Iron Door Playhouse

 May 4,5,7,11 and 12 at 7 p.m. the Iron Door Playhouse is scheduled to show the musical "Man of La Mancha." This musical is about Miguel Cervantes, an actor thrown into jail by the Spanish Inquisition where his life is threatened by his fellow inmates. To distract the inmates, Cervantes begins to put on a play and invites them to join him. Cervantes plays Don Quixote, a “mad” knight who is determined to fight the evil in the world.
“I really like the lesson that the story is trying to teach, hope,” said Christopher Austin, a cast member.
This will be the playhouse’s performance of the year. The Iron Door Playhouse hosts four productions each year, but only one musical. According to Mike Hess Jr., director, the Mother’s Day production is usually very popular, but not popular enough.
“This year we thought, instead of the standard drama, let’s do the musical and get more people in to see the play,” Hess said
“It’s new for us to do a musical for the Mother’s Day production,” said Scott Danielson, lighting and sound director. “This will be our big play of the year and the leads are all new.”
The play stars Matt Thomas as Don Quixote, Carissa Hess as Aldonza Lorenzo, Quixote’s love interest. These actors are both new to the Iron Door Playhouse.
“Neither of these actors have been in our productions before,” Danielson said. “They are amazing.”
“It’s nice to get new actors because they take advice much better than the veterans and they just do it,” Hess said.
Tryouts began in January. The scripts were ordered a month in advance to read through and get approved by all theater guild committee members.
“This play was one of the longest running broadway plays in the 70’s and 80’s so this is a classic,” Hess said. “It will be new for the younger generation. It’s not as popular as 'Phantom' or 'Wicked' but it’s new for a community that is probably not familiar with it.”
“Almost every play that we’ve done someone comes out and shines that you never knew before,” Danielson said. “It’s always exciting.”
The Iron Door Playhouse has shown about 85 productions in it’s lifetime. The playhouse opened about 21 years ago and has continued to grow ever since. Because Malad is such a small town, many of the actors are the same in each play.
“I like to be a different person and entertain people,” Hess said. “It’s interesting to be me all day and come to the theater guild and be someone else for a couple of hours.”
“It’s fun to go and learn to be someone else and apply your own personality to that person,” Austin said.