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Home > Archive > Aug 2, 2007

Song and Dance at SunRiver
By Cami Cox
Staff Writer
Residents of SunRiver St. George, a local senior community, are dusting off their top hats, lacing up their tap shoes and warming up their vocal chords to take part in the new SunRiver St. George Senior Theater Company, a group of golden-years actors setting out to prove that you're never too old for theater.
“Hiding behind that white hair is a famous actor or actress,” SunRiver St. George Senior Theater Company Artistic Director Alfie Deming said. “When you get to a certain age, you end up running out of lead roles. So this is an attempt by the senior community to say, 'We're not dead yet! We still have a lot of spunk left!'”
Following what's become a national trend of senior theater companies forming across the country, Deming plans for his group to put on a variety of theatrical productions to entertain the St. George community, from musicals and melodramas to old-fashioned radio shows of the past, brought to life onstage.
“We want to provide a theater that brings back the morality, the family values and the wholesome entertainment that existed back in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s,” Deming said. “We want to create an environment that our seniors have been used to since they were kids.”
Because senior theater groups are becoming so popular nationwide, many theatrical shows are now being written especially for the 55-and-older group, Deming said. The plays are shorter than a typical three-act production would be and feature roles created with senior actors in mind. These types of plays will be among those featured at SunRiver.
“I think it's going to be a very fun opportunity,” Connie Zdunich, manager of the SunRiver St. George community center, said. “And Alfie said he can teach any of us to sing and dance, so we're waiting!”
In addition to putting on theatrical productions, the SunRiver St. George Senior Theater Company will sponsor classes and workshops for its members to help them hone skills such as memorization, developing characters, improvisation and auditioning.
“Ninety percent of the people who will be in our shows here have never been on the stage in their life,” Deming said. “They're people who said, 'I always wanted to try that,' and this is their opportunity.”
While many of the theater group's participants will fit into the novice category, there are also a number of SunRiver residents, such as Deming, who have performance backgrounds.
“We have a lot of talented people out here,” Zdunich said. “We've got a lot of really good dancers out here. We've got a few couples that have been professional dancers.”
“We have a group of ladies out here that do jazz dancing,” Deming said. “They do line dancing, they do ballroom dancing. All of those skills can be used in a show, so it's not that we have to now go train people how to do jazz dancing if we have a show that requires a vaudeville line. We've got people right here than can do it.”
Additionally, SunRiver has its own choral group, 40 members strong, known as the SunRiver Singers, from which musical talent can be pulled.
Artistic Director Deming has an extensive theater background. He moved to the St. George area with his wife in 2002, having recently finished a run with the Hale Center Theater in West Valley. After coming to Southern Utah, he was soon involved with St. George Musical Theater with his wife, Patti Deming, a professional costume designer. With SGMT, Alfie Deming portrayed such roles as Alfie Doolittle in the 2003 production of “My Fair Lady,” the Constable in “Fiddler on the Roof” and Herr Zeller in “The Sound of Music.” He was also stage manager for “The Sound of Music,” director of “Hasty Heart” in 2004 and casting director for “South Pacific” in 2005.
“I've had a lot of experience in other areas of the theater besides just acting,” Deming said. “I'm thrilled to be here. I'm thrilled to have this opportunity. We want to make this a fun experience.”
While the SunRiver St. George Senior Theater Company's shows will be primarily cast from among SunRiver's residents, community performers will occasionally be invited to take on roles and perform there, as well. All of the group's primary productions will be open to the public.
“We will do at least one major production a year,” Zdunich said.
Among plans Deming has for the theater, he hopes to reach out in service to the St. George community. Many senior theater groups across the country take their performances on the road, he said, entertaining at nursing homes and elementary schools in addition to their in-house shows. He hopes to do that with the SunRiver group at some future point.
“To show kids that grandmas can do this stuff, too!” said Deming, a retired Marine master gunnery sergeant.
The SunRiver St. George Senior Theater Company is just getting off the ground organizationally, but Deming hopes to begin performances sometime this fall. The shows will take place in the SunRiver community center's indoor theater, an upscale venue with accommodations for dinner theater, which the theater company also plans to do.
When the SunRiver community center was originally built, Zdunich said, the developer put in an ornate theater facility with a stage, but until now, it's been used very little.
“I'm excited to see that in use,” Zdunich said. “Everything is state-of-the-art.”

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