A note: CenterPoint runs two separate casts for this production — MWF and TTHS. This review reflects the MWF cast, whom I saw at the Saturday matinee. I have no doubt the TTHS cast brings equal dedication to the material.
Centerville, UT — Disney’s Tarzan, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel Tarzan of the Apes and the beloved 1999 animated film, is a story about identity, belonging, and the complicated love of a family that was never supposed to exist. Set to Phil Collins’ iconic score, including the Academy Award–winning “You’ll Be in My Heart,” it follows an infant boy orphaned and raised by gorillas, who must one day reckon with the truth of who and what he is when the human world arrives uninvited. It is, at its core, a show about what it costs to belong somewhere.
Full disclosure: I have seen Tarzan before. Not just any Tarzan — the 2023 Tuacahn Amphitheatre production starring Josh Strickland, the original Broadway Tarzan himself, in the title role. Tuacahn is no small thing; it is one of the premier regional theatre destinations in the country, performing in a 1,900-seat outdoor amphitheatre carved into the red rock of Utah’s canyon country. Tuacahn has a long and specific history with this musical — they were the first regional equity theatre in the country to produce it after the original Broadway run, which itself closed after only 486 performances despite significant investment, and they have returned to it more than once since. A venue that keeps coming back to a show knows something about what makes it work. What struck me most about the Strickland production, beyond his rich pop-trained instrument, was the physicality of it — the way both Tarzan and the ape ensemble moved with a genuinely animal quality. The knuckles. The weight. The way the jungle’s creatures inhabited their bodies as though human uprightness had never occurred to them. That became my benchmark not just for vocal performance, but for what this story demands of its performers in the deepest physical sense. I mention all of this not to set up an unfair comparison, but to establish why what CenterPoint Theatre has accomplished here stopped me cold.
Let me be unambiguous that comparing a professional production headlined by a Broadway originator to a community staging is the wrong metric, so why am I? It was THAT good! What you are paying to see at CenterPoint — a non-profit community theatre organization — should not deliver what CenterPoint is delivering, not at that price. And yet.
Director Aaron Ford’s production argues, clearly and consistently, that the jungle is not a backdrop but a protagonist. In his director’s note, Ford describes the jungle as “a living, breathing force” — and the design team makes good on that thesis. The former black box has been transformed into something closer to arena staging — a turntable painted in the concentric rings of a cross-sectioned tree, three enormous screens surrounding you with layered jungle. You are not watching a jungle. You are inside one.
Scenic and projection designer Josh Roberts deserves particular praise for the intelligence of the multi-screen approach. Rather than a single panoramic image, the three screens carry different angles and depths simultaneously, creating a peripheral richness that tricks the eye into perceiving far more space than the room actually contains. The lighting design by Colin Skip Wilson does something especially beautiful with time: sun and stars track across the space to mark the passage of days and years, so that Tarzan’s growth from infant to man feels not just told but genuinely lived. Alex Stewart’s sound design deserves equal mention — in a space this intimate, every musical phrase lands with uncommon directness, and Collins’ score has rarely felt so present and alive. Fog rolls across the stage floor in place of water, conjuring rivers and coastline from suggestion alone. A stunning elephant — part prop, part costume, a triumph for prop designer Addie Holman — presides from the back of the stage with an imposing, larger-than-life presence. Worth noting: the stage musical actually cut the elephant character Tantor entirely from the original Broadway production. That CenterPoint chose to bring an elephant presence back into the space anyway is a quietly telling creative decision — and it pays off.
The production’s opening is masterful. When the audience arrives, a large white curtain already hangs across the stage, with images projected onto its surface, helping set the scene, and large screens across the walls on every side to help immerse the audience in the space. Then the curtain falls. And there they are: actors already crouched on stage waiting.
Costume designer Stephanie Colyar gives each world its own visual grammar. Jane arrives in a yellow dress, notebook and naturalist’s kit in hand, and the jungle responds — butterflies, dragonflies, and insects swirl around her in a moment of pure visual delight. The insects themselves are the design triumph here: Vogue meets Disney, whimsical and period-adjacent. The ape costumes work in the opposite register: layered, textured, and immediately convincing as a world unto themselves — a testament to both Colyar’s design and the wig and hair work of Shelly Swenson and makeup work by Kristen Alley, whose contributions complete the illusion.
The production’s most emotionally precise performances come from the couple playing Kala and Kerchak, Janzell Luika Kim Tutor and Ben Fonoimoana Tutor, who are, in fact, a married couple in real life. The casting pays dividends that no amount of rehearsal could fully manufacture. There is a specific quality to the tension between them — the way love and disagreement can share the same breath — that reads as utterly authentic, because it is. Their duet captures the complicated grammar of a long partnership: two people who do not always agree, who carry that disagreement with full hearts, and whose bond is ultimately larger than any single conflict. And it is through Kala that the production’s central tension becomes flesh — she is the architect of the beautiful, necessary, damaging lie. You cannot blame her. You cannot entirely forgive the cost of it either. I found myself genuinely moved by the end of their arc. A mother’s love, the show argues, will prove strongest. In their hands, you believe it, and you feel the full weight of what that love required. The “You’ll Be in My Heart” reprise, with Tarzan and Kala’s voices braiding together in harmony, is one of the evening’s most quietly devastating moments — the lie and the love indistinguishable from each other in the music.
Summer Sloan Alvey‘s Jane is the production’s vocal standout. Her instrument carries real power and control, and she brings an intelligence to the role that keeps Jane from being merely reactive — she is her own person making her own choices, and Alvey makes that legible in every scene. There is a delicious moment when Jane, learning to communicate in the language of the apes, delivers the observation that a gorilla would qualify as one of the romance languages. It lands exactly as it should — funny and warm.
“For the First Time” is one of the vocal and emotional peaks of the show, as Jane (Summer Sloan Alvey ) and Tarzan (Levi Larsen ) arrive simultaneously at the terrifying realization that they have feelings for each other, Alvey and Larsen’s voices blend beautifully together. Larsen‘s Tarzan is earnest and grounded, a Tarzan who persuades you of his sincerity even when the acrobatics of the role ask a great deal.
One small but meaningful note on the stage musical’s adaptation choices: the Broadway production changed Terk from female — as in the animated film — to male. Braden Hull plays Terk here with terrific comic energy, and it is worth appreciating that the gender change was a deliberate creative decision baked into the musical’s DNA from the beginning, not a casting choice made locally.
The supporting leads are uniformly strong. Hayden Henderson’s Clayton is a convincing villain, Nathan Jones brings warmth and humor to Porter, and young Stockton Checketts as Young Tarzan is a genuine delight. The ensemble brings considerable athleticism to the production — cartwheels, acrobatics, and physical feats that fill the intimate space with kinetic energy. That the cast moves with this much freedom and confidence is itself a credit to the production; physical therapy consultant Tyler Hansen is listed in the program, a quiet signal of just how seriously this company takes the physical demands it places on its performers.
The creative team, choreographer Nick Garner, music director Jake Heywood, and a production staff that runs to dozens of names, has made something that earns its standing ovation. My companion Rachel, of Rachel Reviews, put it best: the immersive effect with all the jungle sounds of the small black-box theatre covered in jungle foliage reminded her of the Tiki Room at Disneyland. She is not wrong — and like the Tiki Room, it works.
What critiques exist here are the critiques of ambition meeting constraint — and in fairness, much of that constraint is architectural. The stairs and the intimate footprint of the space likely limit how fully the ape ensemble can commit to an animal movement vocabulary. The ape costumes set a high visual bar that the movement doesn’t always clear, and that gap is noticeable in a production that otherwise delivers such high standards.
Similarly, “Trashin’ the Camp” — the show’s great comic set piece of ape chaos in the human world — plays a little lighter than the song demands. The destruction feels minimal, the mayhem more suggested than felt. Again, the space likely has something to answer for: wholesale destruction is hard to choreograph when the stage is a turntable, and the audience is on three sides. It is a number that wants to leave the audience breathless with laughter, and here it settles for charmed.
With all that said, these are small quibbles. The price is outstanding! I cannot understate how impressive this show is for a non-profit organization and the fact that they still print programs here, a small thing perhaps, but one that signals the same care and investment in the audience experience that runs through every element of this production. Go see this! Bring someone who thinks community theatre is a lesser thing. Bring someone who has never thought about it at all. This is what a non-profit arts organization looks like when it is firing on all cylinders — and it is something worth supporting.
Show information
Summary: Based on Disney’s epic animated musical adventure and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes, Disney’s Tarzan features heart-pumping music by rock legend Phil Collins. Washed up on the shore, an infant boy is taken in and raised by gorillas. Tarzan’s life is mostly monkey business until a human expedition treks into his tribe’s territory and he encounters creatures like himself for the first time. Tarzan struggles to navigate a jungle thick with emotion as his animal upbringing clashes with his human instincts. High-flying excitement and musical hits like the Academy Award–winning “You’ll Be in My Heart” make Disney’s Tarzan an unforgettable theatrical experience.
Venue: Second Stage, CenterPoint Theatre
525 North 400 West, Centerville, UT
Dates: June 6 – August 8, 2026
Tickets: $26–$31 · centerpointtheatre.org
Performance times: Mon–Fri 7:30pm · Sat 12:00pm, 3:30pm & 7:30pm
Runtime: 2 hr 30 min (incl. intermission)
Creative team
Producer: Kristin Pettingill Callor
Production Manager: Madylin Cook
Director: Aaron Ford
Music Director: Jake Heywood
Choreographer: Nick Garner
Stage Manager: Hailee Horne
Asst. Stage Manager: Jason Walden-Knapp
Technical Director: Derek Walden-Knapp
Master Electrician: Jordan Fowler
Costume Designer: Stephanie Colyar
Lighting Designer: Colin Skip Wilson
Sound Design: Alex Stewart
Scenic / Projection Designer: Josh Roberts
Prop Designer: Addie Holman
Head of Wigs and Hair: Shelly Swenson
Head of Makeup: Kristen Alley
Fight Coordinator: Justin Lee
Dialect Coach: Jessica Rampton
Physical Therapy Consultant: Tyler Hansen
Scenic Charge Artist: Cynthia Klumpp
Scenic Artists: Holly Lowell
Costume Supervisor: Tammis Boam
Head of Construction: Truxton Moulton
Lighting Board Ops: Jo Adams, Sterling Allen
Sound Technicians: Alex Stewart, Hillary Horne
Costume Dressers: Sharla Jordan, Jill Howell
Stage Crew: Bradley Howell, Victoria Tolley
Full company
Character (MWF/TTHS)
Tarzan: Levi Larsen, Jordan Strong
Jane: Summer Sloan Alvey, Jessica James Lewis
Kala: Janzell Luika Kim Tutor, Emily Sparks
Kerchak: Ben Fonoimoana Tutor, Brock Harris
Terk: Braden Hull, M Rayburn
Porter: Nathan Jones, Zar Hayes
Clayton: Hayden Henderson, Austin Shipp
Clayton Understudy: Jake Jaurez
Young Tarzan (MTH) Stockton Checketts
Young Tarzan (TF) Levi W. Johnson
Young Tarzan (WS) James “Jeb” Buffington
Clayton Understudy (Saturday 12:00pm Shows) – Jake Jaurez
Male Swing – Dylan Panter
Female Swing – Abbey Jolley
Ensemble: Paul Dixon, Isaac Larsen, Tyler Parkin, Stariana Smith, Izzy Wetsel, Shannon Kobe, Annie Jones, Dylan Floyd, Brevin Gardner, Brian Kei Shinohara, Ethan Bybee, Matalyn Anderson, Rachel Thacker, Ellie Stephenson
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