Newlywed performers Katie Fay Francis and Scott Fuss shared the stage on Wednesday during the final event of the holiday-themed Random Acts Community Performance Series at the Ellen Eccles Theatre.
LOGAN – The final event in the holiday-themed Random Acts Community Performance Series at the Ellen Eccles Theatre was a lesson in how Christmas should ideally be celebrated – with a loved one in a relaxed, comfortable, cozy setting.
Newlywed theater performers Katie Fay Francis and Scott Fuss made the Eccles stage feel homelike by inviting a sizable local audience to share “Our First Christmas.”
The New York City based couple performed a charmingly informal selection of seasonal music on Wednesday, marvelously accompanied by pianist Dallas Heaton, a professor of opera at Utah State University.
Ms. Francis is no stranger to Cache Valley audiences. The Utah native and USU graduate performed a string of leading roles in musicals and comedies for the Lyric Repertory Company starting in 2012.
Her husband of three months is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University with a long list of professional theater credits.
While Fuss and Ms. Francis alternated singing solos early in the evening, the show was clearly hers from start to finish.
Ms. Francis led off the evening with a vibrant rendition of “That’s What I Want for Christmas,” a contemporary song popularized by the Utah trio SHeDAISY. Although her singing has always been lovely, Ms. Francis can now really belt out a tune and has the stage presence to sell every note of what she sings.
After a humorous novelty song parodying “The 12 Days of Christmas,” Ms. Francis launched into a dramatic performance of the not particularly seasonal but always welcome Burt Bacharach classic “A House is Not a Home.”
With her combination of breathtaking vocals and vivacious chitchat, Ms. Francis had the audience thoroughly captivated for the rest of the evening.
Other high points of “Our First Christmas” were crowd-pleasing duets of “The Chipmunk Song,” “O Holy Night” and the show-closer “Let It Snow.”
The only valid criticism of the couple’s performance might be that it ended far too quickly.
“Our First Christmas” was the last of more than a dozen live performances scheduled at the Eccles Theatre during December despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
CacheARTS director Wendi Hassan credits precautionary measures taken by the theater management and the wiliness of local residents to abide by them for allowing that host of events to be successfully staged under the present threatening circumstances.
The Random Acts Community Performance Series was subsidized by grants from the “Create in Utah” program provided through the federal CARES Act by the Utah Legislature and administered by the Utah Division of Arts & Museums.