J. Michael Call

A bride late for her wedding drives up Ogden Canyon and is never seen again, at least not alive. An enormous German shepherd prowls a cemetery, standing guard over its master's grave. A young Weber High School student meets a mysterious, handsome hitchhiker, and they decide to play in the snow together at Powder Mountain.

SYRACUSE -- Larry Kerr likes to work in his garden for relaxation. His green thumb is apparent -- his beautifully manicured yard is framed by flower beds where an assortment of colorful flowers and shrubbery greet passersby. Rising out of that peaceful scene is a flagpole with an old bed frame at its base, and on another pole -- a bomb.

The display, which Kerr calls "Veterans Parkway," is a tribute to Vietnam veterans and a reminder to himself and others of the sacrifice veterans of that war made for their nation, he explained.

Economic woes, the threatened government shutdown, warfare, earthquakes and Charlie Sheen: Who couldn't use a pick-me-up right about now?

For those looking to shake off the doom and gloom, there's a little redheaded orphan and her scrappy dog waiting in the wings at two Top of Utah theaters.

The musical "Annie" opened Monday at the brand-new CenterPoint Legacy Theatre in Centerville, and next Friday, the Terrace Plaza Playhouse mounts it own production of the show that unabashedly waves a banner of optimism and promises a better day tomorrow -- literally.

Weber State University student Carleton Bluford's 10-minute play "Breathe" will be read Wednesday during the run of Plan-B Theater's production of "Borderlands."

Bluford is one of four Utah playwrights commissioned by the theater company and the Utah AIDS Foundation to write short plays examining HIV/AIDS.

Bluford's play is about two men, one straight and the other gay. Both have contracted the HIV virus, and their lives intersect in a hospital room. The young man, Jason, is 18 years old and has just been diagnosed. He is despondent and depressed about his diagnosis, but finds a mentor in Tom, the older gay man who has been living with the disease for years.

"The older man ends up giving the younger kid hope for the future in dealing with what he has," Bluford said. "He just basically tells him that his life isn't over and to keep living every day likes it's the last, and to 'breathe' essentially."

The moving words of a spirited slave girl forced to hide in a tiny crawl space from her perverse master resonate Tuesday at Weber State University in Ogden.

The university's department of performing arts presents a readers theater production of "Scenes From 'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.' " The production is based on Harriet Jacobs' book and was adapted by Angela Berryman Choberka, an adjunct English professor at WSU and a teacher at Evergreen Montessori Academy, a private school in Ogden.

Choberka said Jacob's story is not only an incredible example of survival, but also a testament to what an individual can accomplish, even when the odds are awful.

Harriet Jacobs is often compared to Anne Frank, whose family hid in an attic from the Nazis for two years before they were captured and sent to the death camps.

Fortunately, Jacobs' story has a happier ending -- but not before this young runaway slave endured seven years hiding from her lecherous master in a crawl space above her grandmother's house in North Carolina.

In a desperate attempt to flee the violent man who was obsessed with her sexually and had threatened to sell her children, Harriet sought out the sanctuary in 1835. She was in her early 20s at the time and did not know she would live in that dark, coffin-like space for so many years. Food was passed up to her through a trap door, she had to contend with mice and rats scurrying over her, and tiny red insects feasted on her blood.

To make matters worse, Harriet could hear her two children's voices, being raised below by her grandmother, a freed slave.

Composer and playwright Jill Santoriello was thrilled when she learned that her "baby" would wake up in Utah.

Her musical "A Tale of Two Cities" opens for its regional premiere Wednesday at Hale Centre Theatre's state-of-the-art theater in the round in West Valley City.

"Every time there is a new production of the show, it's like your baby that has been sleeping comes back to life and it's a great thing," Santoriello said. "I was also thrilled that it was going to be in the round, which is extremely challenging but very exciting. I think it is going to open up a whole different way of looking at the show."