If you’ve enjoyed the infamous Park City Follies in recent years, you might have no inkling of its humble (and slightly debaucherous) beginnings 24 years ago. According to one of the Follies founders Tom Clyde, “The beginning came through Meeche White, who created the National Ability Center, and was president of the Chamber of Commerce Board for a while. She’s since moved to Oregon, but she was a real builder of community. The Follies would have died without her determination to keep going. I don’t know that she was ever on stage, maybe in little roles, but she was always backstage providing support.”

The Follies began at the behest of then President of the Chamber Commerce, Bill Malone, who Clyde describes as being “frustrated that the ski season ended with a whimper—the lifts closed and everybody packed up and headed south and that was that.” Park City looked to towns like Steamboat and Durango, both of which hosted end-of-season celebrations that served as fundraising hubs for the nonprofits in town, using them as their event models. “We had furniture races and dog look-alike contests…for the Follies we wanted to get skits and talent acts, with the Park City lifties and the ski patrol and realtors one, getting everyone involved.” While Clyde says most of the ancillary events happened, they were “not huge successes. Getting ski resort employees to contribute much became impossible because they had all been working 3 weeks in a row with no break, so they all disappeared. All except Chad Brown, a Deer Valley liftie who was a talented musician. He saved the show, and I don’t know what became of him. He headed off to LA and I hope he made it—he deserved to.”

Clyde remembers the technical limitations of the Egyptian Theater in the early days. There were only a couple of mics hanging from the ceiling, and a laptop set to project images for the dramatic finish of one show shut down unexpectedly. “It was pretty much a disaster…Meeche handed me an easel and paper and said ‘I guess you better go out and draw it.’ So I drew Donnie and Marie Osmond at the Park City Film Studio.” Clyde is quick to point out that, despite Park City’s reputation as an arts hub, he possesses no artistic skill. Yet, Clyde’s “stick figures,” as he calls them, got the job done—“It went over better than the actual graphics in the dead computer.”

Mark Conklin, who joined the Follies crew over a decade ago, says legend has it that the first few years of Follies was “a pretty rag tag affair.” The first show never made it to the second act. Clyde confirms that the show was indeed cut short at the intermission. “The cast ran over to The Alamo [now the No Name Saloon] for a quick one and never came back. Given how the first act went, that was probably for the best.”

The next year brought the 2002 Winter Olympics to Utah, and with it “so much material to make fun of.” Clyde describes one of the trademarked Olympic images, the Child of Light cherub who carried a lantern, recalling “By the time it was over we were all sick of the Child of Light. So John Burdick played an aged, grumpy, unwashed, cigar-chomping Child of Light, and people loved that.” The second year the Follies cast made it through the whole show, and even managed to perform twice. As Clyde puts it, “It worked pretty well so we decided to keep it going. I don’t know when we expanded to 3 or 4 shows, but we finally got brave and did a second weekend.” From there the Follies took on a momentum of its own, and now boasts 12 performances a year and an almost polished show that “keeps people entertained and leads them to think a bit about some of the issues we have presented.”

When asked if he had any experience writing for the stage, Clyde responds “Absolutely not, other than a kind of odd sense of humor. I’m not an artist. At the time I was doing a newspaper column (and still am) but that was the only writing I had done. Never anything for the stage, so that’s been a fascinating learning process. I remember one script where we had a solid storyline and it all worked great on paper, but on stage it was death, it didn’t have any action to it at all. A couple experiences like that and you begin to learn.”

Though Clyde’s opening monologues are an integral part of the Follies tradition, he insists “I could not do the onstage performance the actors and cast do. A seasoned ensemble cast brings a magic to it. They’ve done it for long enough to really be able to play off each others’ strengths. They also cover up some real flubs that the audience never notices.” Eventually the Follies evolved from discreet skits and talent acts into a cohesive story. “It was probably 15 to 18 years ago that we started running it with more of a through line story and upped the performance level to get a live band onstage, and that really moved the Follies forward. Annette Velarde was largely responsible for pushing us to have a single through line story. It’s much harder to write, but makes a better show.”

Clyde said, “The show is an amazing collaboration. The most recent team is Terry Moffit, who does the song lyrics, Andy Cier, Josh Mann, Rick Klein and Scott Greenberg have done the video and filled in other spots. Paul and Peg Tan made a huge contribution through the years, including conscripting their kids into building sets. Paul directed the show for many years, and somehow managed to take the chaos and turn it into something with only 8 or 9 rehearsals.” The editing meetings go through the script line by line, with the whole group sharpening, tightening, and bringing in as much local content as possible. “We often end up editing the show mid-run to reflect breaking news.”

Current Director Mark Conklin found his way to Park City after years of working as a professional actor in New York and Los Angeles. “I got a job doing websites in 1999, and stayed as a consultant with that company. I wasn’t doing anything creatively until someone found out I played drums, then I started playing and singing with a few people, then with The Follies. I hadn’t been on stage for 10 years…it was great fun to be back on the boards making people laugh. 6 or 7 years ago I switched from the band to being on stage. Last year Paul Tan decided to take a step back as Director after many years, and he tapped me because he knew I had a history in it and ‘knew the formula’, so to speak, for the show. He didn’t want to stray too far from it. So I said yes. And it was a fun experience to be the Director and pull things together and watch the process.”

The Follies have grown significantly since the first years, and is now a more complex and rehearsed process. According to Conklin, “In years before that there might be a few rehearsals, usually about 8, just to work on music, songs, dances, and that. In past years people would see the script for the first time in the first rehearsal.” These days, the theater’s creative staff is more heavily involved in the production aspect of the show, and there is more collaboration in order to design the technical aspects. “Jake Larabee, who is now the Artistic Director at the Egyptian Theater, was a big help building props, organizing tech and designing it. It was a much more tech-heavy kind of show because they had extra time to work on it.” Clyde added, “the technical capability at the theater is a world ahead of where it was when we started. I don’t understand any of it, and have learned to stay out of the way.”

While attendees of the 2025 Follies shouldn’t be treated to crashing laptops or Clyde’s impromptu drawings, the spirit of the original Follies remains by and for the locals. “One thing I tell people is…if you don’t live in Park City you won’t get most of the jokes, it is very focused on this little patch of fun that we all live in,” says Conklin. “It’s a chance to be reflective about what’s important to us and laugh a little bit at ourselves, and shine a light on things that we think people might want to be thinking about how town is running. There is a party atmosphere afterward, and you see people like in a town square—I see people I haven’t seen in a long time after the show. It’s a huge fundraiser for [The Egyptian] Theater—that’s an important thing as well. It’s great that we have a theater in town, and Randy and Jenn and the team do a fantastic job making sure stuff is happening. It’s important for our town to have that as a focal point for Main Street, to be able to volunteer and help raise money for that is important for us in the cast, and we enjoy being able to contribute.”

As Clyde describes it, “Every year we try to pick a theme or an issue, start writing in September and hope it’s still relevant in April. I’ve been doing it 24 years, and this year I have reduced my role. Paul Hochmann and Claire Wiley took over the main story, and we’re hoping we’ve hit a formula that keeps it going. The Follies have become such a part of the community it’d be awful if it ended. It’s one of those things that is unique to Park City. The show has changed with The [Egyptian] Theater, and it’s gone from something they tolerated to now their biggest budget item after Sundance. That's huge for the theater, so they need continuity as well.”

The Follies may be a beloved annual Arts & Culture event, but Conklin points out that it exists within a tapestry of other Summit County institutions. “Arts & Culture is one of the great things about Park City. What Mountain Town Music does with free music, what the Egyptian does with keeping performance space going, and the children’s youth theater is so important. It’s an amazing place for people to learn, grow, and create. That’s critical for a town—to be more than just one industry or a pretty place to look at. The arts in this town are what help make it a community, bringing people together whether they are going to see music, theater, getting their kids involved in theater, or being involved themselves.”

“The Follies as an entity have definitely taken on a life of its own,” says Clyde. “It really hit me a year or two ago when I was at the parts counter of Wasatch Auto Supply, months before the show, and a guy on the next stool asked what the Follies was about this year. I thought okay, I guess it matters and is a little broader than the 84060 zip code. It is wonderful to see the sheer joy the cast gets out of it, I love the performance and camaraderie of it. It's almost a family-like atmosphere within the cast, they just love it.”

Conklin revels in the performative aspect of the Follies, calling it “the cherry on top of my year of musical performance with Park City band The Fuse.” Clyde on the other hand identifies as “pretty much a hermit, and it's a real stretch for me to get out there and do the Follies once a year. Beyond that I'm pretty happy staying home minding the ranch and entertaining the dogs.” Apparently it takes all types to put together a performance as long-standing and irreverent as the Follies.

For more information about the 2025 Park City Follies, Keep your eye on the Egyptian Theater’s website.

Park City Follies: A Quarter Century of Irreverent Tradition