The World Travel Guide
        
  Home
Country Guides
City Guides
Airport Guides
Attraction Guides
Beach Guides
Event Guides
Ski Guides
Cruise Guides
Travel Offers
Features
World Clock
Weather Guides
News
Content Licensing
  Photo Competition
  Car hire United States
  Hostels
  Car Hire
  Expedia Holidays
  Free Texas Guide
  Tour Guides
 






Salt Lake City City Guide - Culture



Salt Lake City's founders made it their mandate to foster the arts and that legacy continues with world-class performing arts companies in music, dance and theatre. There is also a whole host of museums and art galleries.

CitySearch Utah (website: www.utah.citysearch.com) provides an online guide to events, while the Salt Lake City Tribune (website: www.sltrib.com) has daily listings. City Weekly (website: www.slweekly.com) and The Event are free weekly papers with extensive reviews and listings.

Smith's TIX (tel: (801) 467 8499 or 1 800 888 8499; website: www.smithstix.com) is the most accessible ticket agency, with branches located in Smith's grocery stores throughout the city.

Music: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is famous throughout the world and visitors can attend weekly performances (see Key Attractions). The Utah Symphony (tel: (801) 533 5626; website: www.utahsymphony.org) stages regular concerts at Abravanel Hall, 123 West South Temple (tel: (801) 355 2787). The Utah Opera Company (tel: (801) 533 5626; website: www.utahopera.org) stages three operas a year featuring internationally known artists at the Capitol Theatre, 50 West 200 South (tel: (801) 355 2787). In addition to these venues, many performing arts companies stage productions at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 West 300 South (tel: (801) 355 2787).

Theatre: The Pioneer Theatre Company (tel: (801) 581 6961; website: www.pioneertheatre.org) performs classic and contemporary plays and musicals, from September to May, in their theatre at the University of Utah campus. Also located at the university is the Babcock Theatre, which stages more experimental productions. Salt Lake Acting Company, 168 West 500 North (tel: (801) 363 7522; website: www.saltlakeactingcompany.org), is a professional theatre company producing year-round plays, including regional premieres of Broadway plays. Hale Centre Theatre, 3333 South Decker Lake Drive (tel: (801) 984 9000; website: http://halecentretheatre.org), puts on musicals, comedies and classics for family entertainment.

Dance: Ballet West (tel: (801) 323 6900; website: www.balletwest.org) is considered one of the country's premier dance companies. Its repertoire includes classic ballets as well as original works, performed at the Capitol Theatre, 50 West 200 South (tel: (801) 533 5626). The Repertory Dance Theatre (tel: (801) 534 1000; website: www.rdtutah.org), founded in 1966, was the first professional modern dance repertory company established outside New York. Also widely renowned is the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company (tel: (801) 297 4241; website: www.ririewoodbury.com), with innovative and often humourous dance productions. Both perform at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 West 300 South (tel: (801) 355 2787).

Film: Sundance Institute, a non-profit arts organisation dedicated to the development of independent filmmakers, which is run by Robert Redford and located in the nearby mountains, has an office at 1825 Three Kings Drive, Park City (tel: (435) 658 3456; website: www2.sundance.org). Two central mainstream cinemas are Broadway Center Theater, 111 East Broadway 300 South (tel: (801) 321 0310) and Trolley Square Cinemas, 602 East 500 South (tel: (801) 746 1555; website: http://regencymovies.com). Tower Theatre, 876 East 900 South (tel: (801) 321 0310; website: www.towertheater.com), not only shows arthouse, independent and foreign films but also hosts an annual Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) night in October.

Utah was discovered by Hollywood in the 1920s and has since had over 700 films and TV movies filmed in the state, in part due to its stunning scenic beauty and diversity. The US TV series Touched by an Angel was filmed in Salt Lake City, as were Desperate Hours (1990), The Sandlot (1993), Dumb and Dumber (1994), A Life Less Ordinary (1997), Con Air (1997), and Legally Blonde 2 (2003). The chase scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) was filmed in Big Cottonwood Canyon, outside the city. Many well-known movies filmed in various parts of Utah include Gunsmoke (1955-75), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Thelma and Louise (1991), Forest Gump (1994), Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), Flyboys (2003), and National Treasure (2004).

Literary
Notes: For over a century writers have marvelled at the Great Salt Lake. In City of the Saints (1861), Richard Burton called it 'that inland briny sea, which apparently has no business there'. In Roughing It (1872), Mark Twain joked that Salt Lake City was so healthy that its one doctor was regularly arrested for having no visible means of support.

Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley offered an insight into the politics and economic strength of the Mormons with America's Saints, published in the 1980s. Local writers include Tom Roulstone, whose One Against the Wilderness (1996) is a work of historical fiction that chronicles the life of a woman in the mid 19th century, as she travels west with the LDS, and Angela K Black, who wrote Bitterbrush (1994), a mystery story set in the Wasatch Mountains overlooking Salt Lake City. Aspiring author and Salt Lake resident Sara Zarr was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award with her teen novel Story of a Girl.

View Our Airport Guides for Salt Lake City:

     Salt Lake City International Airport

Atlas

Low cost Salt Lake City hotels from AtlasChoice

Click here to find discounted Car Hire in Salt Lake City

Find Salt Lake City Travel Insurance at Atlas Direct





Click Here

CHOOSE GUIDE

Guides





 ©Copyright: World Travel Guide - Nexus Business Media. All Rights Reserved 2008 Terms of Use | Privacy Policy