LOGAN – Another sign of the growing cooperation between Cache Valley’s theater companies can be found in the line-up of performers at the Late Night Cabaret slated for July 17 and 24.
For years, the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre has hosted variety shows at Café Sabor periodically during their regular summer season, giving audiences an opportunity to see the stars of UFOMT shows sans make-up and singing their favorite Broadway tunes.
This year, however, performers from Cache Valley’s other professional acting troupe, the Lyric Repertory Company, will join their UFOMT counterparts in the Late Night Cabaret show debuting July 17.
“Come to the Cabaret,” said Vanessa Ballam, associate artistic director of the UFOMT, laughingly borrowing a phase from the lyrics of the familiar John Kander/Fred Ebb musical during a July 10 visit to the studios of KVNU for a “For the People” broadcast.
She went on to promise the cabaret audience not only top-notch entertainment, but also the option of purchasing food and beverages from Café Sabor.
Other examples of renewed cooperation between local performing arts groups were the productions recently mounted at the Ellen Eccles Theatre during this summer’s UFOMT hiatus. Those productions included The Scarlet Pimpernel offered by Music Theatre West in June and the ongoing production Prince of Egypt by the Cache Theatre Company.
Those shows were in many respects the equal of the absent Festival Opera productions, from striking music and vocals, to gorgeous costuming, to elaborate sets and brilliantly stylized choreography.
Ms. Ballam is the lynch-pin in this first-ever merger of UFOMT and Lyric talents at the Café Sabor. In January, she joined the Theater Arts staff at Utah State University to create a musical theater program for the university.
After directing the hilarious production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest for the Lyric Repertory Company his summer, she was in an ideal position to suggest that Lyric performers join the UFOMT variety show.
“Since I’ve got one foot in each of our local professional programs,” she explained, “the idea of combining the talents of both for the Cabaret variety show was obvious.”
In addition to the Late Night Cabaret on July 17, the UFOMT has slated an additional opportunity for audiences to catch a similar show – with a varied slate of music and performers – on July 24.
Both of those variety shows will begin at 10:30 p.m., but audience members are warned that seating for those events at Café Sabor is limited.
Tickets for Cabaret shows can be purchased by calling the festival opera ticket office at 800-262-0074 or online at www.utahfestival.org