LOGAN – The Odyssey Dance Theatre will debut its revival of the much-beloved Halloween dance show Thriller at the Ellen Eccles Theatre here on Friday, Sept. 27.
“I thought we were done,” laughs ODT founder and choreographer Derryl Yeager, when he announced that the 2022 version of Thriller would be its final series of performances and then closed the doors of his dance company.
After completing a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, Yeager and his wife Cheryl decided to yield to popular demand and revive ODT.
Now based out of the Grand Theatre in Salt Lake City, the troupe has plans to tour all of Utah during the upcoming Halloween season, with performances of the famed dance review slated for the Ellen Eccles Theatre in Logan, Peery’s Egyptian Theatre in Ogden, the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, the Grand Theatre in Salt Lake City and the Tuacahn Ampitheatre in Ivins.
That statewide tour is scheduled to run from Friday, Sept. 20 to Saturday, Nov. 2.
The performances of Thriller here in Logan are slated for 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 27; 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28; and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28.
Yeager says that he had more than 60 dancers turn up for his recent ODT auditions. From that group, he selected about 30 young professionals to perform Thriller, a show made up of production numbers ranging in scale from duets to real mob scenes with dance styles running the gamut from classic ballet to hip-hop.
Yeager founded the Odyssey Dance Theatre in 1994 and came up with the idea for Thriller a couple years later. It started small, but quickly grew into a Halloween spectacular.
The ODT has been wowing Utah audiences with Thriller for more than twenty years and it’s easy to see why. For its dedicated fans, the show is part of Halloween and the holiday wasn’t the same in 2023 without it.
Thriller is simply a great show. There are gorgeous costumes, dazzling special effects, a marvelous soundtrack mixing classical and contemporary music, lots of laughs and a few jump-out-of-your-seat scares.
Not to mention the great dancing. That’s taken for granted when the ODT dancers take the stage.
In addition to Thriller, Yeager has other plans for the ODT’s 2024-25 season.
The dance troupe has announced plans to perform a Christmas Spectacular Spectacular, featuring excepts from various holiday stories, plus their always evolving Shut Up and Dance review in the spring of 2025.
Tickets for Thriller are now on sale at https://www.cachearts.org/shows
The Ellen Eccles Theatre is located at 43 South Main Street in downtown Logan.