PRODUCTIONS CENTER ON CHRISTMAS AND EVE

In addition to the three new collegiate productions opening in the Salt Lake area this week (see today's cover story), these stage productions are also opening in the area:

- THE CHRISTMAS STRANGER, a poignant drama with music, was inspired by the true-life experiences of Daniel Clarke Whitley, son of Dan and Bonnie Whitley, who died a few years ago of brain cancer. The 12-year-old boy taught a stranger that the real message of Christmas goes far beyond the boundaries of this life.The Goodman family, including Steven and Claudia and their 12 children, portray Danny's family, with Miller as a stranger from Nashville whose life is changed by the boy in the wheelchair. Brothers Troy and Marin Gogan will portray the family's prankster-loving uncles.

Screenwriter Carlie Dixon and local director Walt Price worked with the Whitleys to develop the script. The show's original musical score includes favorite Whitley family holiday songs written by the Whitleys in collaboration with other professional musicians, including James Marsden and Chris and Les Whiting.

Playdates are 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Dec. 3-4, 10-11 and 17-18, and Monday, Dec. 20. (Two other Monday performances, Dec. 6 and 13, have already been sold out.) The Broadway Family Theatre is located at 272 S. Main (formerly the Broadway Stage).

Tickets are $5 in advance or for groups, or $10 at the door. For further information or reservations, call Dan Whitley Studios at 561-7377.

Two benefit performances have also been tentatively arranged by the Broadway Family Theater, one on Thursday evening, Dec. 2, for the Work Activity Center (977-9779) and the other a matinee at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 18, for the Jordan Valley School (565-7216). Contact the respective schools for ticket information.

- THE SERPENT, a student production directed by Tom Amen and adapted from a story by Jean-Claude van Itallie, will be staged Dec. 2-5 in the the University of Utah's Lab Theatre.

The play focuses on hu-man-kind's innate sense of guilt stemming from Eve's choice in the Garden of Eden. It's about the choices we make in our own lives and the choices that have already been made for us.

"When one individual crosses a forbidden line, nothing is ever the same afterwards," notes a press release for the production.

The work first premiered in 1968 in Rome, where Joseph Chaikin and a group of 18 actors developed the script through a workshop process at the Open Theatre. Van Itallie wrote passages of text to anchor specific scenes while Chaikin's actors worked five days a week, four hours a day for one year to create the script. The initial production was well received, although the Vatican considered it controversial.