On a Monday night in late October, the Park City MegaPlex will trade its usual slate of new releases for a 1989 Southern comedy-drama about six women in a Louisiana beauty parlor. The occasion is "Night with Dolly," a Dolly Parton-themed movie night on Oct. 26, running from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the theater at 6030 North Market Street. The dress code, as advertised, is denim. The film is "Steel Magnolias." The point of it all is a free book in the hands of a Utah child.
The evening is the work of Jenna Hansen, founder of HERizon, a Park City-based film and wellness festival built around women's stories, and Kristin Andrus, a Utah community organizer and online personality who describes herself as a "community activator." Proceeds from the screening go to Operation Literacy Utah, the state's 501(c)(3) children's literacy nonprofit, and specifically to its campaign to bring Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to families across Utah.
The Imagination Library is the program Parton started in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee, the East Tennessee county where she grew up and where her Dollywood theme park sits. The Dollywood Foundation, which Parton established in 1988 to support educational opportunities for children in her home county, operates it. The premise is simple and has barely changed in three decades: a child enrolled at birth receives one free, age-appropriate book in the mail every month until they start kindergarten.
The origin story is personal. Parton has said repeatedly that she launched the program as an ode to her father, who could not read. The first book mailed out was "The Little Engine That Could," a childhood favorite of Parton's — the story of a small locomotive that hauls an impossible load up a hill by repeating, "I think I can." The program has since grown into one of the largest early-literacy efforts in the world; Operation Literacy notes that it has gifted more than 200 million books to children worldwide.
Utah, though, is a relative latecomer. Operation Literacy has entered a formal agreement with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to serve as the state's official partner, contingent on legislation sponsored by Senator Balderree and Representative Defay. While that legislation works its way forward, the nonprofit has launched a large-scale pilot to demonstrate demand and show lawmakers what the program would do at scale. The TownLift report on the fundraiser put the timeline this way: Operation Literacy is working to secure legislative approval in January 2027 to make the program available statewide. The need is not abstract. According to figures cited by Operation Literacy, about 69 percent of Utah children are reading below grade level by the end of third grade — a threshold researchers treat as the pivot point between learning to read and reading to learn.
The economics of the fundraiser are deliberately modest and easy to grasp. The program costs roughly $30 per child per year. HERizon's goal for the movie night is to raise enough to fund a full year of books for 30 children — about $900, or one theater's worth of tickets turned into 360 picture books arriving in 30 mailboxes.
"Steel Magnolias" is a fitting choice for a room full of women on a Monday night. Robert Harling wrote it first as a 1987 play, staged at the WPA Theatre in New York, drawn from the death of his sister and the tight circle of Southern women who carried his family through it. The title is the thesis: the characters are as delicate as magnolias and as tough as steel. Herbert Ross directed the 1989 film, which starred Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts and Parton as Truvy Jones, the wisecracking salon owner who takes in the new girl and dispenses advice along with the hairspray. It runs just under two hours, which leaves room in a three-hour window for the denim, the mingling and whatever else Hansen and Andrus have planned.
The movie night is also a curtain-raiser of sorts. It comes three months before the inaugural HERizon Film and Wellness Festival, a five-day gathering set for Jan. 26–30, built around three daily tracks: morning wellness activities, midday film screenings and presentations, and evening experiences. The menu runs from fitness classes, breath-work and cold plunges to mahjong, needlepoint and painting, with local mountaineer Jenn Drummond among the featured names and an afternoon devoted to short films written and produced by women, the winner taking home a $2,000 grant. A portion of festival proceeds goes to ROAM Humanitarian and Operation Literacy Utah. Hansen has pitched it plainly as a girls' trip: "You can have a little bit of everything. You don't have to plan it. Just show up."
There is a broader context, too. Park City's film calendar is in flux. With the Sundance Film Festival set to move to Boulder, Colorado, the town's arts scene is entering a new chapter, and new events — The Snow League and Boundless Fest among them, both slated for 2027 — are lining up to fill the year-round gap. A Dolly Parton movie night in October is one small, early entry in that wave.
For Hansen, though, the through-line is simpler than the industry weather. "The Dolly Parton night is kind of an offshoot of what HERizon is: an opportunity to bring women together through film and experience," she told TownLift. Tickets are required and are being sold through Eventbrite; the listing notes that the event runs three hours and that there are no refunds. Denim, presumably, is on the honor system.