'Beauty,' 'Intimate Apparel' to be staged

The regional premiere of an acclaimed off-Broadway hit from 2004 is among this week's semiprofessional theater openings.

• "DISNEY'S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST," directed by David Nieman and choreographed by Marilyn May Montgomery, opens an eight-week run on Tuesday in the Hale Centre Theatre, 3333 S. Decker Lake Drive, West Valley City, where it continues through Sept. 30.

Hale's technical director and special-effects wizard Andrew Barrus is adding several new enhancements for this production — a fountain system (inspired by Broadway's "Bombay Dreams") that will create water arches and project colorful streams of water across the stage, complemented by fiber-optic lighting.

Barrus has re-engineered HCT's revolving stage to create a staircase that travels both up and down and divides two of the stage's four sections to allow for more flexibility.

The double-cast ensemble includes Jennifer Latimer and Emily Morgan Jeppson as Belle, Clay Elder and Nathan Mikami as the Beast, Erik Denton and Greg Johnson as Gaston, JaNae Gibbs Cottam and Lisa Grow as Mrs. Potts, David Glaittli and Ryan Simmons as Lumiere and Glen A. Carpenter and Stephen McBride as Cogsworth. Kelly DeHaan is music director.

Performances are nightly at 7:30, with Saturday matinees at 12:30 and 4 p.m. and additional 4 p.m. matinees on most Fridays and Mondays during September. There will also be three special matinees at 9 a.m. on three Wednesdays — Aug. 26 and Sept. 9 and 16 — when children 3 and older will be admitted. (Only those 5 and older are admitted to regular performances.)

Tickets are $20-$23 for adults and $14-$15 for children (984-9000 or www.halecentretheatre.org).

• "INTIMATE APPAREL," a drama that won both the New York Drama Critics Circle and Outer Critics Circle awards during the 2004 season, will have its regional premiere this week in a limited engagement produced by Salt Lake City's only African American-centered theater company, People Productions.

It's scheduled for eight performances from Thursday through Aug. 20 in the Studio 115 Theatre of the University of Utah Performing Arts Building, directly west of the campus bookstore.

Brooklyn playwright Lynn Nottage's drama, inspired by the life and stories of her own great-great-grandmother, is set in 1905 in lower Manhattan, where a black seamstress creates intimate undergarments and touches the lives of a variety of clientele, from society matrons and prostitutes to the Hasidic merchant who supplies her cloth.