A BRIEF WALTZ IN A LITTLE ROOM
By Morag Shepherd, Matthew Ivan Bennett, and Shawn Saunders
The Gateway, SLC
A Sackerson Production in partnership with Umbrella Theatre Company, and Utah Arts Alliance.
September 2019
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An immersive theatre event for ten audience members at a time
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​​Directed by Morag Shepherd and Jamie Rocha
Design -Cara Pomeroy, Adam Day, Brookelyn Morgan, Dan Evans, Heather Paulsen, Iris Salazar, Madeline Ashton, Sophia Luker and Spencer Potter.
Sound Design - Alex Ungerman
Photography - Ashley Thalman
Performed by Robert Scott Smith, Brenda Hattingh, Claire Stucki , Emily Nash, Holly Fowers, Jesse Nepivoda, PJ Volk and Ainslie Shepherd
The most challenging aspect of the show is being alone in a room with an actor inches away enacting an intimate, sometimes uncomfortable scene. It is also the most moving. It’s the kind of show I would fly to New York just to see. Sackerson’s mission is to provide new shows in unconventional spaces to bold audiences, and A Brief Waltz in a Little Room actually has the effect of making the audience bolder; if you’re feeling even a little bold, make your way down to Urban Arts Gallery for A Brief Waltz in a Little Room. Explore a Character From the Inside in Sackerson and Umbrella Theater Company’s A Brief Waltz in a Little Room at Urban Arts Gallery in Salt Lake City, Utah (Front Row Reviewers)
"I sort of went in expecting to be emotionally devastated. And there was moments I was upset. But mostly it felt so natural because Walter is me. I am Walter. The painful awkward conversation in the car. The hurt of staring at your own reflection. The convenient marriage. The loneliness and the transcendence. I loved this show. This show is powerful and important. I can't stop thinking about it" ~ Josh Bingham
"This show is one of those that completely reshapes your notions of theatre and storytelling. I loved it." ~ Gray Brian Thomas
Plays like this makes me grateful not just for story and performance, but just to be a human alive in a world where art exists. YOU NEED A BRIEF WALTZ IN A LITTLE ROOM (Utah Theatre Bloggers)
"I saw myself reflected and refracted, and shared a moment of vulnerability with a friend, and ate a clementine. Go see this. I'll probably go again." ~ Richard Kay
It’s acting at point-blank range. This intimate Salt Lake City play is staged in the changing rooms of a closed Anthropologie (Salt Lake City Tribune)
The remarkable Sackerson theater company’s latest production A Brief Waltz in a Little Room: 23 Short Plays about Walter Eyer is one of the most incisive renderings of the consequential meanings and impact of a sense of place in Utah.
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In breaking from practically every standard logistic of theatrical convention, A Brief Waltzpresents the unorthodox opportunity – frankly, brilliant beyond expectation – to transform what has been destructively judged as and perceived to be a moral failure into an emancipating expression of self.
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However, the most extraordinary part of this experience is that each individual is immersed and, in fact, steps into the realm of ‘becoming’ Walter Eyer. As mentioned in an earlier previewpublished in The Utah Review, Eyer is a forty-something Mormon man of familiar circumstances and conventional means but also who is embroiled in his own identity crisis.
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Playwrights Morag Shepherd, Matthew Ivan Bennett and Shawn Francis Saunders wrote the 23 scenes. The waltz metaphor matters as a significant creative point. As a familiar reference, the waltz is a highly structured dance form with the flourishes and whirls that engage its participants in harmony, moving toward a delightful destiny or conclusion. However, each of us also has our own symbolic waltz – sometimes with our bodies, more often with our minds and, in the most consequential moments, both.
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Sackerson’s A Brief Waltz in a Little Room: 23 Short Plays about Walter Eyer is remarkable rendering of an incisive sense of place in Utah (The Utah Review)
"what an amazing, creative, and intimate theatre experience. it's moments like these that make me know theatre creates my favorite spaces. This show was nothing short of beauty."
~ Jonah Kirkhart
