Every Brilliant Thing – Jan. 13-14, 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.
It’s Dark Outside – Jan. 17-21, 8:30 p.m. with a Saturday matinee at 2:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday
The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer – Jan. 18-21, 7 p.m. with a school matinee on Friday at 10 a.m. and a Saturday matinee at 1 p.m.
Venues: Margetts Theatre (Every Brilliant Thing), Pardoe Theatre (It’s Dark Outside) and Nelke Theatre (The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik), Harris Fine Arts Center, BYU
Price: $10-12; save $1 per ticket with the festival package
Tickets: Available in person at the BYU Ticket Office in the Harris Fine Arts Center or Marriott Center, by phone at 801-422-2981 or online at byuarts.co
Brigham Young University will present its fourth season of the OFF THE MAP: BYU International Theatre Festival Jan. 13-21. The festival consists of three contemporary theatre productions from the UK and Australia: Every Brilliant Thing, It’s Dark Outside and The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer.
Tickets are $10-12 with a $1 discount per ticket available if all three OFF THE MAP productions are purchased. Tickets can be purchased at the BYU Ticket Office in the Harris Fine Arts Center or Marriott Center, by phone at 801-422-2981 or online at byuarts.com.
OFF THE MAP is comprised of three productions:
- Every Brilliant Thing: A Paines Plough and Pentabus Theatre Company Production (England) and a sold-out hit of the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Based on true and untrue stories, the production is a play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.
- It’s Dark Outside: From the Last Great Hunt (Australia) theatre company, this is a production featuring puppetry, mask, animation and live performance. Together these merge seamlessly in this epic western about an old man and his noble tent that go wandering together in the wild. Inspired by experiences and research into Alzheimer’s and Sundowner’s Syndrome, the play is a heartfelt, fearless and inventive voyage about aging, getting lost and trying not to be found.
- The Adventures of Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer: From the Last Great Hunt (Australia) theatre company, this is a multi-award-winning one-man micro-epic puppet show melds technology and multimedia into a touching story of enduring love and the end of the world. The play employs a unique blend of mime, puppetry, live and recorded music, and live animation to present an exploration of the next and oldest frontier: the deep blue sea.
Jeffrey Martin, producer and presenter of performing arts at BYU, is the mind behind OFF THE MAP. Martin feels it important for students and the community to be exposed to a variety of contemporary practices and genres of theatre. This led him to create OFF THE MAP in 2014.
This year will be the second time OFF THE MAP includes The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik — a creative and innovative play about one man’s quest to save the world. Martin said many people have told him they wish it would come back so he jumped at the opportunity.
“It will be neat to have a single company performing two different shows at the festival; I haven't done that before,” Martin said. “They have a unique ability to engage audiences of all ages through their clever use of puppetry, music, and physical movement.”
Martin was introduced to Every Brilliant Thing when he saw it at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland last summer. Martin feels this play is sure to touch people and make them think about mental illness in meaningful ways.
“OFF THE MAP is one of my favorite and most important initiatives,” Martin said. “I hope to continue bringing world-class professional contemporary theatre to BYU for many years to come.”
Martin said the student and faculty have really embraced OFF THE MAP and he is pleased to continue the tradition for a fourth year.
Writer: Bailey Fruit
