The Hale Centre Theatre, which recently announced plans to construct a state-of-the-art 560-seat theater-in-the-round in West Valley City, has unveiled its 1997 season of plays.
For 1997, HCT is adding one more play to the calendar - eight productions instead of the previous seven - and scheduling them for slightly shorter runs. For its 13th season, the busy company will have three musicals, four comedies and its traditional year-end production of "A Christmas Carol."While a firm timetable has yet to be announced for the new West Valley location, where HCT will be part of a complex that will include the new arena for the Grizzlies, a new community performing arts center, hotels and restaurants, the Hales don't expect to be in their new theater until late 1997 or early 1998.
The lineup for 1997 is:
- The Happiest Millionaire (Dec. 28, 1996-Feb. 3, 1997), a comedy set in the early 1900s about an obscenely wealthy father teaching his daughter boxing as a way of warding off any undesirables.
- She Loves Me (Feb. 7-March 31), musical from the "Fiddler on the Roof" collaborators. It's the story of a pen-pal romance. Two perfume store employees write to each other, unaware of whom they're actually writing to. In person, though, she despises him and he loathes her.
- John Loves Mary (April 3-May 12), a classic World War II comedy and longtime HCT favorite.
- My Fair Lady (May 16-July 7), a classic Broadway musical filled with Lerner & Loewe tunes.
- The Educated Heart (July 10-Aug. 18), a Ruth Hale comedy about a schoolteacher fending with kids - and beaus - in a remote Utah community in the 1930s.
- Nunsense (Aug. 22-Oct. 13), the off-Broadway musical comedy about five nuns desperately faced with raising funds . . . so they can bury their colleagues . . . who died from eating the cook's tainted soup.
- Sabrina Fair (Oct. 16-Nov. 22), the Cinderella-like romantic comedy about a chauffeur's daughter being wooed by a misanthropic millionaire to keep her from marrying his playboy brother.
- A Christmas Carol (Nov. 28-Dec. 23), HCT's 13th annual production of the traditional favorite. (Yes, Richard G. Wilkins will be back as Scrooge.)