{"id":50660,"date":"2020-02-19T08:56:04","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T14:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=50660"},"modified":"2020-02-21T09:14:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T15:14:16","slug":"singing-with-the-brine-shrimps-world-premiere-is-a-perfect-balance-of-salty-and-sweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/singing-with-the-brine-shrimps-world-premiere-is-a-perfect-balance-of-salty-and-sweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Singing with the Brine Shrimp’s World Premiere Is a Perfect Balance of Salty and Sweet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Latoya Cameronas Allison in Plan-B\u2019s production of Jenny Kokai\u2019s \u201cSinging to the Brine Shrimp,\u201d\u00a0photo by Rick Pollock<\/p><\/div>\n

The world premiere of playwright Jenny Kokai\u2019s and director Jason Bowcutt\u2019s Singing to the Brine Shrimp <\/em>(at Plan-B Theatre through February 23) gives the Salt Lake City public a funny and insightful look at belonging, culture shock, and silliness in the art world (for more about the play, see our preview here<\/a>). The diverse and almost-all female cast and crew make refreshing decisions about the set, costume design, sound design, and acting. In fact, the play\u2019s 100% woman stage crew, Kokai says, was an inspiring experience to bring together. With a script rich with deadpan humor and characters that comment on the elitist attitudes and people in the big-city art world, the play is timely, entertaining, and more than a little meta.<\/h4>\n

Shimmering and swaying with the brine shrimp puppets, the central set for the Great Salt Lake is a long construction of flowing blue fabrics. Set designer Maddy Ashton has made functional and whimsical decisions that highlight the fairy-tale quality of the production and make the play engaging to watch. Her experience setting the stage for Seusical<\/em>, Cinderella<\/em>, and Matilda<\/em> is reflected in some of the more cartoonish aspects of the set, which feel fun and faithful to the madcap plot elements in Jenny Kokai\u2019s script. The use of one of the central props \u2014 a playwright-appropriate suitcase that allows Allison to disappear between scenes \u2014 helps the plot flow seamlessly.<\/h4>\n

The puppets\u2019 design by Shelby Rickart balances the need for simplicity with the need to express the main aspect of the puppets\u2019 characters. Design choices for Huck and Chuck portray the more negative aspects of hipster artists well, with little sunglasses and thin facial hair as icons of silly elitism. The brine shrimp are googly-eyed, sparkly, and adorable, making it easy to be entertained by their floaty movements and bitingly funny social commentary.<\/h4>\n

This overarching simple-yet-effective approach is also apparent in costume designer La Beene\u2019s choices. One standout example a costuming choice was worn by Emilie Starr as the theater producer Bianca. Starr totally transforms with the aid of a pair of glasses and a massive wraparound scarf. The scarf\u2019s ridiculous size reflects a bit of high-brow fashion, that she is cold in temperature and temperament, and that she just might have a tightly wound disposition. The scarf adds humor and depth to Bianca\u2019s character in a subtle and smart way.<\/h4>\n

Starr\u2019s acting range and ability to morph between sock puppet, Bianca, and Dinah are impressive and make each character feel unique. Her voice as Bianca is clipped and small as she belts it out in the brine shrimp musical number, and then gets believably emotional as Dinah. \u201cThe Idea Song\u201d is a funny and well-timed number featuring Starr, Jay Perry, and Lily Hye Soo Dixon. Dixon and Perry are also challenged with creating unique voices and expressions for several Brine Shrimp <\/em>characters. Dixon plays a brine shrimp, Quinn, Lorina, and Lucy. Her cool-girl drawl as Quinn is funny before you even register her lines. Dixon\u2019s high-anxiety phone calls as Lorina are faithful to the fast-paced city personalities that pepper cutthroat art environments. Perry plays Huck, Chuck, Royston, and Ryan, and is responsible for making mansplaining and artistic priss seem both natural to the characters and as cringeworthy as they\u2019re meant to be in Kokai\u2019s script. Each of these multidimensional actors, in partnership with Bowcutt, makes the play bubble with sarcastic charm.<\/h4>\n

Latoya Cameron creates a simultaneously funny, clumsy, and timid Allison, with good vocal projection and tone during her singing scenes. Her performance helps the audience follow the emotional development of Allison and empathize with her outsider status, first as a Utah transplant and then in the New York workshop. Cameron was a perfect choice to carry the majority of the play\u2019s plot.<\/h4>\n

The overall production, including the catchy songs by Kenneth Plein, is coherent, timely, and entertaining. The cast and crew have created a play that will both resonate with your desire to belong and make you laugh at yourself, the art world, and notions of \u201cbeing cultured\u201d in general.<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Latoya Cameronas Allison (left) with Lily Hye Soo Dixon, Jay Perry and\u00a0Emilie Starr voicing the puppets in Plan-B\u2019s production of\u00a0 \u201cSinging to the Brine Shrimp,\u201d\u00a0photo by Rick Pollock<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Singing to the Brine Shrimp<\/em>,\u00a0Plan-B Theatre<\/a>, February 13-23.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world premiere of playwright Jenny Kokai\u2019s and director Jason Bowcutt\u2019s Singing to the Brine Shrimp (at Plan-B Theatre through February 23) gives the Salt Lake City public a funny and insightful look at belonging, culture shock, and silliness in the art world (for more about the play, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1523,"featured_media":50661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theatre"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/20200204-BrineShrimp_172-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 13:46:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50665,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50660\/revisions\/50665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}