Desert Star Theater is a dinner theater establishment in
MurrayMurray is a city in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 34,024 at the 2000 census.-Settling the Frontier:The Mormon pioneers came to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847...
,
UtahUtah is a western state of the United States. It was the 45th state admitted to the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80 percent of Utah's 2,736,424 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering around Salt Lake City. In contrast, vast expanses of the state are nearly uninhabited, making...
. It started out as a small theater called the
Gem, which showed silent movies with a piano for music. It was later closed down and demolished, but rebuilt and expanded into the
Iris Theater by owner Tony Duvall. After his retirement, the Iris changed hands several times before being renamed the
Vista.
The theater first became Desert Star when Mike and Alyce Todd attempted to produce a play near
This Is The Place Heritage ParkThe This Is The Place Heritage Park is located on the east side of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA at the foot of the Wasatch Range and near the mouth of Emigration Canyon.-History:...
.
Desert Star Theater is a dinner theater establishment in
MurrayMurray is a city in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 34,024 at the 2000 census.-Settling the Frontier:The Mormon pioneers came to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847...
,
UtahUtah is a western state of the United States. It was the 45th state admitted to the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80 percent of Utah's 2,736,424 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering around Salt Lake City. In contrast, vast expanses of the state are nearly uninhabited, making...
. It started out as a small theater called the
Gem, which showed silent movies with a piano for music. It was later closed down and demolished, but rebuilt and expanded into the
Iris Theater by owner Tony Duvall. After his retirement, the Iris changed hands several times before being renamed the
Vista.
The theater first became Desert Star when Mike and Alyce Todd attempted to produce a play near
This Is The Place Heritage ParkThe This Is The Place Heritage Park is located on the east side of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA at the foot of the Wasatch Range and near the mouth of Emigration Canyon.-History:...
. This play was the first to exhibit the common traits found today in Desert Star plays. After the summer ended, they attempted to find an indoor location for their plays. They considered the closed down Vista, and eventually took it and renamed it the Desert Star Playhouse.
In 2000, after several successful plays, the city of Murray said that the building had to be brought up to code or torn down. The owner wanted to go with the latter, but the Todds decided to buy the theater and renovate. Today, the playhouse features
DinnerDinner theater is a form of entertainment that combines a restaurant meal with a staged play. Sometimes the play is incidental entertainment, secondary to the meal, in the style of a night club, or the play may be a major production with dinner less important, or in some cases, optional...
and
CabaretCabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue—a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance being introduced by a master of ceremonies, or MC.Cabaret...
theaters, as well as performing two shows in different theaters.
Desert Star is known for parody plays, doing comedic spoofs of classic movies and stories. They are also known for political jokes, and their themes tend to revolve around Utah. Each show also ends with a musical
olioHodgepodge is a word used to describe a confused or disorderly mass or collection of things; a "mess" or a "jumble"Hodge-podge or Hodgepodge may also refer to:* Hodge-Podge, a character from the comic strip Bloom County...
, in which the performers dress up in various costumes and do musical numbers.