I’m not sure what got everyone thinking about the drama 12 Angry Men (with variations) this year but I recently saw it for the 4th time in 2026, but fortunately it’s a great play that really gives actors a chance to shine so I never mind seeing it. It’s just always interesting to see what makes for local theatre trendy shows. Anyway, this latest version was up at the University of Utah in their Studio Series which is a black box program that allows the students to learn and craft their acting skills. There’s few plays that will grant this more than 12 Angry Jurors (this was the dual gender version,) and I loved getting to see their performances.
Like I said, this production was in a black box space but the seats surrounded the actors and on the center of the stage was the large jurors table. It might have been nice if they could have included a window of some kind because that’s such an iconic part of the play and the heat adds so much tension but I’ve seen the play enough to know what is happening. Everything was directed by Samantha Briggs with Amelia Hunter as assistant director.
There are 3 roles that a production of 12 Angry Men lives and dies on. That is jurors 3, 10 and 8. 8 is challenging because they can come across as pretentious or holier than though but Mitchell Harding keeps the character likeable but strong. I also enjoyed he was wearing a white suit just like Peter Fonda in the classic film of 12 Angry Men. Juror 3 was played by Cannon Hadfield, who is a wonderful actor and builds the simmering anger of the character well. 10 is the most racist of the characters and way Gage Andersen delivers the lines so casually is convincing for that kind of character.
I like the way the cast is moving around the room quite a bit for this show. It keeps things exciting. The only challenge was they don’t have the jurors sitting in their correct order. I think they wanted to have 8 at the top of the table which makes sense for the drama but the other positions I’m not sure why they had them out of order (in fairness that would really only matter to me trying to take notes. The rest of the audience can just be immersed in the characters and the moments.) They had it clockwise 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 9, 8, 7, 6, 12, 11, 10.
Anyway, the students all put their heart and souls into the roles making for convincing performances. You feel the characters grow and change by the end of the show. We can feel their exhaustion and one can only hope that they are doing the right thing with the not guilty verdict. There are parts of the play itself which do not match up with actual rules of a courtroom (a juror bringing in another knife for example is outrageous) but it works as a showcase for actors and a chance to stretch their talents.
The point of the Studio Series is to be “raw, unfiltered… high impact productions” and I think they achieved that with this production of 12 Angry Jurors. Like I said, the actors are very physical in their roles bringing as much mania into the roles as they possibly can. I saw the production closing night but it has made me excited for future Studio Series entries. According to their website they have a production of Hamlet coming up later this month. More information can be found here.
12 Angry Men is a play written by Reginald Rose based on his screenplay for the 1957 film. It debuted in the West End in 1964 but not on Broadway until 2004 where it was nominated for 3 Tony Awards.
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