_{By Zach Collier}

Fifteen years ago, two BYU-Idaho students created Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera. Now, the award-winning production is returning to where it all began. The gothic rock opera will be performed in both Rexburg, Idaho, and Taylorsville, Utah this Spooky Season.

Written by Garrett Sherwood (The By and By, Cinderbiter) and Ryan Hayes, Deep Love follows Constance, a widow whose former love returns from the dead demanding her loyalty. Alongside her new beau, Friedrich, she must fight to survive the jealousy of their former loves: the violent Florence and the vengeful Old Bones.

The result is one part theater and three parts rock show. It’s a ghost story fueled by live music, dramatic costumes, and enough supernatural melodrama to justify singing, screaming, and headbanging from the audience. Attendees are encouraged to dress in their best funeral attire and participate.

“We’re super excited to return to Rexburg,” director Liz Whittaker said in a press release. “This is where the show was born, and where so many of us were introduced to it over a decade ago.”

The return comes after the production was featured in the New York Musical Theatre Festival and workshopped at the Johnny Mercer Writer’s Colony. These are significant achievements that make the homecoming feel even more meaningful and celebratory. It’s no longer a BYU-I student pipe dream. This show’s been running for years to great success.

Deep Love will perform a rock-show version at The Hangar on Monday, October 12, followed by a fully-staged production at The Romance Theatre on Tuesday, October 13. The fully-staged version will return to the Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center in Taylorsville, Utah on October 29 and 30, continuing the venue’s four-year relationship with the production.

This year’s show is also leaning further into its roots, with a return to the original Victorian costumes and rock-show staging. Described by The New York Times as “a polished show with pop ambitions” and by Theater Scene as “a credible sounding rock amalgam of the likes of Queen, Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith,” Deep Love remains, at its core, a rock opera.

The returning cast includes Sheldon Bladh as Florence, Mike Dunn as Friedrich, and Aspen Palmer as Constance. Chase McKnight plays Old Bones and guitar while continuing to co-direct with Whittaker.

The music comes from The Psychopomps, the production’s live band of the dead. The lineup includes Ford Erickson of Tarantula Cat on electric guitar; Andrew Pincock on bass and band leadership; Caleb Wall of Comedy Church and Improv Broadway on keys; Jordan Jacobson on electric guitar; Cody Robinson of Trip Van Wrinkle on acoustic guitar; Candido Abeyta (recently seen with Neon Trees and Noah Kahan) on saxophone; and new drummer Reed Perkins of Local Kin, Chi Chi Le Möt, and Michael Barrow & the Tourists.

For fans of gothic stories, theatrical rock, and music with a dark side, make sure to catch Deep Love this season before it disappears back into the crypt.

Make sure to follow Deep Love on Instagram and listen to “Love’s Bitter Reproach” from the 2024 cast recording below. Tickets are on sale here.