Derryl Yeager has spent most of his life on stages, but the one he built himself nearly stayed dark. In 2022, after 28 years, Odyssey Dance Theatre announced it would close its doors so that Yeager and his wife, Cheryl, could serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The final season of "Thriller," its beloved Halloween spectacular, was billed as the last one ever. Then, as Yeager put it, the company decided it wasn't done yet.
The revival arrives at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah, running Sept. 30 through Oct. 7, 2026. It is a homecoming of sorts for a show that has become as fixed a seasonal ritual in Utah as "The Nutcracker" is elsewhere -- and, in a state that reliably turns out for Halloween, arguably more fun.
The story of "Thriller" begins with a financial problem. Yeager, a former principal dancer with Ballet West who went on to Broadway ("A Chorus Line," "Dreamgirls," "Cats," "Shenandoah," "Oklahoma!") and to film and television work, founded Odyssey Dance Theatre with Cheryl in 1994. The company was ambitious and multidisciplinary, blending ballet, jazz, hip-hop, tap, ballroom and modern dance. It was also, in its early years, broke. "When we started the company we couldn't get any funding, and we needed to come up with a successful show that would allow us to do what we wanted to do," Yeager told BYU's Universe in 2022.
His solution was to find a niche the way other companies had found theirs in Christmas. "I did my share of Nutcrackers," he told Catalyst Magazine. "But it's the one show all season that provides a healthy income." With the holiday season already spoken for, Yeager looked to the nightmare before Christmas. He originally imagined a full-length "Dracula," but a suggestion to build the show from small vignettes changed everything. "There are tons of Halloween characters to create something unique and different," he said. He wasn't a horror fan himself, but he loved watching audiences react to a good scare.
The first "Thriller" was not an overnight sensation. It sold just 50 tickets. Yeager pressed on anyway, and the next performance, at Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City, drew a crowd of 300 by word of mouth. Within three years the show had its first sellout. "I knew there was something special about what we were doing," Yeager told SLUG Magazine.
What he had built was less a single dance piece than a variety show with a pulse. "It's basically a series of vignettes of all your favorite Halloween characters done in a dance form," Yeager said. The two-hour production now draws on nearly three decades of material: "Thriller," "The Curse of the Mummy," "Dem Bones," "Frankenstein," "Jason Jam," "Children of the Corn," "Salem's Mass" and "The Lost Boys," alongside newer additions. This year's run adds two fresh pieces: "AI," which deploys lasers, and "Casper's Last Dance," in which women dance with ghosts.
The tone is deliberately more silly than gory. Frankenstein tries to dance with his bride even though she's no longer responsive. Jason, of "Jason Jam," never quite graduated from Jason school, so he bungles his kills. "The Curse of the Mummy," which debuted in the show's very first year, opens with four maidens waking a mummy who tests out his joints before recruiting other mummies into a hip-hop number. "Dem Bones" begins with a black light on tapping feet and then reveals full skeletons in motion. "The Lost Boys" is one of the genuinely scarier routines, following a girl who turns into a vampire. Bubbles the Clown, more comic than creepy, roams into the audience. "Annabelle of the Ball" conjures Ouija-board mischief, with Annabelles appearing off-stage as well as on.
Yeager's take on the title number is his own, not a re-creation of Michael Jackson's choreography, and the rest of the evening ranges freely across tap, ballet, jazz, hip-hop and Latin -- including a Latin turn for Gomez and Morticia Addams. The show also functions as a farm team for the state's young dancers: children from more than 40 Utah studios rotate through "Chucky Rama," playing packs of Chuckies, and the company auditions annually to find new talent. "We have our finger on the pulse of what's going on in all the studios," Yeager said. The results have been striking. Nine Odyssey dancers have become finalists on "So You Think You Can Dance." One, Thayne Jasperson, performed in the original Broadway cast of "Hamilton." Another, Natalie Reid, danced as a backup performer on Taylor Swift's Eras Tour; other alumni have toured with Mariah Carey or appeared on "Dancing with the Stars."
That pipeline is part of why the show's return matters beyond nostalgia. Odyssey has long been one of the few places a Utah-trained dancer could build a professional career without leaving home. "We keep creating all these great dancers here, and I think it's because the parents really support the kids," Yeager said. "That versatility is something that stands out. That's one of the hallmarks of the company."
The hiatus was never meant to be permanent. Yeager and his wife served a mission at Martin's Cove in Wyoming, and while they were away, the pull of the company reasserted itself. "We weren't quite sure if we were going to retire totally or not, and in the process of that, we figured, 'You know, we're not done yet,'" Yeager said. "I've always felt like the company itself was kind of my life mission, so to speak, so we decided to bring it back, and here we are." The return, when it came in 2024, was met with fast-selling tickets across the state. The company now performs more than 40 "Thriller" shows each fall. "We can't keep up with the demand," Yeager said. "It's amazing."
The Park City run lands in a venue with its own long theatrical history. The Egyptian Theatre opened on Christmas Day, 1926, on the site of the Dewey Theatre, which had itself replaced an opera house lost to an 1898 fire. Inspired by the era's fascination with King Tut's tomb, the building was decorated under the supervision of an Egyptologist with lotus motifs, scarabs and hieroglyphics. It has operated as a community gathering place ever since, surviving name changes and a 1970s preservation effort, and it is marking its 100th anniversary this year. For a Halloween show built on mummies and the undead, the setting is almost too on the nose.
The show is recommended for ages 8 and up -- Yeager sometimes suggests 12 -- because a few of the images are genuinely frightening. But the humor is pitched to reach kids, and Yeager has watched young audience members crack up at jokes and set the whole room laughing with them. "You get a chance to view a show that helps you forget about what's going on in the world for a couple hours and have a great time," he said. "And, I don't know what it is about Utahns, but they just love Halloween."
Nick Mitchell, the company's director of development, frames the appeal more simply. "'Thriller' truly is a dance for all," he said. "It's every style, every genre. It's modern music with contemporary themes, so it has something for everyone." He calls it "spooky, it's silly and it's spectacular."
For Yeager, the revival carries a quieter meaning. The company he once thought he was closing has been rebuilt with an eye toward outlasting him. "We wanted to bring it back, make it bigger and better, and prepare it in such a way that it could go on without us, if needed," he said. Nearly 30 years after 50 people showed up to the first performance, the zombies are dancing again.