Utah Shakespeare Festival To Present GOLD MOUNTAIN World Premiere Starring Ali Ewoldt & More

The Utah Shakespeare Festival will present a world premiere production of Gold Mountain, the original musical by Jason Ma, this coming November. Alan Muraoka is slated to direct, having been at the helm for multiple workshops, presentations, and concert versions of the piece since 2015. This will mark a return to Utah for Gold Mountain. A staged concert, starring Broadway's Ali Ewoldt, was performed as a key commemorative event for Utah's 2019 Spike 150 anniversary celebrations in Salt Lake City and Ogden with a New York based cast of Asian American actors. Ewoldt reprises her starring role as Yook Mei in the upcoming production opposite Jonny Lee Jr. as Lit Ning. The cast also features Lawrence-Michael C. Arias as Wong, Kiet Tai Cao as Chu, Michael Ching as Ba, Steven Eng as Loong, Kennedy Kanagawa as Lo, Darren Lee as Jiang, and Robert Scott Smith as Hagan. Eymard Cabling, Kelvin Moon Loh, Jimmy Nguyen, and Viet Vo will round out the cast.

In addition to Muraoka, the Gold Mountain creative team will include music director Amanda Morton, orchestrations by Steven Cuevas, choreographer Billy Bustamante, associate director/choreographer Darren Lee, associate music director Joanna Li, costume design by Helen Q. Huang, sets by Jo Winiarsk, lighting design by Jaymi Lee Smith, and sound design byJennifer Jackson. It is notable that this team is entirely comprised of women and people of color.

The Monday through Saturday performances, November 4th - 20th, will be at the West Valley Performing Arts Center in the Salt Lake City area. Tickets are available at the West Valley Arts website at wvcarts.org/gold-mountain.html