(bright music) - Salt Lake Acting Company's satirical summer show, "The Gaslight Zone," blends headlines, humor, and a twist of surreal storytelling.

Here to tell us more is one of the show's cast members, Scotty Fletcher.

Welcome, Scotty.

- Hi, how are you doing today?

- I'm doing well.

Thank you for being here.

So tell me about this show, "The Gaslight Zone."

- Yes, so it's, like you said, a satirical parody musical of "The Twilight Zone," where we take local politics, federal politics, and all the craziness that's happened in last year, and we punch it up in a fun comedic musical style for our community.

- And I love the "The Gaslight Zone" and the title.

I love "The Twilight Zone," and I think it's a lot better than, what, rage bait, which a lot of people are experiencing these days.

- Oh, absolutely.

We make sure that we want people leaving our shows feeling lighter, feeling happier, understanding that there's craziness and we are all seeing it, and no one's getting tricked into something, and we all have the ability to laugh together as a community.

- [Liz] Absolutely.

And it looks like there was a lot of laughter at the table read or the first rehearsal that people are seeing on the screen.

- Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

We get new versions of the script as it gets written, 'cause it's a new script every year written by our local writers, Austin Archer, Olivia Custodio, and Penny Caywood.

And they are constantly trying to think of the best version of the script, so.

Even sometimes during mid-run, politics change, communities change, so.

- That's what I was gonna ask.

Things change day by day so quickly, but you guys seem to be able to keep it fresh.

- Oh, yeah.

So this year, we haven't had too many changes, but last year, some of the, no, two years ago, some of the politics changed drastically mid-show and we had to write a whole new scene in the middle of the production.

So, we're all ready.

We're all excited to do that type of thing, but we practice and we rehearse hopefully that we don't have to do that.

(chuckling) - Why do you think it's important to take a look at these issues and to kind of approach them from a satirical stance?

- It's really helpful for the community to get together and see other people that are experiencing the same things as they are, but making sure that they aren't getting bogged down in, like, all the darkness and all the heaviness of some of this stuff.

It's hopeful to have people share the laughter, share the experiences together.

- All right.

Well, thank you so much for stopping by.

It was great to hear about another summer show at SLAC.

And if you would like to check it out for yourselves, we've got the information on your screen.

It's the summer show, "The Gaslight Zone."

♪ Do, do, do, do, do, do ♪ It's June 24th through August 16th.

Just head to saltlakeactingcompany.org for more information or for ticket details.

I'm Liz Adeola, and thank you for watching "Contact."

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