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Show 6 SIGNPOST - Wednesday, July 5, 1989 TCETERA Utah Musical Theatre will open season at Weber State College The Utah Musical Theatre will open the 1989 Centennial Summer of Fun at Weber State's Allred Theatre in the Val Browning Center for the Performing Arts with "Anything Goes," a Cole Porter classic. The show will start at 7:30 p. m. and run from July 6 through 15. David G. Armstrong, from New York, will direct the show. This is Armstrong's second season with the Utah company. Last year he directed performances of "The Wiz" and "Baby." Armstrong says along with Utah's blue skies and mountains, he enjoys working with the musical company. "It's the best working experience I've had," he said. "It's a lot of work, but a lot of fun." Armstrong has had his work seen off-broadway and in forty-one states across the country. He says he is excited about returning and he looks forward to working again with musical Troy Fisher. 'Troy Fisher is the best musical director I've worked with," Armstrong said. "And, I've worked with thirty musical directors." Fisher, who was born in Ogden, presently resides in Estacada, Oregon. This is his fourth year with the Utah troupe. He graduated from college in Nebraska and has free-lanced as a musical director in Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon, Washington and Utah. "This year's company has the best musical sound ever," Fisher said. "Anything Goes" is set in 1939 aboard an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic to London. "It' s an explosion of Cole Porter music," Armstrong said. It's full of songs people can sing and hum, such as "Blow Gabriel Blow," It's De-Lovely," "Anything Goes," "You're the Top" and many others that people will yv"" " ' CT ( - i -vA It' "-k recognize. "It's fun and goofy. There are no serious moments." On board are a wild assortment of night club show girls, love-lorn sailors and gambling Chinese missionaries. There are diverse characters including Moonface, a Chicago gangster who is disguised as a minister, played by Duane Stephens of Layton, Utah. Bonnie, his Brooklyn girlfriend, is played by Robbie Mancina of Boulder, Colorado. The role of Reno Sweeney, a former evangelist turned nightclub singer, is played by Beth Flynn of Boston, Massachusetts. Michael Gier, of San Diego, California, plays the role of Billy Crocker, a conniving Wall Street broker. The two love-birds, Hope Harcourt and Sir Evelyn Oakleigh, are played by Jacquelyn Ritz and Jeffery A. Wolf. Their meddling mother-in-law is played by Katrina Eicher-Sherrill, who is returning for her second year with the group. Catherine Zublin is the costume designer, Lynn Cannon is scenic designer, Don Glover is lighting designer, John Bizzell is technical director and Tracy A. Lustic is stage manager. Tickets are available at the Dee Events Center ticket office, or can be purchased one hour prior to the show at the Browning Center ticket office. For more information call 626-8500. CocaCola (12 02. can) with purchase of Mongolian barbecue lunch or dinner (only) Lee's n MONGOLIAN DAR-U-Q AND RESTAURANT LUNCH - only $3.25 DINNER - $4.95 (one lime thru) Mon & Wed only VUso...ALL YOU CAN EAT...$6.95 Barbecue the Mongolian Way. New Concept! Juicy and Succulent Closed Sundays & 3 to 5 p.m. daily Open Mon - Sat 2866 Washington Blvd. Phone: 621-9120 'Dead Poets Society' vibrant, alive By Peter Avion Managing Editor WARNING: This is not a Robin Williams movie. But that's not to say that Robin Williams isn't good, or appropriate for this film either. The one thing to remember is it is not his movie. Dead Poets Society is truly an ensemble film. For that matter, Williams could even have been billed as a supporting actor. Dead Poets Society is set in the late 1950's at Welton Academy, a boys preparatory school in the northeast. The place reeks of tradition. The film opens with a ceremonial parade into the school chapel, complete with a kilted bagpipe player, which immediately sets the tone. We are then introduced to the core group of seven adolescents; six of whom are returning from a previous year, and one new boy who finds himself having to immediately live up to his older brother's legacy. Day one of school begins. We follow the boys from class to class; Latin, Chemistry, Mathematics, and finally English, where we are also introduced to Mr. Keating (a.k.a. Williams). Keating, a former graduate of "Hellton," is an unconventional sort. At his first class, he takes the boys out into the hall to look at pictures of men who have attended the academy over the years. He whispers "seize the day" to them, intoning it is the whisperings of the now-dead graduates. In subsequent classes, he instructs the boys to vandalize their textbooks, to stand on their desks, to find their own walk all done in the hope the boys will learn to think for themselves as Keating believes the Welton curriculum produces little more than automatons. The boys soon find out about the Dead Poets Society while digging into Keating's background, and decide to revive the thinkers club. What happens next is at once marvellous and tragic. ..and well worth the price of admission. Director Peter Weir has filmed a remarkable movie. It emerges as a teen-rite-of-passage film without the sex and vulgarity common in so many of the others. Weir presents the psychological problems of adolescence in a remarkably accurate and touching manner. And his cast makes it all the more believable with their performances. The cinematography provides visual cues throughout the film, from the serenity of the opening, to the joy of a soccer game, to the fraternal bonding at Society meetings, into the tragedy of the final scenes. At times I found myself conjuring images out of On Golden Pond , and memories of my own experiences at an upstate private school in New York. Dead Poets Society is not a real "summer" film. This is one I would have expected to see released in the fall, however, it may well be the sleeper of the season. If I could make the list of nominations for picture of the year, Dead Poets Society would undeniably be at the top. It is definitely one of this year's top ten. |