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Show 11 u.....i.i..u.mli 1 t . . j J ALISA HARRIS, PAT Hughes and Stacee Sherwood in a scene from 'Carousel,' the last production ever on the mainstage of Promised Valley Playhouse. 'Carousel' brings end to PVP years SALT LAKE CITY - Perhaps it's only fitting that Promised Valley Val-ley Playhouse, which will close its doors as a theatrical production company this summer, is ending its mainstage history with the musical "Carousel." You see, for the last few months, the actors and administrators involved in-volved with the playhouse have been on sort of a ride themselves--not knowing for sure what the future fu-ture would hold. Two weeks ago, the LDS Church announced that it was closing the playhouse as a theatre company, opting instead for the cheaper route of turning it over to the use of stakes and wards for their roadshows and plays. While many feel this was an unfortunate un-fortunate decision, those involved with PVP have pledged to continue providing quality entertainment through the end of August, and "Carousel" is no exception to that rule. The theatre will also continue its series of summer plays in the Bowyer and Plum Alley, although "Carousel" is the last production to use the mainstage. A tale of tears, laughter, love and forgiveness, "Carousel" is the story of a turn-of-the-century, swaggering New England amusement amuse-ment park barker, Billy Bigelow, who loses his job when he falls in love and marries the gentle Julie Jordan. Learning that his wife is pregnant and afraid that he won't have enough money to support his family, he recklessly becomes involved in-volved in a robbery attempt with a friend and is killed trying to elude arrest. When the Heavenly Star-keeper Star-keeper informs him that he can only gain admission to Heaven if he redeems his soul, Billy steals a star and returns to earth 15 years later to present it as a gift to his unhappy daughter Louise. "There's a lot of magic to "Carousel"," said Reines, who will be the artistic director for Utah Musical Theatre in Ogden this summer. "It's a real inspirational show. The story is also simple enough with enough action that children of all ages would enjoy seeing it with their families. Adapted by Benjamin F. Glaser from Ferenc Molnar's 1908 play "Liliom," the musical "Carousel" opened to enthusiastic reviews at the Majestic Theatre in New York City on April 19, 1945 and ran for 890 performances. It immediately captured the New York Drama Critics Cri-tics Circle Award for Best Musical and eight Donaldson Awards. After countless revivals and a memorable 1956 screen version starting Gordon MacRae and Shirley Shir-ley Jones, "Carousel" has lost none of its magic and charm during the past four decades. The Kennedy Ken-nedy Center in Washington, D.C. will revive the Rodgers and Ham-merstein Ham-merstein classic this summer with talk of yet another national tour. - Now an uncontested classic in American musical theatre, "Carousel," ironically, almost never got written. Fresh off the success of "Oklahoma," Rodgers and Hammerstein both felt "Li-liom's" "Li-liom's" Hungarian setting and tragic tra-gic ending weren't appropriate for musical-comedy treatment in the uncertain political climate of 1944-45. "Dick and I kept telling each other why we weren't going to adapt 'Liliom," and then we would drift off into a contemplation of all its attractive possibilities," Hammerstein Ham-merstein recalled. "The idea that really opened the way to it all was a suggestion by Dick that at first sounded downright silly. This was to transplant the play to the New England coast. But it sounded silly for only a few seconds. I began to see an attractive ensemble--sailors, whalers, girls who worked in the mills up the river, clambakes on near-by islands, an aumsement park on the seaboard, things people peo-ple could do in crowds, people who were strong and alive and lusty. The poignancy of the story, I was certain, would not suffer from gaiety gaie-ty of background." "Carousel" continues Wednesday Wednes-day through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. through June 14, with a .2 p.m. matinee on June 7. ; $ Tickets can be obtained at the Promised Valley Playhouse box office, 132 S. State Street or by calling 364-5677. Group rates and special performances are also available. |