'Almost Broadway!' to salute the 1940s at Caine Lyric April 15-16

Members and friends of Logan's First Presbyterian Church will stage their annual Almost Broadway! musical Friday and Saturday nights, April 15 and 16 at the Caine Lyric Theater in downtown Logan. Curtain is 7:30.

This is the first time the show will be presented two nights instead of one.

Until this week plans were to stage the program only on Saturday night, April 16. However, there was an unanticipated cancellation of an event at the Caine Lyric Theater on Friday night, April 15. The producers jumped at the chance to perform two shows, something the Presbyterian church has never attempted. Admission to the rollicking review is by free-will donation to a large glass pig at the door.

This year's theme is Your Hit Parade -- The Fabulous Forties. Some 75 costumed cast members and backstage volunteers -- roughly half of whom are USU students, staff, faculty or retired faculty -- will perform popular and Broadway hits from that musical decade. Among them will be songs from such major 1940s Broadway shows as Kiss Me Kate, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, This Is the Army, Carousel, and Annie Get Your Gun. The production will also present songs popularized over the radio -- especially on the weekly show Your Hit Parade -- and on 78-rpm recordings by such vocal legends as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, The Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitsgerald, The Mills Brothers, Helen Forrest, Jo Stafford, Dick Haymes, The Ink Spots and others who personified the era. Mairzy Doats, Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree, I'll Be Seeing You, I Don't Want to Set The World on Fire, Peg o' My Heart, Mr. Five By Five, Sentimental Journey, Don't Fence Me In, and Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby are among the hits to be heard. Forty young church members ranging from kindergarten to high school age -- and including Pastor Dave Hedgepeth as The Tin Man -- will perform a segment from The Wizard of Oz.

The show will be dedicated to seven veterans of World War II, or their widows, who are members of First Presbyterian, and who will be in the audience. The program will include cameo appearances by cast members emulating Franklin D. Roosevelt (and his dog, Fala), Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Grable, Winston Churchill, Kate Smith, Rosie the Riveter and Joe Dimaggio.

Proceeds from previous Almost Broadway! fund raisers have been used to buy hand bells for the church's Westminster Bell Choir, repair the building's roof and steeple, furnish Pastor Hedgepeth's office, provide shelter and food through a deacons' fund for needy Cache Valley people who have exhausted other resources, and to update equipment and furniture in youth meeting rooms. Donations from this year's production will go toward upgrading the church nursery with new paint, carpeting, windows, books, toys, furniture and other needs.

The first Almost Broadway! was presented in the church sanctuary and made nearly $900 in free-will donations. At last year's performance an enthusiastic Lyric Theater audience plunked more than $4,800 into the glass pig.

Co-producers are Evelyn Falk, Logan, and Tim Henney, Providence. Falk has a strong background in church music and leads First Presbyterian's chancel choir, which appears annually as the Almost Broadway! Chorus.

A retired elementary school teacher, Falk has sung with national touring choirs as a soloist. Under her direction the chorus sings medleys from famous Broadway musicals to open Acts I and II.

As a California collegian, Henney chaired student body "spring sings" in the mid-50s. In later decades, as a member of the office of the chairman, he organized corporate musical tributes at the New York City headquarters of the former AT & T, then parent firm of the erstwhile nationwide Bell Telephone System. He and his wife, Jacquelynn, lived in and around NYC for many years and became Broadway regulars in the 1950s.

Henney organizes and emcees the program.

Noting that the annual show has grown into a major local entertainment event, Falk said, "All seats were taken well before curtain time the last two years, so even though this year we will present shows on both Friday and Saturday nights, it still may be wise to arrive early."

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