By Scott Phillips
Last Saturday, my family and I went to the Desert Star Playhouse located in Murray to see their original production Captain American Fork: the Worst Avenger. The Desert Star Playhouse has a long history of providing entertainment to Murray and the Salt Lake Valley dating back to the 1930’s.
If you don’t know about this theatrical jewel, you are missing out. Their parodies and spoofs blend the production’s story with local humor performed by great talent. In old-fashioned style, each show is followed by an “olio,” doing fun musical numbers to end the evening of entertainment.
Captain American Fork, the Worst Avenger opens at Salt Lake’s ‘Hero-Con’ where “Zion Man” and “The Homemaker” are looking to recruit their newest member to the Guardians of Utah Valley. Captain American Fork, along with his ward Bingham Copper Man, is selected from among the ranks of hopeful heroes and together they face off against the nefarious Cougar to protect the good citizens of Utah Valley.
Rick Miller plays an excellent albeit bumbling Captain American Fork accompanied with his ever quirky sidekick Bingham Copper Man played by Jacob Barnes. Together with Zion Man, played by Matt Mullaney and The Homemaker, played by Ashley Haslam they join in comedic escapades against Zion Man’s arch enemy the Cougar played by Hillary Carey. Their hilarious hijinks are covered by an intrepid social media reporter, Tennille (get it? Captain and Tennille?), played by Brittany Shamy.
This is acting in its truest form. The cast interact with the occasional comment from the audience and ad lib with often hilarious results. The script is sprinkled with humorous references to current events and pop culture with a leavening of good-natured poking of fun at life in Utah; for example Zion Man uses his cape (the Zion Curtain) to protect people from seeing evil doings. Tennille, who is playing off of her Spanish heritage, ad libbed a joke about American Fork wanting to build a wall and making Spanish Fork pay for it, which wasn’t in the script, This threw Captain American Fork for a loop because he wasn’t sure how to react to it other than laughing and then turning to the audience and saying “that wasn’t in the script!”
Costumes by Lynn Funk and Lee Daily were colorful and fun. Choreographer Allison Cox got her cast moving, and this is important, because there is so much music in Desert Star’s shows–it has to be accompanied by artistic and fun movement. Artistic Director Scott Holman took playwright Edward Farnsworth’s script and made the show an absolute blast.
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Seating is at tables in a tiered floor arrangement, which allows every seat a good view of the stage performance. Each table receives a complimentary basket of popcorn and audience members have the option to order dinner items including pizza, burgers, wraps and finger foods like nachos with an assortment of cake, ice cream, floats and streusel for dessert.
As mentioned above, each show ends with a musical olio, where the play’s cast members perform several musical skits. The olio performance is excellent and provides an entertaining encore to the main performance.
My family thoroughly enjoyed their experience at the Desert Star Playhouse. My 6-year-old was entertained and there were enough subtle jokes and playful pokes at life in Utah to keep my wife and I focused on the dialogue which can be overshadowed at times with the entertaining and varied props and background which offers its own visual subtext to the performance. The best thing about the actors at the Desert Star is that they add Lib based on how the audience is reacting to them. Each showing for every play can be a unique experience; that’s what makes it so entertaining.
Captain American Fork: the Worst Avenger runs through June 3 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m.; Fridays at 6 and 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 2:30, 6 and 8:30 p.m.
The Desert Star Playhouse is located at 4861 S. State St., Murray with tickets ($15-$25) available for purchase by calling the box-office at (801) 266-2600 or online at desertstar.biz. (Note: Get your tickets quickly. These shows sell out fast!)
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