Brit checks show's U.S. premiere

Phillip "Pip" Burley — who adapted "The Slipper and the Rose" for the stage — told an excited group of performers on Thursday night, "We've come 6,000 miles to see the show, which is pretty eccentric, really, and it's been worth it."

The occasion followed Hale Centre Theatre's performance on Thursday, the U.S. premiere of "The Slipper and the Rose."

Burley and his wife Christine (who had played Palatine, one of the step-sisters, in one of the first British production a few years back), flew into Salt Lake City on Wednesday to see how the romantic musical was going in its first production on this side of the Atlantic.

The Burleys toured the West Valley City venue and, after learning that the production was double-cast — something not typically done in most theaters — they watched performances on both Wednesday and Thursday nights, meeting both casts in the theater's green room for brief post-show conversations.

"We thoroughly enjoyed it last night (Wednesday) and tonight (Thursday)," he told the cast. "What can I say? I think you all did it beautifully and this show really depends on three things — the fact that it's a great romance, a great comedy and, of course, it has magic. If you get all those three right, then you've got a great show."

Earlier in the evening, during the intermission, Burley said how impressed he was with Hale Centre Theatre's technical wizardry, especially the new "flying" system that brings the Fairy Godmother across the audience and into Cinderella's dreary life.

"In England, we have a strange thing called pantomime," Burley said, "and you probably don't know what they are over here, but they're a bit like 'Cinderella,' except that the men dress up like women and you get television soap stars suddenly turning to the audience and coming out of character and doing their thing — and this is supposed to be for kids.

"But you know kids. They cough and they talk and they chatter and they lose their concentration. But they don't with this. There were a lot of children here tonight . . . little children, maybe 2 or 3 years old, and that sat there completely taken in by it.

"You know, there's this contract between the performers and an audience. The contract is that you maintain the illusion and the audience buys it — and that's what this show does."

Burley congratulated the cast and director Bruce Bredeson on creating "a wonderful piece of illusion. Once the audience gets into it, they go right on to the very end."