THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS
By Paul Zindel
Lightree Studios, Hart Theater and Immigrant's Daughter Theater
July 2024
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Directed by Morag shepherd
Stage Managed by Liz Black
Set Design - Allen Smith
Costume Design - Emily Wells
Light Design - Kyle Esposito
Props - Liz Black
Diction and Graphic Design - Paul McGrew
Photos by Brighton Sloan
Sound Design by Morag Shepherd
Performed by Ariana Farber, Heidi Farber, Vicki Pugmire, Ainslie Shepherd, and Jamie Greenburg
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Director Morag Shepherd assembled a phenomenal team in the cast and production. The show made me laugh out loud, gasp in terror, and was filled with tragic tension wrenching my heart throughout. Everything in the production shines and provokes emotion and introspection.
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Director Shepherd’s insightful direction inspires and facilitates the actors with the ability to give the audience this message by exquisitely embracing their characters. They show this push and pull, like protons and electrons in Tillie’s beloved atoms, contrasts the fact that life can be tragic, and all-consuming but we have the stuff of stars within us. All our everyday mortal problems that cause us such pain are ultimately meaningless and powerless when examined through the lens of eternity. We are left to ponder this as ethereal music ends the play.
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Salt Lake’s Immigrant’s Daughter and Hart Theater Company Plant Seeds of Introspection with “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” (Front Row Reviewers)
A play like this really takes a director and cast that are adept at finding the levels and moments of levity in the relentless bleakness presented. In this case, the cast is led by visionary director and playwright Morag Shepherd, who co-founded Immigrant’s Daughter Theatre in 2021.
Shepherd’s direction is always precise and insightful, and she doesn’t shy away from the grubbier elements of the script. Review: ‘The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds’ blossoms at Lightree Studios (Gephardt Daily)
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This newest production of Marigolds is gutsy, absorbing and kinetic and strongly recommended as an example of superb independent theater options in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. An outstanding, riveting collaboration: Immigrant’s Daughter Theatre, Hart Theater Company stage Paul Zindel’s classic The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (The Utah Review)
