Zion National Park 2024

Zion is one of my favorite places on Earth and, whenever I am in St. George, I usually drive home through the park.  I hadn't planned on doing that this trip but I woke up early yesterday morning and got packed up very quickly so I spontaneously decided to make the detour.  I am so glad that I did because the temperature was perfect and the park wasn't very crowded.  It has been a long time since I really explored or hiked but I do enjoy driving through because it reminds me of all the times my family visited during my childhood.

It was a really nice morning in the park, especially since it wasn't crowded and I could pull into all of the viewpoints to get a closer look at the formations!

Frozen at Tuacahn Amphitheatre

Yesterday I left on a quick road trip to St. George to see Frozen at Tuacahn Amphitheatre.  Tuacahn is the first regional theatre in the U.S. to be given permission by Disney to produce this musical and it was spectacular!  I have seen the Broadway touring production and I think this version might be better!  A young Elsa (Harper Griffith) and a young Anna (Bentley Nulia) have fun building a snowman together but, when Elsa accidentally freezes Anna with her mysterious powers, the King and Queen tell her that she must hide herself away from Anna and the rest of Arendelle.  When the King and Queen are lost at sea, Elsa (Cayleigh Capaldi) must open the doors of the castle for her coronation.  She loses control of herself, with devastating consequences, when Anna (Daisy Wright) requests permission to marry Hans of the Southern Isles (Preston Taylor) and she flees Arendelle.  Anna follows her, hoping to save Arendelle from the endless winter, and is aided by an ice harvester named Kristoff (Joe Caskey) , his reindeer Sven (William Bishop), and Olaf (Kyle Kemph), the snowman she built with Anna when they were girls.  Elsa fears that she is a monster and Anna is injured again but it is her ability to love that ultimately saves Anna and Arendelle.  Tuacahn is known for its big productions and this is the most ambitious one yet!  The large set pieces, special effects, and projections are absolutely amazing!  I knew that the song "Let It Go" would probably be a highlight but I was not prepared for how epic it was.  There were moving set pieces that looked like giant icicles and projections of snow and ice on large LED panels in sync with all of Capaldi's dramatic gestures and her costume change happens in an instant (people in the audience gasped).  It seemed to snow in the entire amphitheatre and the song, which featured an incredibly powerful performance by Capaldi, concluded with fireworks!  I also really loved Capaldi's renditions of "Dangerous to Dream," "Monster," and "I Can't Lose You" with Wright because she has such a beautiful voice filled with so much emotion.  Wright's performance is also outstanding and I loved her voice, as well, but her physicality was so much fun to watch, especially in "Love is an Open Door" and "Fixer Upper."  The entire cast is fantastic (I was impressed with Caskey because he is the understudy) and it features a strong ensemble who made me laugh at all of their antics during the choreography in "Hygge."  The costumes are slightly different from those of the movie and the Broadway production but they are recognizable and gorgeous.  I also loved the puppets for Sven and Olaf.  This show is magical and I am so glad that I got to see it!  It is being performed in repertory with Anastasia and Jersey Boys through the middle of October (go here for tickets).

The Fall Guy

Last night I went to see The Fall Guy looking for a fun summer blockbuster and that is exactly what I got!  After an accident on set Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), the stunt double for action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), walks away from the movie business and his camerawoman girlfriend Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt).  Eighteen months later producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) convinces him to return to Tom's latest movie because it is being directed by Jody and she has requested him.  When he gets to set he discovers that Jody is not over their break-up and that Gail really summoned him to locate Tom because he has mysteriously disappeared.  Soon he is being blown up, shot at, and set on fire both on set and in real life as he tries to find Tom.  Eventually, he becomes the fall guy in more ways than one and it takes the stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), Jody, and the entire crew to help him clear his name in an epic stunt.  The story is an absolute mess (I think they should have spent more time developing the central romance rather than the mystery) but the action sequences, and the accompanying adrenaline-fueled soundtrack, are so much fun.  It is definitely an homage to stunt work, and filmmaking in general, and I enjoyed seeing glimpses of what it takes to create the stunts we see on the screen as well as all of the nods to recognizable stunts from other movies.  Gosling, especially, and Blunt are charismatic as the leads and they have sizzling chemistry with each other (as previously mentioned they should have had more interactions together).  Some of the humor doesn't quite land but I laughed out loud during a relationship montage to "All Too Well" by Taylor Swift and several scenes involving a French speaking stunt dog named Jean-Claude.  There are flaws but it is wildly entertaining and the perfect start to the summer blockbuster season.

The Hello Girls at HCTO

My great-grandfather John Johnston emigrated to Canada in his late teens but, when war was declared between England and Germany, he returned home to Scotland and enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders.  He was wounded at the First Battle of Ypres and was left on the battlefield for dead.  His brother returned later hoping to retrieve his body and discovered that he was still alive.  I loved hearing all of these stories when I was a child and, consequently, World War I has always held a particular fascination for me.  Many of my favorite books, movies, and theatre productions deal with the subject and now I can add the musical The Hello Girls to that list.  I had the chance to see it at HCTO last night and it is one of the best shows I've seen this year!  After the U.S. enters World War I in 1917, General Pershing (Reese Phillip Purser) is frustrated because the male telephone operators in the Signal Corps do not know French and are much slower than the women who work for Bell Telephone back home.  He tasks Captain Joseph Riser (Dallin Bradford) with recruiting a unit of bilingual women to join the American Expeditionary Forces in France.  Grace Banker (Megan Heaps), a no-nonsense supervisor at Bell, Suzanne Prevot (Kennedy Bradford), Grace's adventurous best friend, Helen Hill (Emily Paxman), an inexperienced farm girl from Idaho, Bertha Hunt (Shannon Eden), the wife of a soldier already serving overseas, and Louise LeBreton (Makenna Ashby), an underage French woman who has lived in the U.S. for several years, are among those selected for the first group stationed at the AEF headquarters in Chaumont.  These operators overcome many hardships and ultimately help turn the tide of the war.  What I loved most about this story is how inspiring it is.  These women had to fight just to be allowed to join the Army ("We Aren't in the Army"), they had to work harder than their male counterparts to prove themselves to their commanding officer ("Riser's Reprimand"), they had to fight to be allowed to go to the front ("Twenty"), and then they had to fight for over sixty years to receive the benefits they deserved as veterans ("Making History").  The music is incredibly stirring and my favorite songs were the big anthems "Answer the Call," "Hello Girls," "Lives on the Line," and "Making History."  The backdrop features wooden panels set with rows of lights to represent the switchboards used by the women (upon which period photos and videos are projected) and the set includes multi-level wooden platforms connected by wooden ramps to represent various locations.  The dynamic choreography uses this space very well.  I especially loved a sequence when the soldiers at the front reach their hands towards the women at their switchboards during a dramatic battle to show how much of a lifeline they are.  It gave me goosebumps. I also loved the authenticity and attention to detail in the uniforms worn by both the soldiers and the women, especially the puttees, the helmets, and the haversacks carrying the gas masks (I am such a nerd for knowing World War I uniforms).  Finally, the cast is superb and they do a brilliant job in bring these forgotten historical characters to life.  Heaps, one of my favorite local actors, was the standout for me because she brings so much emotion to the role, particularly in her scenes with Bradford as she fights for more opportunities.  I always really appreciate it when a theatre company programs something new, especially when it is based on a subject of interest to me, and I loved everything about this production.  I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) during it run through June 1.

May We All at HCT

Last night I had a chance to see May We All, a new jukebox musical featuring songs by Brooks & Dunn, Chris Stapleton, Dolly Parton, Florida Georgia Line, Johnny Cash, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, Little Big Town, Loretta Lynn, Miranda Lambert, Reba McEntire, Sara Evans, Tim McGraw, and Zac Brown Band, and, despite a really cheesy story, some exaggerated performances that feel more like caricatures than real people, and a genre of music that I usually dislike, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would (I almost didn't go because I thought I would hate it). Jenna Coates (Dawn Deitlein) returns to her hometown of Harmony, Tennessee after struggling to pursue her dream of becoming a country music star in Nashville for two years.  However, going home again is not as easy as she expected because Harmony is facing a hard economic future, her parents Crystal (Adrien Swenson) and Harley (Brock Harris) and her sister Kylie (Savannah Carrasco) are hurt that she has seemingly abandoned them for fame and fortune, her best friend Liz (Libby Ferguson) is struggling with the loss of her brother, and her ex-boyfriend Dustin (Nathan Bowser) is seeing someone new (Teaira Burge) who just happens to want to bring a big box store to Harmony. She eventually realizes how important her friends and family, and Dustin, are to her and that the best way to help Harmony is to bring the music back. However, what will happen when her biggest Nashville dream suddenly comes true? The story follows the plot of every Hallmark movie ever made (which is not necessarily a bad thing but I am not a fan) so I didn't find it very compelling. I also didn't like the portrayal of some of the characters because the performances (especially those of Swenson and Harris), the costumes, and the hair really lean into stereotypes (to be fair I don't really know many people from this area of the country but it seemed a bit overdone for laughs to me). I am not a big fan of country music but, to my surprise, the musical performances are what I enjoyed the most. An insanely talented band, including Kelly DeHaan on keyboards, Eric Noyes on keyboards, Memphis Hennesy on guitar, Bryan Hague on guitar, Davin Tayler on bass guitar, Julie Beistline on fiddle, and Todd Mitchell on drums, are located on stage in the wings and they sound great! The female leads are also outstanding, particularly Deitlein and Ferguson. I loved Deitlein's performance of "Born to Fly," "Play Something Country" with Ferguson, "Can't Go Back" with Bowser, "Rainbow" with Carrasco, and "Back to My Boots" (an original song by Florida Georgia Line's Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard) with the company.  As always, the set is phenomenal and I loved the use of large wooden panels suspended from the rafters for projections and live feeds during the musical numbers. This wasn't really my cup of tea but I'm glad I saw it and I'm sure fans of country music will absolutely love it! This runs on the Young Living Centre Stage through June 8 with lots of tickets (go here) available.