OCR Text |
Show Sundance Cast Friendly Jean Piatt The Sundance Summer Theatre nestles amidst the pines at the Sundance Resort. Re-sort. It is an outdoor theatre set high in the mountains. A special wagon winds its way up the slope to take you to this enchanted place for the evening's entertainment. So we bundled up and rode the winding slope to view LITTLE MARY SUNSHINE. The theatre is a small stage built on the mountain with benches climbing the slope for seating. It is a natural amphitheatre, with easy viewing for all. A sound system aids the mountain to make all voices heard clearly in the crisp air. I found that the theatre has been in existence for five years in this lovely setting. And, in spite of the chilly evening air, they manage to have large houses of huddling huddl-ing theatre goers wrapped in blankets to view the shows. They run three shows for the season on a repertory basis, alternating shows according ac-cording to odd and even numbered num-bered nights. This year the schedule boasted DES TRY RIDES AGAIN and LITTLE MARY SUNSHINE with PEGORA THE WITCH offered for a special family show. All shows run one hour so they may have a revue after the intermission. The revue is a mixture of comedy, dance, singing, and acting all mixed togeth er with a variety of music. It is very entertaining, as the pace moves rapidly and the Sundance Kids really show their talent. But back to the show. LITTLE MARYSUNSHINE is a camp musical spoof about the forest rangers of Colorado Colo-rado and Little Mary Sunshine, Sun-shine, the sweetest flower of the West. It is a good choice for the natural mountain setting. I have always found the show to be delightful, as it is a musical mus-ical melodrama filled with funny characters and good tunes. The Sundance Kids seem to enjoy the show, too, for they kept a freshness to it with lively dance numbers and excellent singing voices. The director has comprehended compre-hended that this show cannot be played straight, but must be made humorous with stereotyped melodrama acting act-ing and blocking. His choreography has aided aid-ed greatly with dynamic dance numbers. His darlings tap dance their way into your hearts, just as the chorus in the Nelson Eddy musicals that this play spoof did. All parts were well portrayed por-trayed with strong back up voices to aid the leads' excellent ex-cellent singing. Comedy of this sort is often hard to play. The actor must take a ridiculous rid-iculous character and play it sincerely. His character must spoof its type, but the actor cannot spoof his character. He must be dead serious about it, or the actor proves to be the funny vehicle rather than the person he portrays. Thus he must keep a straight face while being ridiculous. Many actors of experience cannot pull it off. This entire en-tire cast did, and did it remarkably re-markably well. When I arrived at the theatre, the director called out the cast to talk with me. I found myself flabbergasted flabber-gasted and speechless as I was surrounded by a group of friendly people, totally unpretentious and anxious to supply me with whatever information in-formation I wanted. They were a warm, friendly unit. I could feel that over the summer they had become a company that worked together togeth-er well not only because of talent but because of their friendly personalities blending. blend-ing. They were not only a cast, they were friends that worked work-ed together as a whole. None regarded himself alone as important they were important im-portant as a whole. I have become accustomed to actors that busily tell you about themselves while elbowing el-bowing away a member of their company. These actors told me about each other. I was totally refreshed by this approach and felt very com fortable in their presence. Most of the kids come from BYU and have studied either acting or dance.Afpw came from other parts through auditions and recommendations. rec-ommendations. They are all working at becoming professionals, but are not necessarily star struck youths aiming for Broadway. A number of them are off on a UJ3.0. tour later this year, while others are leaving leav-ing for New York or California. Calif-ornia. A few are finishing studies at the University. But all are serious about their careers and are pleased pleas-ed to have the opportunity to perform and entertain at Sundance. Sundance is an excellent proving ground for a young acting hopeful, as it offers an entire season of work with an opportunity to vary roles. But the repertory format also gives them the feeling of a long run without the boredom since each night is alternated between the two shows. Unfortunately, -this is the last week at Sundance. From here they will drift apart to other roles. But you can at least catch them once, as I did, and enjoy en-joy an evening of fresh entertainment. en-tertainment. We need more places like this to give new talent a chance to be viewed. So rush out and support them this weekend. And, like me, plan on going go-ing earlier next summer. |