A family unraveling after the death of its father, a 19th-century newspaper hoax about whales swimming in the Great Salt Lake, and a theater company marking its 55th year all collide in Salt Lake Acting Company's newest production. Very Like a Whale, running through Oct. 25 at the company's Upstairs Theatre in Salt Lake City, blends farce and heartbreak into a story about what people believe when they need to believe something.
Written by playwright Troy Deutsch, the co-world premiere follows a family trying to hold itself together in the wake of a father's death, mixing chaos, comedy, and what Salt Lake Acting Company describes as unexpected hope, according to ABC4 Utah. Olivia Custodio plays Megan, the family matriarch trying to keep everyone from drifting apart, with Robert Scott Smith playing Greg. The show runs 105 minutes, according to Salt Lake Acting Company.
Smith told ABC4 Utah that working on the production has been meaningful, calling it a dream to collaborate with someone he admired, and he described the play's subject as hope and how to deal with it. That tension between grief and absurdity runs through the entire piece, which Salt Lake Acting Company is staging in collaboration with Cadence Theatre Company, based in Richmond, Virginia, and Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory, per the same ABC4 Utah report.
An 1890 Hoax Haunts the Great Salt Lake
The play's title and central image borrow from a genuine piece of Utah folklore: an 1890 newspaper hoax claiming an Englishman named James Wickham shipped two Australian whales by train from San Francisco and released them into the Great Salt Lake in 1875 to launch a whale oil industry, according to MeatEater. Regional outlets have debunked the tale repeatedly over the decades, noting that no whale could survive in the lake's hyper-saline water.
That absurd bit of history becomes more than a punchline in Deutsch's script. As Artists of Utah's 15 Bytes notes, the farcical comedy and family drama are used to draw attention to the real ecological crisis facing the Great Salt Lake, which continues to face severe water level decline. The receding shoreline functions as both literal backdrop and metaphor for the family's internal grief, according to a review from Front Row Reviewers.
A Decade-Long Creative Reunion
Deutsch, a Minnesota native now based in New York City, has a history with Salt Lake Acting Company that predates this premiere. He previously developed two other original plays there, Bull Shark Attack and Climbing with Tigers, having originally workshopped Bull Shark Attack through the company's Playwrights' Lab in 2016, according to BroadwayWorld.
This production also marks a 10-year reunion among Salt Lake Acting Company, Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory, actor Robert Scott Smith, and Deutsch, all of whom first worked together on Climbing with Tigers in 2016, BroadwayWorld reports. Directing the reunion is Alexandra Harbold, who co-founded Flying Bobcat with Smith in 2013 and now serves as an Assistant Professor of Directing and Head of Theatre Studies at the University of Utah Department of Theatre.
Marking 55 Years in the Marmalade Neighborhood
The premiere also lands at a milestone moment for the company itself. Salt Lake Acting Company was founded in 1970 by Edward Gryska and is based in Salt Lake City, with the 2026-2027 season marking the company's 55th anniversary as a professional theater.
Audiences can also find a complementary visual art exhibition during the run. Salt Lake Acting Company is showing original work by Utah artist Nicholas Ioan Lazaroae in its on-site Green Room Gallery.
Full Cast and Accessible Performances
Beyond Custodio and Smith, the eight-person ensemble includes M. Scott McLean as Chester, Sarah Shippobotham as Miss Penelope Dickinson, Devoree Ellis as Max, Mack Barr as Sophia, Yolanda Stange as Old Woman, and Ben Young as Old Man, with multiple Actors' Equity Association members among the cast, per BroadwayWorld.
Salt Lake Acting Company has also built accessibility into the run's schedule. An open-captioned performance is set for Oct. 18, a sensory-friendly and ASL-interpreted show is planned for Oct. 24, and an audio-described performance closes out the run on Oct. 25, per the company's season listing. Tickets for Very Like a Whale remain available through the Upstairs Theatre box office ahead of the production's final weekend.
