Saturday, September 12, 1998

Two plays with religious themes premiere

By LORETTA FULTON

Senior Staff Writer

Religion is taking center stage at two theaters this week, with "a country-gospel musical" in Abilene and "an evangelistic drama" in Albany.

Albany's restored Aztec Theater will be the venue for "Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames" Sunday through Tuesday.

At Abilene Community Theater, director Bob Barton is staging "Smoke on the Mountain," a country-gospel musical beginning Thursday.

People who saw "Pump Boys and Dinettes" either at ACT several years ago or this summer at McMurry University will especially delight in "Smoke on the Mountain," Barton said.

One of the writers for "Pump Boys" did the musical arrangement for "Smoke on the Mountain," and the show has much the same flavor, Barton said.

Set in 1938 in the Baptist church in Mount Pleasant, N.C., "Smoke" uses a piano, bass fiddle and the very talented voices of some stage-savvy Abilenians to provide a delightful evening of entertainment.

Barton said he saw a condensed version of the play in competition and knew it was a winner.

"It sounded like it was something people here would get into," Barton said.

"Smoke on the Mountain" will be staged at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and again Sept. 24, 25, and 26 and Oct. 2-3.

Albany's production of "Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames" will show at 6:30 p.m. Sunday and at 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. It will feature a cast of 40 people from the Albany area under the direction of a team from Reality Outreach Ministries based in Ontario, Canada.

"Heaven's Gates" is a drama designed to make people aware of the necessity of considering their eternal destination. The first show was staged in 1979 and now 41 full-time teams work in North America and Europe recruiting area residents for the drama.

The show at Abilene Community Theater will lean more to the comedy-musical side and will feature Betty Hukill, director of the Paramount Theater, and Thom Lemmons, manager of the Abilene Christian University Press, as Vera and Burl Sanders of the Sanders Family.

ACU graduate Jared Redick plays the Rev. Mervin Oglethorpe, minister of a church that is lagging behind the times.

"He's trying to bring the church into the 20th century," said Barton, the show's director.

In a town whose sole industry is a pickle processing plant, that's a tough chore. So the minister, played by Redick, decides to bring in the Sanders Family from a nearby town to put some life into the dying church.

Originally the Sanders were known as the "Sanctified Sanders Singers" before Mama Sanders decided the name had too many "S's" making it sound "like snakes hissing."

The minister invites the Sanders for a Saturday night singing at the church in hopes that their piano, bass fiddle, and melodic voices can enliven things a bit. But those instruments of the devil put a scare into some of the local folks.

"It has some of the congregation scandalized," Barton said. "They think that might be just crossing the line."

To add to the "scandalization," the congregation knows that the family hasn't been singing for five years because of some unknown trouble.

"You don't really know why until the show gets going a little bit," Barton said.

The Sanders Family also includes local entertainer Doug Roysden as Uncle Stanley, Travis Dodson and Melissa Oden as 17-year-old twins Dennis and Denise and Nikki Kay as June, who developed her own brand of sign language.

"It's kind of like charades," Barton said. And even the fact that the congregation has no hearing-impaired members can't stop June.

"Mother says I need to practice," is her reason for continuing.

Barton promises an evening of delightful entertainment with some good gospel music such as "Bringing in the Sheaves," "Church in the Wildwood" and "Are You Washed in the Blood?"

The cast includes veterans from McMurry, Hardin-Simmons, ACU, and the Paramount Theater.

"It's a good show and a talented cast," Barton said. "It'll make you laugh and make you think."

Barton says the entire family will enjoy the production, with the audience getting into the act by serving as the congregation.

"Who knows, we might take up a collection," he joked.