There is so much great theater available in the Salt Lake area that it’s hard to know where to start.
So, let’s begin right here: Our very own university has an excellent theater program, showcased in the Babcock Theatre (located in the lower level of Pioneer Memorial Theatre). The intimate setting and convenient on-campus location should be enough to draw you in, and the performances are some of the best you’ll see.
Working our way out, the next theater on the list is the Pioneer Memorial Theatre (just north of the law building on 1400 East). Pioneer is a fully professional theater that produces a seven-play season running September through May. If you’re looking for top-quality theater, “this is the place.” It offers a mixture of classics, large-scale musicals and contemporary dramas and comedies.
The Capitol Theatre is a grand, historical building located in downtown Salt Lake City (50 W. 200 South). It is the home to Ballet West, Utah Opera and the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. The theater also hosts world-class Broadway productions and community arts-education programs.
The Salt Lake Acting Company (168 W. 500 North), or SLAC to locals, is a not-for-profit professional theater founded in 1970. Specializing in pushing the limits of societal norms, SLAC provides a fantastic opportunity to broaden your thinking and supercharge your imagination. Even though it sometimes tries too hard, it’s worth your time more often than not. SLAC offers a commitment to make “a significant contribution to the American theater through commissioning, developing and producing new plays.”
Wasatch Theatre Company is a wonderful forum for local playwrights and budding directors and actors. It seems to embrace the best of community theater without overreaching. Wasatch is still searching for a more permanent home, but can often be found at either the Rose Wagner Theatre (138 W. 300 South) or at the Columbus Center (3495 S. West Temple).
The Columbus Center is truly enchanting from the outside with its Spanish Mission-style architecture and refreshing gardens. It has a functional theater-fairly bare bones-but is a great location for budding talent.
The Rose Wagner Center is home to three theaters and an art gallery, and is one of the newer buildings in the downtown area. The main purpose for creating this space was to offer quality rehearsal space for larger productions and show-space for any of the multitude of performance art companies in the region.
StageRight (5001 S. Highland Dr.), another community theater company, has been offering a great starting point for actors and directors for almost 20 years. This group’s goal is to offer classic theater at a classic price.
And finally, we have the historical-yet-new Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley City, about 15 minutes from downtown (3333 S. Decker Lake Dr.). The building is new, but the tradition and the other theaters in the franchise began decades ago when the Hales were just a young married couple trying to beat the Depression by heading for Hollywood. They built their first theater in 1959, and it was the longest continuously running center-stage theater in America when it closed its doors after 33 years. The owners, Nathan and Ruth Hale, came back to Utah to retire and ended up opening three more theaters. They put on professional-quality shows with local talent and have a solid reputation.
Lennie MahlerThe kiss of death didn’t kill everyone in last year’s Babcock production of “Assasins”.