Bring a handkerchief and an appetite. The Ideal Playhouse in Heber City is staging nine performances of “The Spitfire Grill” musical at 7 p.m. from April 24 to May 9.
Tickets for the two-hour, two-act show cost $22-32 and also entitle audiences to a 20% pre-show or next-day meal discount at production partner Chick’s Cafe down Main Street.
“The Spitfire Grill” began as a movie that won Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award in 1996. James Valq and Fred Alley adapted the story into an off-Broadway musical in 2001 with a folk and country soundtrack. Karyn and Steve Anderson, the owners of the Ideal Playhouse, serve as the show’s co-directors.
This is the sixth production the Andersons have directed since the Ideal’s 2024 opening, including “Big River” last fall. Steve heard players and critics recommending “The Spitfire Grill” as a natural pairing for the historic venue and saw their points when he read the script.
“It’s got some grit to it,” Anderson said. “There might be some teary moments. For me, it’s a story of love and forgiveness and moving on and enjoying the things you already have around you. From the ambience of the theater and the small-town kind of feel, it seems like a place that should do this story.”
Ashley Bates stars as Perchance “Percy” Talbot, a young woman free on parole who comes to fictional Gilead, Wisconsin, inspired by a photo she saw in a magazine. Sam Bennett plays sheriff Joe, who convinces Hannah, the Spitfire Grill’s widowed owner, played by Beth Knight, to offer Percy a job.
“I’m hoping that Heber will see this as a story they can relate to,” Anderson said. “I’ve had some family members go through similar experiences to characters in this story, so it’s kind of a personal journey for me as well. I wanted to see and feel what their experience was like restarting and moving to a small town to try to get away from all the distractions in the world.”
Yet small towns can have their own preoccupations. Percy’s presence causes a stir, and Effy, the busybody postmistress played by Robyn Laine, is a prime instigator. When Hannah falls and breaks a leg, she chooses inexperienced Percy to run the place over the protests of her nephew, Caleb, a laid-off quarry worker turned unsuccessful realtor played by Tyson Augustus.
“A lot of people in this story are kind of downtrodden, looking for some hope, some rebirth if you will,” Anderson said. “The go-to would be, let’s put this in the spring because that’s when everything restarts.”
Thankfully, Caleb’s wife, Shelby, a capable cook played by Jessica Theriault, joins Percy behind the grill, where the two women develop a friendship and hatch a plan to help Hannah finally sell the restaurant. Meanwhile, they are trying to discern the identity of another mysterious visitor, played by Brian Bevacqua, whom they see taking the loaf of bread Hannah requests they leave on a stump each night.
The immersive theater experience provides practical and projectional stage settings that should help audiences feel like they’re watching the restaurant action from a nearby booth.
“You’re going to feel like you came inside Chick’s Cafe,” Anderson said. “The stage setting is the diner, the grill, then all around you is this wooded forest field. It’s enchanting but simple. We talked last night that we don’t know if we’re going to do an actual blackout ever because we just want the audience to stay engrossed in the experience. There are some really poignant effects that will move audiences later in the show.”
Early songs include “Coffee Cups and Gossip” and “Into the Frying Pan” then segue into more poignant numbers like “The Colors of Paradise” and “Forgotten Lullaby.”
“It’s so powerful to me when we can weave music in with an elongated story,” Anderson said. “One thing that I’ve noticed, the music seems a bit discombobulated during the first third of the show. As this Percy character gets the chance to win over the town and listen and give people some hope, I found the music score becomes more cohesive and melodic. I don’t think that was an accident. Once things get better, the song in your head gets a little clearer and the melody in your head isn’t so abstract.”
The discounted meal at Chick’s, where Anderson’s favorite order is bacon, eggs and hotcakes, brings the story full circle.
“It will make it all four-dimensional for them, complete the experience,” Anderson said.
Tickets are available online at hebervalleyentertainment.com/events/spitfire-grill-24.