By Richelle Sutton
Playwright Jenny Kokai and the Plan-B Theatre Company perform another fantastic world premiere with Singing to the Brine Shrimp at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Collaborating with Puppets in the City, this production is guaranteed to make you laugh and sympathize with the plight of the heroine. Allison gains inspiration and writes a new play, submitting it into a New York development workshop. When she is accepted, she flies to New York for a week to work on her new script with professional directors and actors. What Allison finds there is a culture she isn’t used to and stereotypes that she didn’t know she’d inherited when moving to Utah. The workshops go from bad to worse, problems mount up all around her, and Allison has to figure out who she believes she is under the mounting pressure of people’s preconceived notions about her life.
I want to applaud Jenny Kokai and director Jason Bowcutt for such an intriguing, and sadly often realistic, viewpoint on new play development. Not enough people understand the process, let alone the grievances of the development process. The play is beautifully written to express both in an exciting and playful way. Latoya Cameron (Allison) is an extremely expressive lead, showing plainly the intense emotions Allison feels from moment to moment. It is easy to empathize with Cameron and continuously cheer for her character as circumstances get bleaker for her. Lily Hye Soo Dixon, Jay Perry,and Emilie Starr are an absolutely delightful ensemble of characters. Their work as both actors and puppeteers is lively and outstanding. I loved watching them bring the puppets to life, giving the puppets their own personalities and intricacies. All of the actors have amazing singing voices for the songs composed by Kenneth Plain. These songs are thoroughly delightful and get stuck in your head for hours. The energy and power that the actors each bring to this production is phenomenal.
Singing to the Brine Shrimp is a fun romp into some of the terrors of new play development. The Plan-B Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Utah do a fantastic job with this new script. Playing in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Singing to the Brine Shrimp is great entertainment for those adult folks in the theatre industry and especially for those who understand being clumped into ‘that Utah crowd’. Don’t miss your chance to see this world premiere before it leaves the stage.
Plan-B Theatre Company presents Singing to the Brine Shrimp, written by Jenny Kokai
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 Broadway, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
February 13 – February 23, 2020, 8 PM, Saturday Matinee 4 PM, Sundays 2 PM
Tickets: $22 General Admission
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