Floral papered walls covered with empty gold frames surrounded the stage, foreshadowing memories to be made as playgoers filled riser seats in Midway’s Town Hall for opening night of “Pride and Prejudice” by Heber’s Charitable Acts Theatre.
The production’s mission appears in the organization’s name. Players donate their time and talent, then all ticket sales, concession receipts and associated contributions to a selected nonprofit.
For this run, 100% of proceeds will help Peace House in Park City provide shelter, support and advocacy to survivors of interpersonal violence and domestic abuse in Summit and Wasatch counties.
Pride and Prejudice starts at 7:30 every night except Sunday through this Saturday.
The biggest empty frame at the stage’s center is large enough to fit a family, where the Bennett parents and their five daughters pose as a portrait while they banter back and forth dissecting the novel’s famous first line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Or is it the maiden who seeks a husband? In this family of seven, opinions are bound to differ. The Bennetts lack a male heir and may lose their estate if the daughters are unable to marry well. Their matriarch, played by Madelynn Hunter, is most concerned, and debate continues as the Bennetts step through the frame onto the stage.
This particular framing portal was the idea of set designer Carolyn Robison, constructed by Logan Zabaldo, and serves to introduce characters and couples throughout the play.
All actors adopt convincing British accents as they pass between drawing rooms, balls and private quarters.
“When each person auditioned, we did have them audition at one point using a British Received Pronunciation accent, so I could see who had an ability to do it,” said Director Carrie Zabaldo. “Madeleine Mustard, who plays Elizabeth, was born in Australia and lives in Midway, so her Australian accent lends very well to the British accent. I’d worked with Connor McMaster, who plays Mr. Darcy, before, so knew his capabilities. John Yusko, who plays Mr. Collins, has studied accent quite a bit and he’s been our dialect coach for this play.”
Mr. Collins, a flatulent cleric, heir through cousinhood, and indiscriminate suitor is constantly stretching himself and touching others for doses of physical comedy that drew audience laughter.
Beverly Cutting is the wardrobe director and worked with 20 other volunteers to cut, sew and tailor multiple costumes for each character in Regency period fashions. The ladies are clad in dresses and mad for bonnets. The men gallivant in knee socks and breeches.
Characters dance stately maneuvers while they engage in intricately flirtatious banter, proving more surefooted in their foxtrots than certain about the intentions of their fellow partygoers, as the mannered comedy of errors frays and mends relationships.
“We’re an intimate, community theatre,” Zabaldo said. “We have 119 seats and we’re starting to see some sell-out nights, which is fantastic. We draw our talents from the community and we present to the community, and we’re also a community theatre because we impact for the better all these nonprofits and the individuals in the community these nonprofits support.”
Since its first curtain in 2022, Charitable Acts Theatre has experienced annual growth, sold more than 2,500 tickets and dedicated over $33,000 to local charities including the Wasatch Community Foundation, Community Action Food Bank and The Horse of Many Colors, a nonprofit that supports Heber Valley families affected by cancer. So far, they have staged one production each summer, including “Steel Magnolias,” “Arsenic and Old Lace,” and “Our Town.”
Zabaldo is the director of the stage productions and the charity.
“I thought of the idea several years ago,” Zabaldo said. “I know theatre is impactful on youth because I experienced that myself growing up in the theatre in Twin Falls, Idaho. I received an associate’s degree in theatre, then put it aside as I was raising my family. As my kids were getting older, we wanted to do more for the community.”
She considered starting a nonprofit in a focused area. Then, “as I researched each one, I realized there were already these amazing nonprofits that were helping out and they really needed support. I thought, ‘I love the theatre and community theatre is so powerful, so what if we extend that to financially helping all these other causes and groups?’” Zabaldo said.
In 2013, the Salt Lake City-based playwright Melissa Leilani Larson adapted Jane Austen’s 1813 novel for the stage, thanks to a commission from Brigham Young University honoring the “Pride and Prejudice’s” 200-year publication anniversary.
“I appreciate when a community theatre is going to take on a show like this,” Larson said. “It’s not an easy show to do. It’s a lot of text, you have dialects, you have costumes. All of this stuff has to happen, and it has to happen fast. It’s supposed to be a very fast show. It’s a challenge and I love that there are groups like Charitable Acts that are going to step up to the challenge.”
Diligent cultivation of community connections and local talent is situating the Charitable Acts Theatre for continuing contributions in this production run and beyond.
“We’re ramping up this coming year,” Zabaldo said. “Thanks to the Wasatch County Trails, Arts, and Parks grant, we have scheduled a fall production of ‘High School Musical,’ a one-act at the beginning of October at Midway Town Hall, and we also have a grant to start performing plays at the Ideal Playhouse on Main Street in Heber City, so around March of next year we will be producing ‘The Foreigner.’”
Tickets and more information are available at www.HeberCAT.org.
