If you don’t have tickets to this year’s Park City Follies – you’re out of luck – unless you want to pay a bit extra and support the buildout of the Egyptian Theater’s new Youth Theater space with a tax deductible contribution. KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher has details.
Tickets to the Follies – the annual spoof about our town and ourselves - are sold out, but Egyptian Theater Director Randy Barton has set aside seats to each performance to support the Youth Theater Capital Campaign. The Egyptian is building out a black box theater and classrooms in the basement space –that it purchased across the street last year.
“When we looked at the Follies this year we thought, let's use that as the final ask - the final push - to gain all of the funds we need to truly build a performing arts complex in the historic district. So, we raised the price this year - they'll go back next year - but we raised the price for individual tickets and have held onto all of the cabaret tables and the balconies for a premium price.”
There are only two ways to get your hands on the remaining tickets.
“One, if you join what we call our Pharaoh Club on a year round basis, then you have the ability to buy tickets. We are holding probably anywhere from 30 to 60 tickets per show right now for our Pharaoh Club members. Or , you can gather a bunch of friends together and purchase a balcony. They’re $2500 but that's up to 19 people. And if you do a balcony it's a private party - you can bring in your own food, alcohol, non-alcohol have a little party upstairs before the show and really make an evening of it. We are holding on to all of those balcony and the cabaret tables are a $1,000 for a table for 4 people but then you are right up front, right a part of it and this is fully tax deductible.”
Because all of the participants in the Follies are volunteers – Barton says they’re not willing to expand the run of the show and Director Paul Tan, says for him, moving the venue would be a deal killer…
“It is an end of season small town celebration in a beautiful historic theater that is the home of the Follies. It wouldn't feel right to try to do it at Abravenel Hall or…” Paul Tan added, “As long as I'm here, it's at the Egyptian. You move it - and it’s the last time I direct it, I can promise you that.”
The title of this year’s Follies is The Last Straw. Neither Barton nor Tan would say much about it.
“The poster is a good example of a Sundance bottle with a one-time use straw sticking out of it, so it gives you a little bit of a hint of some of the issues. And you know, there's five writers on this thing and so our ideas come from each different writer. I’m a big one on entitlement. You know, every day I walk out of my house I'm just amazed I live here and that never really… You wait in a lift line, so what? The things that we complain about… I don't know, I have real issues with that and so you know the last straw refers to a couple of different things and obviously sustainability and things that are biodegradable and how our town works, and you know those are the big aspects of this year.”
In addition to the live show, the Follies have also produced six videos – one of them is a video that for the first time ever, was submitted by a Follies Fan.
“ The videos are a special kind of magic, I think. I'm not sure what… A lot of times it's 'cause we put people in, the campy in there… The mayor or he doesn't have the time - past mayors - some kind of people that we always call kind of like “locally famous” and instead of spending the amount of time that it would take to be on stage, we put them in videos. Cameos, yeah. They are one of my favorite parts of the Follies because we can go down different roads that we can't do on stage.”
Contact the Egyptian Theater for tickets or more information.
