Three potent Pimpernels at The Candlelight | John Moore | Arts & Entertainment

Why did it take 25 years for a Colorado theater firm to stage the flowery Broadway musical “The Scarlet Pimpernel”? Might be the sweeping story, the opulent interval costumes, the intricate stage fight, the advanced orchestrations.

Or, it might be they simply didn’t have actors on the degree of Patric Case, Sarah Forman and Scott Hurst Jr.

Fortunately, The Candlelight in Johnstown did. And people three potent Pimps are a significant purpose the first-ever Colorado staging of this largely unknown musical drew greater than 10,000 for slices of pie and a guillotine at Colorado’s largest surviving dinner theater, a 330-seat jewel situated 45 miles north of Denver in Johnstown.

“That’s a frickin’ miracle to me,” mentioned Music Director Jalyn Courtenay Webb, who has made it her private mission to convey the 1997 Broadway musical to a Colorado stage. “However as quickly as we had these three in place, we knew we had an excellent present.”

“The Scarlet Pimpernel” – assume “Zorro” meets “The Phantom of the Opera” – tells the story of a foppish (or is he?) Englishman who dons a masks to battle French revolutionary fanatics in the course of the Terror of Paris. The musical not solely requires three singers of unusual vocal capability in its main roles, but in addition actors able to layering their characters with nuance, layers and depth.

Enter Case as Sir Percival Blakeney, who pretends to be a dandy to hide his true identification because the fearless masked avenger of the more and more beheaded aristocracy. Enter Forman as his love curiosity, an actress named Marguerite St. Simply. And enter Hurst as Citizen Chauvelin, whose private ambitions require of him to unmask the phantom Pimpernel.

“After I consider these three, I feel how gloriously they meshed whereas additionally being extremely totally different in really feel, heat and elegance of expertise,” mentioned Director Steve Wilson.

Hurst, he says, “is an operatic prodigy, which served him brilliantly as Citizen Chauvelin.” Case “has a unique sort of voice – melodic and highly effective and distinctive, which served the character of Percy.” Case can be, Webb added, an basically gifted standup and bodily comic, which elevated the tone of the present as an entire.

And Forman, Wilson remarked, “is an underappreciated, dynamic, musical-theater powerhouse with a voice that may blow the roof off the place – which she did with a plethora of feelings that sealed the deal for the whole present.”

And behind the scenes, he mentioned of the trio, “they’re simply wonderful, superb human beings.”

It’s simply not widespread for a domestically staged present to come back via with rock-star performances from each main position. Which solely underscores the success of the present at each degree. Alex Miller, editor of the web site OnStage Colorado, referred to as it practically flawless, “with all its many shifting elements coming collectively fantastically to create a really satisfying night time on the theater.”

Coming (form of) out of COVID, scheduling an costly, unknown musical was a danger for The Candlelight. However whereas practically each different performing-arts group has been struggling to lure audiences again inside, 2022 has been a record-breaking yr for the 15-year-old dinner theater. Officers estimate Candlelight has carried out to 90 p.c capability in 2022, with general attendance topping 60,000.

Three Potent Pimpernels/At a look

• Patric Case, who grew up in Northglenn, attended Group Christian Excessive College and Liberty College, and has appeared extensively on the Aurora Fox, City Corridor Arts Middle, Arvada Middle and BDT Stage, the place he just lately starred as Patrick Star in “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

• Sarah Forman, initially from Virginia Seashore, attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and has been showing in exhibits at The Candlelight for six years, most just lately as Marie in “Cinderella.”

• Scott Hurst Jr., initially from Los Angeles, attended Iowa State, the Boston Conservatory and UCLA. He has appeared in 14 exhibits at The Candlelight, together with the title roles in “Jekyll & Hyde” and “Sweeney Todd.” He’s additionally a baritone opera singer.

Notice: The True West Awards, now of their twenty second yr, started because the Denver Publish Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater group by revisiting 30 of the most effective tales from the previous yr with out classes or nominations.