A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Directed by Valerie Rachelle

Music By Steven LutvaBook and Lyrics by Robert L. Freedman

Jan 24th – March 30th, 2025
The knock-’em-dead, uproarious hit and the 2014 Tony award-winner for best musical, Gentleman’s Guide tells the story of Monty Navarro, who finds out that he’s eighth in line for an earldom in the lofty D’Ysquith family. He figures his chances of outliving his predecessors are slight and sets off down a far more ghoulish path. Can he knock off his unsuspecting relatives and still win the heart of his lady love?

Disaster!

Directed by Valerie Rachelle

By Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick

June 27th – September 7th, 2025
It’s 1979, and New York’s hottest A-listers are lining up for the opening of a floating casino and discotheque. What begins as a night of boogie fever quickly changes to panic as the ship succumbs to multiple disasters, such as earthquakes, tidal waves, infernos… and rats. Everyone struggles to survive and, quite possibly, repair the love that they’ve lost… Featuring some of the most unforgettable songs of the ’70s. “I Will Survive” “I Am Woman” and “Hot Stuff.”

Taming of the Shrew

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Valerie Rachelle

June 19 – September 7, 2024
Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre
The bold, spirited, and headstrong Katherina is deemed unworthy of marriage while suitors pursue her younger sister Bianca. Their father refuses to let his younger daughter marry until an appropriate match is made for the elder, which Petruchio accepts as a challenge. However, Katherina will not be tamed so easily. Their dastardly deeds and heated battles hurl this comedy toward its end. And in Petruchio’s journey to make Katherina a compliant and obedient bride, they both learn more about what being an equal partner really means.

Pine Mountain Lodge

November 15th – December 31st 2024

Featuring the classic standards of the 30s and 40s, Pine Mountain Lodge tells the story of a returning World War II vet who’s been tasked with shutting down his late father’s flagging upstate New York hotel, only to discover that the hotel is haunted by two quarreling ghosts, former lovers and famous dance partners. The ghosts put aside past grievances to convince the young man to put on one last show to save the old hotel from bankruptcy.

Pride and Prejudice

A new adaptation of the novel by Jane Austen

by Kate Hamill
directed by Valerie Rachelle

Finding your perfect match can be daunting and Elizabeth Bennett has no desire to attach herself to anyone, let alone the dashing and infuriating Mr. Darcy. Bold, surprising, and hilarious, Kate Hamill’s highly theatrical adaptation of Jane Austin’s classic tale of latent love is absurdly delightful.

“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve”
—Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"Utah Shakespeare Festival’s “The Taming of the Shrew” is Sharp and Energetic at the Engelstad Shakespeare Theater"

by Elise White

“Director and Choreographer Valerie Rachelle gives a fresh look at this classic comedy, offering an interpretation that resonates with a more modern audience, taking some of the more problematic elements of Shakespeare’s storyline and twisting them simply with onstage physical gestures from the actors while the play’s core elements remain.”

“Instead of only leaving the audience to grapple with gender roles and societal expectations, we are left pondering the definition of selfless love and what it means to truly care for each other.”

“The actors’ physical dramatics and broad gestures, much of which is designed by the director/choreographer Rachelle and fight director Stefan Espinosa effectively complements the director’s vision and adds another layer of depth to the story.”

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The ’80s music and choreography that bed the performance are some of the best parts of “Merry Wives,” thanks to Williams’ collaboration with Composer and Sound Designer Paul James Prendergast and Choreographer Valerie Rachelle.

Maureen Flanagan Battistella

Mail Tribune, Grants Pass Daily Courier

[a] vibrant, five-person show… What emerges from all this is an expansive portrait of Cash’s America, a place of poverty and chance, humor and pathos, sin and redemption… It’s a poet’s vision and Cash was the poet, an American original.

Bill Varble

Medford Mail Tribune