DEEP LOVE: A GHOSTLY ROCK OPERA Returns to Idaho This Month

The award-winning original production Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera returns this October for its annual Halloween tradition, to the delight of its fans.

Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera is a show without dialogue—a modern take on the opera—where the characters tell the story entirely through the veil of a rock & roll concert. A dynamic soundscape is created through blends of modern rock, blues, and folk music.

In the tradition of The Who’s Tommy and Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera tells the story of a widowed Constance and the tragedy that threatens when her former love arises from the dead to demand her loyalty. Will she and her new beau Friedrich survive the jealousy of their former loves, the violent Florence and the vengeful Old Bones? Or will they fall prey to the darkness that haunts them?

Audience members are encouraged to clap, shout, sing along, and root for their favorite character throughout the entire show, as well as attend in their very best funeral attire. Deep Love features lead performers Chase McKnight, Ash Anderson, Sheldon Bladh, and Mike Dunnalo. Heartwarming and heartbreaking, creepy and thrilling, it promises to delight all ages and is the perfect way to celebrate Halloween.

Returning director Liz Whittaker attributes the lasting power of Deep Love to the powerful allegory at its heart. “While most of us haven’t experienced the things these characters do,” she says, “Who among us doesn’t have some part of our past that haunts us? Who among us hasn’t felt jealous? Who among us hasn’t been afraid of love? This story stands as a thrilling and engaging warning of what happens when we listen to the ghosts that whisper darkness to us, and believe that darkness to be the only truth.”

Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera is the brainchild of songwriters Ryan Hayes and Garrett Sherwood. Over the last twelve plus years, the audience for Deep Love has grown from the two-dozen attendees in a living room, to thousands of devoted fans across the mountain west. In 2015, Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera was selected as a featured production in the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), following which it was invited to be workshopped at the Johnny Mercer Writer’s Colony at the Goodspeed Theatre.

Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera has been called “a polished show with pop ambitions” by The New York Times; “A credible sounding rock amalgam of the likes of Queen, Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith” by Theater Scene; “Fabulously ghoulish!” by Backstage.com; and “[a] unique blend of musical styles, engaging story, and a captivating, immersive production” by SLC Weekly.

Audience members who love rock music and gothic tales, and anyone who has a dark and haunted soul, had better get tickets soon…before this show returns to its crypt.

Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera

Music, Lyrics, & Book by Ryan Hayes & Garrett Sherwood
Directed by Liz Whittaker; Musical Direction by Candido Abeyta

Monday October 23, 2023 at 8 pm
Colonial Theatre in Idaho Falls

Monday October 30, 2023 at 8 pm
Mid Valley Performing Arts Center in Taylorsville

Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes plus intermission

Tickets start at $30 and are available simply by visiting 

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