The Park City Institute wants to hear you sing.
An audience sing-along to a special screening of the film "The Greatest Showman" is one of many diverse shows that will run this winter at Park City Eccles Center. The lyrics of popular tunes like "This is Me" and "Never Enough" will be on the screen. And attendees are encouraged to wear circus-inspired costumes.
Betsy Wallace is the executive director of the Park City Institute. She took over the position in spring of 2023 and worked to create new categories around programming the main stage.
“We created five pillars that as we started to set our programming," she said. "We wanted to make sure it was around music, a speaker series, which I'm passionate about, as with everything else, family programming, dance, and specific programming. And this year specific programming is around science.”
Anne Brown is the president and CEO of the Cook Center for Human Connection. She said the center is partnering with the Institute to bring Arthur Brooks, a social scientist and professor at Harvard to the main stage.
“Arthur Brooks is a social scientist,” Brown said. “He's a professor of Harvard and leads the happiness and leadership course at Harvard. It's one of the most popular courses on campus. And then he just recently released a book with Oprah called “How to Build Your Life.” And so in the science vein, this is the social science piece of it.”
Park City Institute Associate Executive Director Jenny Knaak said two shows this year will focus on family friendly acts. One is called “Puppy Pals” another show features a comedic magician.
“They were on America's Got Talent, and it's trained dogs,” Knaak said. “They're all rescue animals, which is great from shelters. And they're doing fun dog tricks onstage. Who doesn't love that? And then yeah, Pharrell Dylan is a family friendly comic, which is not always the case. Many comics are not necessarily family friendly, but he is and he does amazing sleight of hand funny guy.”
Knaak also mentioned performers such as Lalah Hathaway who is the debut performer for the winter series and Nella, an artist from Venezuela.
Wallace emphasized the importance of sponsors and spoke about the different levels of sponsorship offered by the institute to engage the community.
“Yeah, so it's really focusing on our sponsors, and, and trying to drive that engagement with people to help bring these wonderful acts in, you know, we do need to pay for their artists fees, and it can be expensive.”
Click here for more information on the line up for the Park City Institute Winter Series.
