut at the Fringe Festival. He is a sophomore in the Actor Training and Stage Management Programs at the University of Utah, originally from Wisconsin. Back home he appeared in Inspecting Carol as Wayne Wellacre, All in the Timing as Trotsky, and in Peter Pan as Tik Tok Croc. Here in Utah, he was most recently seen as Submarine in A View From the Bridge. His upcoming projects will include being the PA for U of U's production of Chess and as an ensemble member in Big Love.

Recent University of Utah Theatre graduate, Mark Macey, will premiere his play Shooter at the Great Salt Fringe Festival, August 3-12, 2018.

Shooter had it's first staged reading on April 23, 2018 as part of the New Plays Workshop class taught by Department of Theatre Professors Tim Slover and Sydney Cheek-O’Donnell. During the New Plays Workshop class taught every spring semester, plays are developed through discussion and exploratory workshops over the course of the semester. The development process culminates with student-run staged readings where members may serve variously as actors, directors, dramaturgs,stage managers or producers depending upon area of interest and the requirements of each play.

Shooter tells the unusual story of a man and his gun. Macey says he began writing the play after recognizing similarities between the perpetrators of mass shootings in the United States, himself, and men in general.

Shooter is rated R for violence, strong language, and nudity. Tickets for the Great Salt Fringe Festival are available at: www.greatsaltlakefringe.org/tickets

Pictures from Shooter rehearsal for the Great Salt Fringe Festival 2018

We are excited to open our season by returning for the fourth year to the Hayes Christensen Theatre at the Marriott Center for Dance for Chess The Musical, a politically-driven, Cold-War–era musical about a chess tournament where players, lovers, politicians, and spies collide through manipulation. Then, David Carey from Oregon Shakespeare Festival joins us in October to direct Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. November brings Charles L. Mee’s Big Love, an elaborate, updated retelling of one of the oldest plays in Western history, The Danaids by Aeschylus.

In the spring, we present Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical comedy Company, directed by Ryan Emmons, followed by the true(ish) history of an 1869 expedition, Men On Boats by Jaclyn Backhaus in March. We close with Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s first play, The Rivals, a comedy of manners set in 18th-century Bath, England.

We strive to maximize the access, interest, and impact of theatre for our diverse audiences. Our productions will ignite exciting dialogue through talkbacks, panels discussions, and other artist-interface opportunities.

Music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Based on an idea by Tim Rice
Directed and Choreographed by Denny Berry
September 14-23, 2018
The Hayes Christensen Theatre at the Marriott Center for Dance

By William Shakespeare
Directed by David Carey
October 26-November 4, 2018
Studio 115

By Charles L. Mee
Directed by Robert Scott Smith
November 9-18, 2018
Babcock Theatre

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by George Furth
Originally Produced and Directed on Broadway by Harold Prince
Orchestration by Jonathan Tunick
Directed by Ryan Emmons
February 15- March 3, 2019
Babcock Theatre

By Jaclyn Backhaus
Directed by Sarah Shippobotham
March 1-10, 2019
Studio 115

By Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Directed by Alexandra Harbold
April 5-14, 2019
Babcock Theatre

Tickets are now available at tickets.utah.edu

Professor Chris DuVal is hosting a Quarterstaff SAFD Skills Test Workshop at the University of Utah July 23-30, 2018.

This workshop will include training and testing in Quarterstaff, one of the primary weapon disciplines offered by the SAFD and DAI. Over 30 contact hours with the weapon will be offered, in addition to opportunities to study other weapon styles (TBD).

Reserve your space by contacting Professor Chris DuVal at .

Dates: July 23 - July 30 Cost: $450 Instructor: DC Wright

About D.C. Wright

D.C. Wright has been teaching, performing, and directing staged violence since 1994. D.C. became a Certified Teacher of Stage Combat with the Society of American Fight Directors in 1998 and was recognized as a Full Instructor by Dueling Arts International the same year.

D.C. is very active in teaching at national, regional, and local stage combat workshops all over the country with the SAFD and DAI. He currently coordinates the Central Illinois Stage Combat Workshop, and is the coordinator in charge of the Associate Instructor Program for the Winter Wonderland Workshop, the largest stage combat workshop in the country. D.C. has been teaching every year at the DAI Stage Combat Teacher Training Workshop, which has been hosted at his school for the last six years.

D.C. is also busy as a Fight Director around the country, having directed the violence for Syracuse Stage’s production of The Three Musketeers and Noises Off. He has directed violence for Arkansas Rep’s productions of Spamalot, Peter and the Starcatcher, Wait Until Dark, The Complete Works of Williams Shakespeare: Abridged, Treasure Island, Death of a Salesman, To Kill a Mockingbird, Henry V, Hamlet, both Les Miserables, Moonlight and Magnolias, Of Mice and Men, and Romeo and Juliet. He has directed fights for Peter and the Starcatcher, One Man, Two Guv’nors and Hamlet at Theatre Squared in Fayetteville. Romeo and Juliet, Winters Tale, Titus Andronicus, Taming of the Shrew, The Complete Works of Shakespeare: Abridged, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Henry VIII and others for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, as well as the Off-Broadway production of The Blowin of Baile Gall.

D.C. has worked on several commercials and film projects, most notably…And They Fight, a 23-hour six volume stage combat instructional series produced by Dueling Arts International covering all major weapon styles, in which D.C. is a primary demonstrator.

D.C. Wright is recognized as a Certified Teacher of Stage Combat and a Theatrical Firearms Safety Instructor by the Society of American Fight Directors, and as a Master Instructor by Dueling Arts International., D.C. teaches Movement and Stage Combat at Western Illinois University.