3 summer productions boast sea connections

Bruce Cohen, artistic director of the Utah Musical Theatre Company, is bringing three sea-worthy productions to an area that is best known for deserts and drought.

All three of this summer's shows — two musicals in Weber State University's Allred Theatre and a new-to-Utah musical revue in Peery's Egyptian Theater — have oceanic connections.

And Cohen is particularly pleased that this season's cast members will be 99 percent homegrown Utah talent. "Today we can truly say we've put Utah back in UMT," he said, adding that the only "outside" performers are Robert Anthony Jones (who's been here in previous seasons) and New York City-based Equity actress Erin Hiatt, a former Utahn who graduated from WSU.

Hiatt is playing both Ruby in "Dames at Sea," a role she performed on the same stage nine years ago, and Goldie in "Two by Two," opposite Jones' Noah.

Taking a budget-conscious approach to staging the 2006 season, Cohen has selected family-friendly shows, each with a fairly small cast. Both of the Allred Theatre productions — which will alternate in repertory style following Saturday's dual openings — have only eight people. Six of the players are in both shows.

The UMT season will conclude with the Utah premiere of a rarely performed (but highly acclaimed) musical revue, "Songs for a New World," with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, best known for his Tony Award-winning score for "Parade" (1998), being staged in downtown Ogden's Egyptian

Theater.

Roy resident and WSU student Paul Cheney, who plays Shem in "Two by Two" and Dick in "Dames at Sea," recently returned from 18 months of active duty in Iraq. He shipped out immediately following the close of UMT's 2004 season.

"Normally," said Cohen, "I tend to shy away from doing biblically based shows (such as "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"), because they seem to get done so much. But 'Two by Two' was intriguing for me, partly because it's part of the Richard Rodgers canon and is hardly ever done."

He also noted that lyricist-collaborator Martin Charnin (best known for "Annie") has been in the process of revising "Two by Two," but that version has yet to be released.

The ensemble for the repertory shows also includes Teresa Bramwell, Vanessa Cheney, Bradley Shelton, Jessica Perry, Carleton Bluford, Shannon Musgrave and Michael Hernandez.