Summer — at Salt Lake Acting Company, at least — is a time for Utahns to laugh at the eccentricities of their home state, with the second year of the satirical revue “SLACabaret,” this time subtitled “Down The Rabbit Hole.”
The show — which launches on Wednesday, July 13, and runs through August 21 — carries on and updates the tradition established by the long-running musical satire “Saturday’s Voyeur,” which played at SLAC (mostly) for four decades.
What “SLACabaret” has in common with “Voyeur,” according to SLAC’s artistic director, Cynthia Fleming, is “we know our smart, adventurous audience loves to celebrate Utah through art — and having a party is a great way to end the season.”
“SLACabaret” personifies Utah’s quirky personality and culture with what the company calls a “fresh take on the Beehive state.” As they say in the musical, “those who reside here [in Utah] are of a particular breed.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The cast performs a dance during rehearsal for the Salt Lake Acting Company's 2022 SLACabaret, on Thursday, June 23, 2022. The satirical revue is scheduled to run July 13 to August 21, 2022.
The show is punctuated with timely humor, taking a swing at such Utah-specific items as dirty soda, Utah County anti-vaxxers, and Brigham Young University’s honor code, fight song and stance on LGBTQ+ students. It even features references to the 9th and 9th whale sculpture and the band Imagine Dragons.
The storyline for this year’s “SLACabaret” is set at an essential oils conference — Oil Con Salt Lake City 2022 — which becomes an apt metaphor not just for Utah but for life anywhere. The conference becomes a backdrop for different ideas, people, peculiarities and thoughts.
The juxtaposition of satirical lyrics to familiar songs can create moments where the vocals soar along with the sharp humor. Take, for example, a send-up of Amy Winehouse’s song “Rehab” with the lyrics: “Don’t try to make me get a vaccine because I’ll say no, no, no.”
The name “SLACabaret” derives, according to company marketing/communications director Josh Black, from a comment Fleming once read about “the act of cabaret being a political act.”
“What it should be is celebrating through art,” Fleming said. “That’s what SLACabaret means to me.”
Writing a musical usually takes about seven years to write, Fleming said, so putting one together in one year, and incorporating the headlines of that past 12 months, is a daunting task. Fleming called the show’s three main writers — Olivia Custodio, Emilio Casillas and Michael Leavitt (who is also the musical director) — “incredibly brave” for taking it on.
(Cat Palmer | Salt Lake Acting Company) Playwrights Michael Leavitt, Olivia Custodio and Emilio Casillas, from left, are the writers of "SLACabaret: Down the Rabbit Hole," which is scheduled to run July 13 to August 21, 2022, at Salt Lake Acting Company.
Custodio, the head writer, was in the cast of last year’s inaugural “SLACabaret.” Being part of the production, she said, was “the first time I truly felt the embodiment of a collaborative process [in theater]. I’ve never been a part of a show that has allowed for that [safe] spirit to really be in the room. Now having the permission as a writer to foster another year of that spirit is really cool.”
Fleming said she and the writers, cast and crew “have had to rethink, restage how we work and how we put productions on.” That means checking in with actors, and getting their input on creative changes – a departure from the old top-down hierarchy of the theater world.
“Theater now is truly a collaborative art form,” Fleming said.
Custodio said she felt “horrified” and “isolated” when she first moved to Utah 10 years ago. Since then, she said she has “come to love all of the weird little things about Utah.
“Something that’s really important to me, that I love about SLACabaret,” Custodio said, “is that it’s a celebration of Utah.”
“SLACabaret: Down the Rabbit Hole” will be performed July 13 to August 21 at Salt Lake Acting Company, 168 W. 500 North, Salt Lake City. For more information, go to saltlakeactingcompany.org.
