Character Study 

• Joshua Black

Olivia Custodio had never written a play like the kind Salt Lake Acting Company had typically presented during the summers. As it turns out, that wasn't a problem, because Salt Lake Acting Company was ready for something that wasn't like what it had typically presented in the summers.

Last year, SLAC presented SLACabaret, a musical production that in many ways departed from the scathing satirical tradition Saturday's Voyeur had offered for 40 years. But according to Custodio—a veteran local actor who was part of the 2021 SLACabaret cast, and has also been director of development for the company—when she approached SLAC artistic director Cynthia Fleming last year about writing for this year's show, there was no expectation that the 2022 SLACabaret would have to follow any previously-established paradigms, even the ones established by last year's inaugural SLACabaret.

"Why I think Cynthia and I agreed to work together was, we have a similar vision for serving the community," Custodio says. "What are the stories that are important right now? It doesn't even have to be a musical. In some ways, it was a blank canvas."

Ultimately, Custodio did turn to the structure of a musical for her story, but it was important for her that it was a story, not merely a collection of sketches and musical numbers about local items of interest. "This is a full show," she emphasizes. "It has a beginning, a middle and an end. ... I wanted to write a play, a real play."

As the setting for that play, she did choose an institution that has a particularly Utah feel to it: a convention for an essential oils multi-level marketing company. That topic certainly could be ripe for satire, but once again, Custodio wanted to begin from a place of dramatic storytelling, rather than easy cheap shots.

"I wanted to think about why people join this," she says. "Is it just because they're bored? Do they really think they're going to make a million dollars? I wondered about that. I'd pass by the dTERRA conference at Vivint [Arena], thousands of people going in, and think, 'Who are these people, paying so much to be told these oils are going to change their life?'

"I've been doing light research for years, because it's something I've truly been trying to understand—digging into the public records, who has been their keynote speakers. It honestly makes me sad. There are plenty of moments of humor [in the show], but when you consider how many people end up bankrupt, it's a really sad system. I don't want something that's easy to make fun of."

To that end, Custodio plotted a structure for Down the Rabbit Hole that emphasized exploring the stories of her individual characters. "The first act is a lot of individual scenes, people attending breakout sessions, having their private moments where we find out why they're there," she says. "I wanted to make sure every character has their musical moment to convey their story. Then in the second act, it's really all group numbers. So that was challenging to shift in the writing: What would be great for a duet or a trio?"

Custodio acknowledges that she had never actually written a musical before. But while she credits her collaborators Emilio Casillas and musical director Michael Leavitt for their contributions to the final product, she also believes that some early creative expression was pointing towards this moment.

"As a child, some of my earliest weirdo childhood memories were taking pop songs and rewriting the lyrics," Custodio says. "I've been doing that my whole life, and thought it's just so fun. I felt really prepared and confident [for this show]."

There have been challenges, of course, including figuring out how to incorporate emotionally-charged current events like the recent Supreme Court decisions into the show at the last minute, while still retaining the integrity of Custodio's original vision. "Am I rewriting things this week? Yeah, even if we're not making it the focus of the whole story," she says. "As artists that's what we do: We are social justice warriors, not just song-and-dance makers."

But there's a difference, she believes, between acknowledging political and social tensions and making something that feels exploitative or mean. It's an approach that allows SLACabaret to be its own thing, not beholden to any particular tradition from this company's history.

"I think there are a lot of people who have come to expect a certain thing from SLAC in the summer," Custodio says. "Those people are maybe skeptical or hesitant about a new format. ... If people come with the expectation it's just going to be 90 minutes of slamming Mormons and conservatism, that's not what I'm interested in. I tried to make it a much more interesting thing for these characters."