In Utah This Week
Kelly Ashkettle
2/9/2010
…lighting designer Nicolas Murphy added an extra dimension by keeping the house lights up for scenes in which the actors address the audience, and using a spotlight for flashback scenes. The timing of these effects was sharp, helped keep the action clear, and made us feel like part of the show.

…The cast was an exciting group of some of Salt Lake professional theater’s most entertaining actors, with a few talented BYU students thrown into the mix.

I was distracted more than once near the beginning of the production by marveling over the fact that the mohawk-and-combat-boot-wearing comfort counselor, Mitch Mahoney, was being played by PAC’s artistic director, Jared Larkin. It’s even funnier to watch a guy with facial piercings hand out juice boxes and hugs when you know how clean-cut he normally looks. Larkin’s voice, by the way, was a standout; he should sing more often.

Shannon Musgrave played the overachieving Marcy Park, and her dancing was even more charming than it was when she played Hattie the Spotted Dog at Salt Lake Acting Company. She had a lot of poise and polish as she twirled around the stage; choreographer Paul Winkelman did fine work.

I thought the best humor in the show was when Mark Fossen, who played Vice Principal Panch, used the spelling words in a sentence for the contestants. He had just the right degree of deadpan while giving examples like, "Fandango: I see a little silhouetto of a man, scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?"

Tamara Howell found the right note of over-enthusiasm as former-spelling-champ-turned officiator Rona Lisa Peretti. Phaidra Atkinson was adorable and had a sweet singing voice as she played young Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre. Dustin Bolt had a good gee-whiz quality as Leaf Coneybear, whose ability to spell words seemed to be a form of Tourette’s Syndrome -- and he had an even better air of suave over-protectiveness when he played one of Logainne’s two fathers. Zachary Hess was the perfect wheezy know-it-all as William Barfee. And Benjamin Roeling was a crackup when he sang "My Unfortunate Erection."

But it was Alyssa Simmons, who played Olive Ostovsky, who gave the show its true heart. As the girl who kept waiting for her father to arrive, her belief in love and kindness was inspiring. The morals of the story are that there’s a place where everyone belongs; that misfits can find love too; and sometimes when you lose, you win.

This is work that director Kirt Bateman should be proud of.

Salt Lake Tribune
Barbara M. Bannon
2/5/2010
Its chief assets are its spontaneous feeling and collaborative spirit. The actors interact playfully with each other and the audience, and director Kirt Bateman keeps things moving at breakneck speed without descending into chaos. Paul Winkelman’s choreography teeters between inventive and silly, and Sean Sekino’s musical direction keeps the singers tunefully together. Julie Archer’s costumes showcase the individual personalities of their wearers. Local references add to the fun.
If "Spelling Bee" has a unifying theme, Bateman identifies it in his director’s notes. Adolescence is an agonizing time of life; "Spelling Bee" reveals that angst, but it has a good time doing it.

UTBA
Jenn Kempf
2/5/2010
…A show like this can easily offer a forum to over act the heck out of these characters to the point of annoying, but I commend each of the actors for taking it just to the point of pure enjoyment. Great comedic timing!
A few notable players: Zach Hess wins for stealing the show. I thought his rendition of William Barfee (pronounced Bar-FAY) was hilarious, and the use of his magic foot and over confident nature only added to his role. Hess was also very nicely offset by Miss Alyssa Simmons. Kudos to her excellent portrayal of Olive: a shy, pensive girl who has what I feel is the only “real” moment when she sings about her parents. I was impressed. Of course, Chip (Ben Roeling) and his unfortunate “demonstration” was genius and very tactfully done. I also have to give a shout out to Leaf, Marcy, and Logainne with her two dads (that’s right 2 stage dads, can you even imagine). Honestly, they all did a great job.
Lastly, we can’t forget the people who made it happen. To the Director, Choreographer, Music Director, & Costumer, let me say “GREAT SHOW!” One final note for the choreographer: the dancing was cute, funny, and show appropriate which I always appreciate.  All in all, in my opinion this production is a definite MUST SEE. Very funny and very entertaining and need I say again…AWKWARD!

Salt Lake City Weekly
Scott Renshaw

Often, I fear theatrical farce. Truly, I do. Even the most professional of productions can fail to achieve the masterful timing that’s almost mandatory for door-slamming/identity-mistaking/ trouble-avoiding plots to work.

Brandon Thomas’ Victorian-era farce Charley’s Aunt—concluding its Pinnacle Acting Company run this weekend—is precisely the kind of thing that often falls flat on its face. The reason this one doesn’t: Several terrific comic performances, and one masterful comic performance.

The premise is pure, you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me farce: Oxford chums Jack (Derrick Rodgers) and Charley (Augustus Stoneman), desperate to have some time with the young ladies they pine for, arrange a luncheon at which Charley’s visiting (and never-before-seen by Charley) widowed aunt will be the requisite chaperone. Only she postpones her visit at the last moment, leading the lads to cast their pal Fancourt Babberly (Jared Larkin, pictured) in drag as the dowager. Commence social occasions rife with confusion and panic.
Director Ron Fredrickson mounts an ambitious production that involves two complete intermission set changes, and performer entrances and exits through every possible portal in the building. But his real score was putting together an exceptional cast. Rodgers and Stoneman do fine work as the overzealous youths, while Alyssa Hickman Grove and Mitchell Hall provide the best of the solid support. And Larkin, in the toughest role, is simply hilarious, whether lamenting his disguise or secretly delighting in it. His performance is like a master class in how to nail a farce performance—which just goes to show that sometimes, a production can get it just right.

Salt Lake Tribune
Barbara M. Bannon
11/10/2009
…Blessing has an uncanny sense of the alternating attraction/avoidance that characterizes these relationships, but the play remains upbeat, as funny as it is perceptive. The three actresses comfortably inhabit their characters: Frederickson’s flighty, high-energy Dorothea never becomes a gargoyle, Fowers articulately balances Artie’s fascination with her mother against her need to be free, and Dowe has remarkable poise and presence as the inquisitive and passionate Echo. Jared Larkin’s astute direction positions characters close to the audience for their monologues and often configures them in triangles.
…Pinnacle is currently performing in the cold, cavernous former Midvale town hall…So, listen up, Mayor Becker and other interested parties: what we don’t need is a 2,500-seat "Broadway-style" theater with too many seats to fill; what we do need is another center like the Rose Wagner with small performing spaces to house our emerging alternative theater companies.

Salt Lake Tribune
Ellen Fagg Weist
8/25/2009
Everything about this barely-there budget production, from the "I call this the stage" venue at Sugar Space to the streamlined chairs-and-bed set, emphasizes the show’s acting. And that should be an attraction to any theatergoer who still thinks it’s possible to feel something -- without spectacle, without theatrical fireworks -- while sitting alone in a darkened room with strangers.

In her line delivery, April Fossen shines at expressing the clipped, unspoken emotions anchoring a carefully sane, brittle woman like Nan -- and let’s face it, what thinking woman isn’t made brittle by the hard-edges of contemporary life? The actor lights up the stage in the second act, even if she doesn’t seem quite at home in the body of Lina, Nan’s mother as a single woman in 1960, an extravagantly verbal Southern woman "who admits to thirty." Lina is a mercurial woman who compliments a simple meal as a "fall-of-Rome-variation on a salad." She desperately wants to be somebody but hasn’t quite settled on whom. Or whom to be with, as during a three-day rain storm she falls into an affair with Ned, her boyfriend’s shy partner.

Overall, the production unspools its provocative back-and-forth in interesting ways, and for its $10 ticket, offers much more to chew on than most of Hollywood’s superhero blockbusters.

In Utah This Week
Kelly Ashkettle
8/25/2009
…In Act II…the casting seemed ideal. Kidd was appropriately charismatic and bemused as Theo, the handsome architect who struggled to come up with ideas. Stoddard was perfect as a man straining to convey his thoughts. And Fossen shone as an outspoken Southern woman, carrying the weight of the emotional core of the play…Director Alexandra Harbold made the most of the small Sugar Space with her blocking choices. The costume design worked well for both periods…The lighting was unobtrusive but well-timed and emphasized the action when needed…Three Days of Rain is a fine piece of art that deserves to be seen, and Pinnacle does it justice.

Melanie Nelson was perfect as the tightly wound Becca, a mother who recently lost her only child, 4-year-old Danny, to a car accident. Jared Larkin plays her husband, Howie, and he shows just the right amount of desperation as a man losing his composure under the strain of marital tension.

“How much more do we have to lose?” he asks, as he pleads with his wife for the return of their dog, who’s been temporarily banished to her mother’s home. It’s a central question; the couple’s different methods of dealing with their grief forms the crux of the play.

…Derick Rodgers plays Jason, the teenager who accidentally struck the couple’s child with his car…Rodgers gives a mature, restrained, sincere performance. He first enters the stage to read a letter he wrote to Becca, and the robotic way in which he uttered the ubiquitous teenage phrase “ha ha” was chilling.

Phaidra Atkinson plays Becca’s sister Izzy with a good mixture of brashness and heart. Her habit of taking her shoes off and climbing on the couch suited her character perfectly -- kudos to her and director Alexandra Harbold for the blocking on that one...

Alyssa Hickman Grove portrayed the sisters’ mother, Nat, with depth. One of the most poignant moments of the play comes when she explains that her own grief over the loss of a child has become like a brick she carries around with her in her pocket, and “it’s what you have instead of your son,” so she no longer wants to let go of it…Grove also has a finely tuned sense of comic timing.

…The pacing in this production is exceptional...the cast more than delivers on that front. Anyone looking for an emotionally engaging two hours of theater will find it here.

I’m a "less-is-more" kind of guy. Whereas much contemporary live theater seems to be taking Hollywood’s lead with big special effects, gauche gimmicks and stunt casting, Pinnacle Acting Company has chosen to go the other way with their production of Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. The show is a testament to the simple power of talented actors working with a good script in an intimate space. It’s everything that live theater can and should be.

…no patron is ever more than a few feet from an actor; high drama plays out quite literally at your feet. More than once, I had to lean back because I was afraid I had invaded an actor’s personal space. I almost kicked somebody.

All of this came together to create one of the best theater-going experiences I’ve had in a long time. With not quite a whole year behind them, Pinnacle Acting Company has a bright future—assuming they continue to stick to the basics.

…The fledgling Pinnacle Acting Company…deserves kudos for mounting meaty contemporary straight plays, despite drawing sparse crowds. There are fine moments in this production, particularly in Melanie Nelson’s confident embodiment of middle sister Mary, a world-weary doctor obsessed with a patient’s post-traumatic amnesia, and unhappy in her longtime affair with a married colleague, Mike (Stein Erickson).

Most revealing are Nelson’s compelling exchanges with the memory of her male-focused mother, Vi, (a refined Charisse Baxter), in which the daughter’s glib defensives are stripped away along with her fantasies about a reunion with her own long-lost son. Nelson and Baxter make something fleshy and real out of these dream exchanges, and such full-bodied moments reveal what theater, as opposed to film, can do.

…(Marianna) Wood makes Catherine believably self-absorbed, particularly in a finely tuned moment of emotional escalation as she recounts her boyfriend woes...

…Both actors (Bob Lanoue, Stein Erickson) offer something nuanced and complicated…

…In the end, what the production offers is plenty of the dark wit that might seem familiar to any family who have faced off with death…

Pinnacle Acting Company’s Proof offers an indie theater experience that’s worth your time, even worth the drive to Midvale. In only its second show, the company showcases deft acting…

…What works most successfully in this production, directed by Jared Larkin, is Nelson’s nuanced portrayal of Catherine’s quicksilver emotions, while Mark Fossen’s strong voice and comfortable stage presence animates the character of her father, who’s fully emobodied in the woman’s mind and in flashback scenes.

Nelson makes Catherine’s push-pull attraction to her father’s student, Hal (Stein Erickson), achingly palatable on stage…

…the fledgling company attempts to stake a reputation on producing thoughtful, humor-laced contemporary dramas, versus the musicals and classics that might be considered more popular community fare for Utah audiences.

Daily Herald
New Theater Concept
1/25/2007

A local acting company is setting the stage to offer a new theater concept to actors and audiences throughout Utah. The name of the group is Pinnacle Acting Company, and they will be focusing on an intellectual and educational approach to theater with a repertoire focusing on the works of influential classical and contemporary playwrights.