Maren's Many Moments

People outside of Utah do not seem to understand the Utah Theatre.  Honestly, I am not sure those of us inside of Utah really understand it. But it is a truth understood that we love theatre.  We really love our theatre.  So you can find yourself any number of tellings of the Christmas Carol, from the classic tale at the Hale, to the Scrooge version at the Terrace, to the Harry Potter version at the Zig. The Old Barn in Garland has The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  Or if you prefer It's a Wonderful Life, that is at the Hopebox and the Radio version is at Centerpointe and The Covey Center and we haven't even ventured down south! We have got Elf at Tuachan and A Christmas Story is coming to the Eccles and my favorite comedy that I have ever seen, The Play That Goes Wrong, is coming to Pioneer, and Pete the Cat the Musical is coming to Salt Lake Acting Company and this is just December! No, I did not mention all the shows, plus there are concerts and more community the...

I was in Phoenix this weekend for my commencement ceremony, and my family and I went to the Musical Instrument Museum .  I have to admit this may have been one of the best museums I have attended as parent, and perhaps even as a tourist. We were greeted as we entered warmly by the volunteers who were very eager to show us around, and they gave all of us our own headsets, that sync up nicely with each exhibit.  Then we were shown into the introduction hall that has a few key intsruments and a short introduction video, before we then head upstairs to have a tour around the world of musical instruments, quite literally. Every continent is represented, and we were able to wander through different centuries and different countries of music and musical development.  My children and step-children range in ages 6-13, and have different levels of ability, one being on the autism spectrum, one being a budding percussionist, a few violinist, one interested in reed intsruments, a f...

Being critical in theatre is not an easy job.  I am not sure how well I balance the line between theatre fan and theatre critic.  Some critics seem to loathe the theatre, as is famously parodied in Ruthless!, and others seem to pick apart every scene and be impossible to please. while others seem to love absolutely everything.  I confess that I have fallen victim to the loving everything often, being a big fan of theatre since I was a child I found it difficult to view things with a critical eye.  Over the past 9 years, I have been able to develop more of my skills in critical thinking, and I have also taken the opportunity to widen my theatrical viewing opportunities, which has helped me become more willing to be critical of the choices of actors, directors, and creative teams.  At the same time, I have also become more appreciative of when these same actors, directors, and creative teams take certain theatrical risks that may seem unorthodox and yet they pay o...

I had a moment with my children this weekend.  It was not my best moment as a mother, but I hope it turned into a learning moment for all involved.  A little background is necessary.  Since we live in home that was a blend of two fully functioning homes, we have many duplicates and triplicates of things.  Because of work and interest, one thing we have in abundance is electronic devices.  Which brings us to the offending moment.  My two daughters and I were the only ones home, and I was upstairs when a fight ensued downstairs.  Upon my motherly investigation I found that the fight was over both wanting to be on one particular computer that was deemed the easiest to log into.   Maybe it was because of a long work week.  Maybe it was because of some of the difficult things I have seen my clients suffer, and maybe it wasbecause I have not been able to nap this weekend, but I lost it.  “Are you really telling me that in a home where we have ...

I don't know if the right term is karma or what, but sometimes I worry that if I say things are going great, that something will fall apart.  So it is with a little trepidation that I write this post.  Even though I have been plagued with allergies and headaches, this last week has been one of the most joyous in my life.  I turned 40 years old, got to see my daughters perform in their piano recitals, take my children, stepchildren, and husband to a beautiful show at a beautiful live theatre, sing in a concert, and attend a surprise party planned by my dear sweet husband where he sang me a song and put together a slide show of pictures and moments of my life and videos of my dear friends.  Oh, and the Dean signed my dissertation, officially ending my PhD experience and helping me acheive the highest degree confered in the US Educational System, the Doctorate. The first woman to earn a PhD in the United States was in 1877.  142 years ago.  Which is really aw...

I met a young lady who was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  She is a brilliant young woman, with a double major in chemistry and biology.  She wants to be a doctor. When she came to the United States at 14, she could not read in any language.  She was put into school with people her age and expected to understand a language she had never heard, work with a system she had never seen, and try to succeed in a world completely foreign to her.  I asked her to tell me a little about herself and her life. She told me that when she was growing up, first in the DRC and then in a refugee camp, her family told her she was a “nothing girl”. They told her she could not have an education. They told her that the only way she could help her family was to bring home a husband who would then pay the family a cow. Now she says she wants to go back to Africa, help girls learn about nutrition, education, reading and writing.  She feels blessed to have come to Ame...

I took time off from blogging.  I am certain there were many people crying silently into their pillows because of the definite loss that they felt when they no longer read my writing on a semi-frequent basis.  I am offering my deepest apologies to all five of you.  I had to focus instead on the little matter of getting married, and also finishing my PhD.  One of those things was infinitely more difficult than the other. All of my life, well, at least since junior high school, I have harbored a dream of getting a doctorate degree.  I love school.  I love learning.  I love writing papers.  I know what an absolute nerd this makes me.  I don't really care. Life and difficulties all got in the way, and now, a few weeks before my 40th birthday, which happens to be tomorrow, I finally finished this goal that I told myself about when I was 12. Part of the reason I wanted to do this was because I learned that for many generations, women could not go...

Every time I come to New York, I leave thinking that there is no way a trip could be as wonderful as this.  And each time I return, I find myself mistaken.  I love the energy and pulse of this city.  I love the feeling that I get as I see new shows, whether they blow me away like Come From Away and The Play that Goes Wrong, scare me like Sweeney Todd, make me smile like SpongeBob, or make me think like Once On This Island. Being an attendee and now presenter at BroadwayCon, I find myself very grateful for the opportunity over the last three years to find a space where people like me can find each other, and learn that there are fans all over the place, and we are not alone in our connection to the music and the stories we have found that speaks to our hearts. Watching Once on This Island as my last show before returning to Utah helped me to remember that the love of theatre is only a small but important part of my life.  Seeing the costume design choices, looking a...

Today I experienced the first ever Broadway Industry day, where people who work or wish to work within the theatre industry gathered to talk about how to better increase the fan experience.  One of the main topics was about understanding the difference between fans, and fans who buy tickets.  An often echoed discussion point was that many fans because of time, distance, or money, do not get to attend a Broadway show.  Interesting for me for a few reasons.  One, that is precisely what the panel I am moderating on Saturday is about, making sure to be a vibrant part of the theatrical community where you live, because art and creativity and community can happen anywhere.  Even more important though, is that for years I was that fan who did not buy tickets. When I was 12 I learned about a musical that had just opened on Broadway called the Secret Garden.  I remember we had an awesome music store near my house where you could listen to the cd on headphones befor...

It is rare to be able to say that a show is flawless, and it is even more rare to have two such experiences in one day, so I consider the events of this day to be an extreme anomaly. I attended the matinee production of Come From Away, which was the original cast except for Jenn Colella, which was sad in a way, but her understudy, Julie Reiber was phenomenal, and I have her Jenn talk about being the understudy for Idina Menzel and dealing with a disappointed audience, so I was not about to do the same thing to Jenn's understudy.  It did not matter because this cast was seamless in their presentation.  There is so much I could say, but one thing stood out to me.  This cast was realistic.  The people were talented and beautiful, but the natural beauty you find in your favorite aunt or your coworker that makes you laugh or your friend who brings you food when you are sick.  I have lived in a small town before, and the feeling that every cast member brought into thi...

This week I get on a plane, and head to NYC to be a part of a panel at BroadwayCon. Putting those words on the screen feels all at once surreal, thrilling, and fulfilling.  Ever since I can remember, Musical Theatre has been on some level a part of my life, from singing in my room, to being in a chorus, to helping people prepare for auditions, to bringing my sister dinner as she directs a show.  My current work as a theatre critic has only helped this to grow, and I have learned that there is one spot in this world that I love more than any other, and that is the spot of a chair in the audience of a production. From the moment I walk into a theatrical venue, I am transformed into a different world.  Be it a small community theatre, or a great performance hall, this is the world where art is created and joy happens.  In the great performance halls, I think of those who have dedicated their lives to performing, writing, playing, directing, building, sewing, and making...

I have now spent almost two full days being in the company of theatre critics who have done this for decades, along with newbies like myself.  Some people got their start when a news desk said "we need you to write an entertainment feature, go!"  Some of us, like me, sought out opportunities to be a part of the community. I love theatre.  I have since I was a kid.  And while I am a decent singer, I never really translated well to on stage performance.  Nerves got the best of me.  My voice doesn't match my appearance.  A million other reasons.  So I did back stage stuff, chorus stuff, but really, what it came down to was simply that I enjoy more than anything being in the theatre.  Watching the story unfold.  Watching the actors play their parts.  Connecting and learning and being with others like me and not like me.  Today I saw a quote on the wall at the San Francisco Playhouse that said it perfectly: Making the communi...

I have ventured into San Francisco to participate in the conference for the American Theatre Critics Association #ATCA.   This is my first conference as a new member.  I have also been spending a lot of time hearing about the fact that I graduated from high school 20 years ago.  This causes me to reflect on my senior trip, to New York City, as a young Utahn who really knew very little about the world and even less about art and theatre, though I had well worn CDs and CD jackets of lyrics and felt myself to be an expert of epic proportions.  Of course, now I am older and wiser and see theatre all over, have been to many places all over the country, lived in two of the best theatre meccas in the United States, and can calmly and eloquently give my expert opinion. Ha! If you believed that last part, you have no clue who I really am.  Every time I come to a new place, I feel like that niave yet excited 18 year old who felt like a rebel stepping into a bar to find ...

What follows is completely my opinion.  I am often frustrated with people who describe something as the only way to do things.  Look, I barely function in my own life.  I have no way of ever telling anyone that my way is better than theirs, or that I know more than they do.  However, I have been specifically requested to write about this from a few different people. People want to know how I find out about the activities that I do with my kids.  They also want to know how I have the energy and such to do these things with the kids.  I have even been asked why these things seem to be such a priority for me. Well, after my divorce, I sat my young daughters down.  And they were very young.  However, life would be different now. They would live in two separate houses.  They would experience things different than their friends.  Also, money would be different.  Now, to this day I do not know if what I did was right or wrong, but it s...

The animated movie the Prince of Egypt has one of my favorite songs in it, sung by one of my favorite singers, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and written by one of my favorite composers, Stephen Schwartz.  From the time the movie came out in 1998, it touched me in a way that I continue to remember it during the difficult times I have, when I wonder if I am doing anything that makes much of a difference at all. A single thread in a tapestry, though it's color brightly shines, can never see it's purpose in the pattern of the grand design.  I cannot accurately describe how often I tell myself that I am only one person.  That the things I do are so minimal or unimportant in the grand scheme of things.  This has served a destructive purpose of allowing me to often feel like I am not as worthwhile as others that I know that seem more talented, beautiful, intelligent, or in any other way fabulous than I am. A lake of gold in a desert sand is less than a cool fresh spring. And t...

Once a year, this day comes around.  It is when we are supposed to give thanks for our mothers.  I have a wonderful mother who I love dearly.  She has been supportive of every decision I have made.  She has been active and proud of me.  She watched my daughter while getting Chemo treatments.  She is someone I will always strive to be like. This day seems to also bring pain.  I think of my dear friend who lost his mom too soon, and loved her more than words could say.  He lost her around Mother's Day, so the day is a double whammy of pain and sadness and loss. I think of another friend, who longed to be a mother, but it never happened.  She hides out on Mother's Day, turns off all social media, and tries to do anything she can to get through the reminders of the pain of this day. I think of another friend, whose mother had drug addiction and mental health issues and so many problems that she was never really the mother that this person ne...

When the musical South Pacific came out in 1949, it caused quite the controversy.  Rogers and Hammerstein were encouraged to leave out the song You've Got to be Carefully Taught, because it was seen as a song that justified interracial relationships and was far to risque.  However, the pair persisted and South Pacific was and is still a major hit. Yet, I still feel like hate is taught.   I spent my evening learning about the small African country of Burundi this evening.  It was interesting, insightful, and fun.  I was invited to come up and dance, and felt like quite the fool with my chubby 5 foot nothing frame and my Scandinavian lack of dance heritage, but no one cared.  They just welcomed us all up with them and draped beautiful fabric around us while we danced. One woman told of how she was kicked out of a country because she was from Burundi, and living in the country where her husband was from.  When her husband died, leaving her and her sma...

Click Here This was a beautiful production.  I am so glad I got a chance to see it.

The first time I went to New York City, I was 18 years old and was in heaven as I saw the buildings, art, streets, parks, and most of all, the people.  Stephen Sondheim said it best when he wrote "It's a city of strangers.  Some come to work, some come to play.  A city of strangers.  Some come to stare, some come to stay." Over the years, I have been every one of those people.  Working, playing, staring, staying.  That is what I have done most of my life, wherever I have lived.  I like to o to the library to write and do research because I like to look at the people around me.  I like to think of them, their stories, their troubles, what makes them happy, what makes them sad. "And another hundred people just got off of the train."  The amount of people in this world astound me.  I reamember the first time I walked into a Broadway Theatre, and saw the most amazing cast put on the most amazing show.  And then I did it the next da...

Check out my latest review of Sister Act at Terrace Plaza in Ogden, Utah Click Here