The Ute Players are bringing Ken Ludwig’s nine-time Tony-nominated farcical comedy, “Lend Me a Tenor,” to the Ute Theater. The new theatre troupe, headed by Wendy Tennis, who is directing and co-producing the production, along with Betsy Banks, who is also co-producing and stage managing, came to be after the success of three showings of “Rumors” at the Ute Theater last year with Aspen Community Theatre.
“We had designed [“Rumors”] specifically so that it could travel, and it was very successful at finding an audience here. It was evident after that experience to both [Banks] and I that the Rifle community was hungry for live theater,” Tennis said. “We [discovered] that by word of mouth from our actor friends that live in New Castle and Battlement Mesa and everywhere in between, and decided to start our own theater company.”
“We wanted to house it at the Ute … because we love, love, love the venue, and it just cries out for local theater,” she continued. “So we call ourselves Ute Players.”
Banks, whose husband, Michael Banks, will be appearing in this production as Tito Merelli, expressed how she is excited to bring this inaugural show to the stage and hopes that audiences will be drawn in by the comedy.
“Our goal is to grow community theater in Rifle and the surrounding areas. We’d like for people to come away with that sense of, ‘Oh, we needed a comedy,” Banks said. ”It’s a funny show and our actors are really good and they’re very comedic and talented.”
The comedy follows eight char-
acters as they navigate twists and
turns, mistaken identities and a myriad of other hijinks while pre-
paring for a grand operatic perfor-mance in Cleveland, Ohio, after Tito Merelli (Banks) is presumed dead following an intense argument with his wife, Maria.
The cast also includes Joshua Adamson (Max), Katherine Ayala-Arias (Maggie), Anson J. Hahn (Saunders), Blair A. Bracken (Maria), Sharon Brady (Julia), Mandy Frale (Diana) and Scott Elmore (the bellhop).
Bracken expressed her excitement for more theater opportunities. As a Colorado River Valley local, she shared that she ended up passing up a lot of opportunities due to most projects being based in areas such as Glenwood, Carbondale, Basalt and Aspen.
“I really wanted to be a part of ‘Rumors,’ [but], unfortunately, because of the schedule and how everything was kind of more upvalley, it was a little harder to get to, and I could not commit,” Bracken said. “Having [‘Lend Me a Tenor’] here in Rifle was a huge draw for me … When I looked into the show, my character, Maria, immediately stood out to me.”
Frale said gathering for a night of storytelling is pivotal to the foundation of community, humanity and sharing. Having worked in theater — from playwriting to costuming to professional cosplaying — Frale hopes to see more expansion of live theater.
“Theater and storytelling are so important. It’s this primal thing for humans. It goes back as far as we do, and there is a healing aspect to it,” Frale said. “Especially when COVID hit and theater kind of had to take a back seat for a long time, and, unfortunately, a lot of community theater companies didn’t survive that, and theater almost went away. Now that it’s coming back, that is so exciting to me.”
In a nutshell
What: “Lend Me a Tenor”
Who: Ute Players
Where: Ute Theater in Rifle
When: Nov. 6-15, Fridays & Saturdays at 7pm, Sundays at 2pm
Tickets: utetheater.com