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Show Success varies for Park City theater The summer theatrical season in Park City ended last week with the final performances of Park City Performances' (PCP) production of the melodrama "Deadwood Dick," the Festival Opera Company's presentation of "Tosca" and the trio of plays presented by the Park City Shakespeare Festival "As You Like It," "Macbeth" and "The Merchant of Venice. " Both the opera and the Shake-peare Shake-peare companies are under the aegis of the Intermountain Actors Ensemble (IAE). Entertainment critic Rick Brough gives an overview Of the summer seasonbelow. Results have been mixed for Park City's theatrical productions this summer. The IAE reports an increase in the audiences at its Shakespeare plays. Crowds at the Egyptian Theatre melodrama were steady, says PCP, but the play was not a significant profit-maker. , Meanwhile, IAE's musical pro-i pro-i duction, the opera "Tosca," lost 1 money. But IAE executive director Ron Burnett speaks of it as the beginning of an effort to bring opera to Park City. Burnett said audiences at the Shakespeare plays were three times the attendance last year. Some evenings, the cast played to a full house. Staging the shows under a tent at The Resort Center at the Park City Ski Area also helped the company avoid weather problems. The most popular of the three plays was "As You Like It" (which -J was presented on Friday nights), averaging 110 to 115 people at each show. Some people even attended the play two or three times, he said. Close behind was "Macbeth" (presented on Saturday nights), with an average 100 people a show. Bringing up the rear was the Thursday night production of "Merchant "Mer-chant of Venice," averaging 50 ' people a night. The overall result, he said, is that the plays have made a little profit. A task for next year, he said, will be to work on the Thursday show. One problem, he said, is the actors are starting their work week that night in a warmup that is the i equivalent of the Monday-to-Friday worker's Monday morning, i On the debit side, Bumett said lights and recording equipment were stolen and he had to replace some actors during the season. On the opening night of "Macbeth," the state suffered an electrical blackout, but the company continued with the play after dark by shining car headlights on the stage. For next year, Bumett said he is thinking of establishing a corps of about 10 very good, well-salaried actors, with the rest of the company as apprentices. IAE also might set up an apprentices' company that would present Shakespearean matinees mati-nees during August. The plays to be presented next year, he said, are "The Taming of the Shrew," "The Tempest" and "King Lear." "Tosca" lost about $1,500 and drew an average of 40 people to each performance, said Bumett. But the important thing is it introduced opera to the town, he added. Lee Broadhead, star and producer of the opera, said, "We learned by our errors. We were very small, but had lots of quality." She said she wants to expand the program, beginning, for instance, with an outdoor opera. She got that idea, she said, from an opera company presentation on an outdoor stage , during the Park City Art Festival. Though crowds at the opera were sparse, she said, they included some notable visitors actor-comedian Bill Murrav. the conductor of the Jackson, Miss., Symphony and the president of the West Coast Opera Society. ; "'" The actors of "Deadwood Dick" also saw new, interesting faces in the crowds on the other side of the footlights. According to PCP president presi-dent Richard Scott, audiences included many Wasatch Front residents. The play drew a few hundred people every weekend. (The presentation on Monday nights under the tent at The Resort Center averaged about 30 people.) Looking back, both Scott and actor Bob Toy said they wished the marketing of the play had been better. But the cast enjoyed the show, said Scott, and their performances became more flamboyant over the summer. "Some full-on classic 'mugs' (were) blooming and blossoming blos-soming every week," he said.. The play also had a good number of funny, unplanned moments and instances of actors diverting from the script. "Frank Harris (Sheriff Loveless) probably led the team in improvisation," said Scott. Bob Toy, who played the hero, Ned Harris, also recalled a few classic scenes from the play: During the musical number one night, a member of the audience threw money on the stage. "We stopped singing and dived for the money." Ned and his pal Wild Bill Hickock (Timothy Schomburg) were so close, Toy said, sometimes they did a "soul brother" shoulder-and-hip bump. The villain, Blackman Redburn (Larry Sheldon), often was referred to in the script as "Black 'n' Red," but on occasion, the cast called him ( "Black and Decker." Karri Hays, as the blind heroine, Lily, recognizes her sister by feeling her and, on some nights, her hands roamed far afield over different parts of the other actress' (Jackie Toy) anatomy. The noble Chinese character, Pong Ping, is narrowly saved from hanging. So, naturally, he made his appearance later with a clothes hanger around his neck. Scott said the melodrama is a good style of play to plug into PCFs future production schedules. It allows the audience to yell and scream, and lets the actors interact with the audience. Scott doesn't know exactly what the company would do with a melodrama next summer. It might play for a month, or rotate with another show. But he definitely likes the idea of doing one for the warm months of 1986. |