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One of the benefits of Utah Valley University theater professor James Arrington's upcoming retirement is the chance to direct whatever show he chose.

The longtime Utah actor, best known locally for his "Here's Brother Brigham" and "The Farley Family Reunion" solo shows, selected "Trail of Dreams," a pioneer saga he co-wrote with Marvin Payne and Steven Kapp Perry for Utah's sesquicentennial celebration in 1997.

The pioneer characters who come to life onstage are funny and real, and all of their dialogue is drawn from history, says Arrington, who was tapped in 2000 to carve a theater department out of Utah Valley's existing performing-arts department.

"We aren't messing around with things that aren't real," he says. "We're messing around with things that are very real in the context of the play. They prepared Utah for those that came afterwards, which is all of us."

"Trail of Dreams," which plays through Saturday, Nov. 21,is a co-production with Orem's SCERA Center for the Arts. The cast features seven UVU students, a Brigham Young University student and 19 community actors. Leading the cast is Payne, who is reprising his role as pioneer scout John Brown, a character based on Payne's great-grandfather.

"I dearly love the play, and have always loved the play, and thought it deserved a much wider audience because it's not only a Mormon play, it's about life, it's about people and what their faith generates in them," Arrington says. "Anybody can relate. It's not a play of doctrine, it's a play of action. What did people do? And why did they do what they did?"

What Arrington has done, for most of his career, is bring to life big personalities, like that of Salt Lake City's towering founder, Brigham Young, or a variety of oddballs in the big Utah Farley family.

Arrington was a young actor, studying at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater, when he first saw a one-man show, James Whitmore's "Will Rogers U.S.A." "I was absolutely blown away by his performance," Arrington recalls. "I didn't know you could do that."

That's when he conceived the idea of writing his own solo show and hit upon basing it on Young. He knew something about the man and the myths from his father, Leonard Arrington, an influential Mormon historian who taught at Utah State University and BYU and served for a decade as historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When James Arrington asked his father for help with the research, the historian walked over to his enormous bookshelves and started to whistle. "Whenever he whistled, I knew I was in trouble," James Arrington says.

Leonard Arrington offered his son a stack of history books. "Dad, I'm an actor. I don't really read stuff," the son replied.

Mostly, Arrington says he tried to avoid those books, until in 1976 the deadline was approaching for his play, which he had pitched for his master's thesis at BYU. "I finally picked up the book with the most pictures and started reading that," Arrington says. "I found I was fascinated by the guy, which I was grateful for."

That fascination led to insightful conversations with his father, who was happy to answer specific questions that came up as his son was writing the play.

Arrington took the play on the road, portraying Brigham Young everywhere from England to Alaska, from Hawaii to Canada, even at Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club. Nearly 40 years later, he still occasionally takes the character out for a spin a couple of times a year.

In 1981, he began work on what would become another Utah and international favorite, a solo show portraying the oddball, outlandish Utah characters who show up at "The Farley Family Reunion." "It's been a riot doing it," the actor says. "I carry around the Farleys in my back pocket. They're friends of mine."

Over the years, he has performed the show at plenty of unconventional venues, ranging from ballparks and backyards to churches, wherever he was booked. In the early 1990s, Arrington regularly channeled the Farleys in outdoor summer performances at Salt Lake County's Wheeler Farm, and in 2003 the characters performed for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It had a life of its own," Arrington says. "That's one of the remarkable things about it, without me even trying to drive it or make it happen, it happened anyway. It had a life."

It had a life like Arrington's academic career as an associate professor teaching students about playwriting and stagecraft.

And a life like the stories of pioneers who made their way into the desert that would eventually become a state called Utah.

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Dreams of pioneer life

Utah Valley University associate professor James Arrington directs "Trail of Dreams" for his final academic show.

When • Through Nov. 21 (excluding Sunday); 7:30 evenings, 2 p.m. matinee Saturday, Nov. 21

Where • SCERA Center for the Arts, 745 S. State St., Orem

Tickets • $12 ($10 children/seniors) at 801-863-6939, 801-225-ARTS or uvu.edu/theatre