UNIVERSITY SIGNERS TO `ENCHANT' AUDIENCE

It is more than aptly named: "Some Enchanted Evening: The Songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein," the Southeast Missouri Touring Theatre 1993 production that will open tonight and next week begin a tour of seven towns in four states.

Performances of the musical revue tonight and Saturday night will begin at 8 in the Forrest H. Rose Theatre of the Grauel Language Arts Building.

Four singers and a pianist, all music majors, will present memorable selections from 11 of the favorite musicals of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II: Oklahoma (1943); State Fair (1945); Carousel (1945); Allegro (1947); South Pacific (1949); The King and I (1951); Me and Juliet (1953); Pipe Dream (1955); Cinderella (1957); Flower Drum Song (1958); and The Sound of Music (1959).

Dennis C. Seyer, associate professor of speech communication and theatre, is director and designer for the touring show, which is the fifth such enterprise undertaken by University Theatre to provide live summer entertainment for audiences in the university's area, as well as to introduce the university to prospective students.

Seyer's set, which must fit, along with lights and sound equipment, into a van for the tour, consists of two fluted "marble" columns, two "marble" benches, three "marble" blocks, five potted plants, and a draped piano ... effective for use in any of the varied locations the revue will be presented.

Ellen Seyer, also a member of the speech communication and theatre department, is musical director and choreographer for the smoothly blended revue.

Accompanied by highly skilled pianist Tim DePriest of Cape Girardeau, the four young singers are: Chris Hayes of Festus, baritone; Patti Miller-Hunt of Cape Girardeau, alto; Joshua Rhine of Mount Vernon, tenor; and Delisa Hedspeth of Puxico, soprano.

Their voices are of unmistakably good quality, most pleasing, although from time to time not quite strong enough to get as far past the proscenium as one would have liked in order to enjoy the full flavor of their songs.

This lack is more than made up, however, by their unabashed projection of personality and enjoyment of performing, whether in solo, duet, or as a company of the whole. The sparkle they bring to the music, which is certainly of an era far different from that in which they grew up, brings warm smiles and an almost irresistible temptation to hum along with the familiar but ever-fresh tunes.

The men are nicely tuxedoed, and the young women garbed simply in shades-of-rose formals made by costumer Diana Mays of Cape Girardeau ... entirely suitable to the quietly elegant set pieces but allowing for the audience's imagination to range from the brightness of Hayes and Hedspeth's "Surrey With the Fringe On Top" and Hayes and Rhine's "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" to the plaintive longing of Miller-Hunt's "Love Look Away" and Rhine's "Maria."

Miller-Hunt and Hedspeth do a rousing "I Enjoy Being a Girl," and Hayes and Rhine do an interesting interpretation of "A Puzzlement," which one usually remembers as a solo from "The King and I."

The finale for Act I is a delightful company combination of "Shall We Dance" and "It's a Grand Night for Singing."

And it will, indeed, be a grand night for singing (just as it is here) when the musical revue, with Brandon Nielson of Cape Girardeau as stage manager, is presented at Perryville, Hickman, Ky., Paris, Tenn., Ste. Genevieve, Dyersburg, Tenn., Malden, and Sesser, Ill.; several of these places have not been included in the itinerary of previous tours.

DePriest gets his special moment in the spotlight as an Entre'Acte at the start of Act II.

Act II's opening medley takes us to "Kansas City," "Bali Ha'i," and "Grand Avenue" that's a tour in itself!

In the closing medley, the company gives us "My Favorite Things," "Whistle a Happy Tune," "Happy Talk," "June Is Bustin' Out All Over," "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," "Lonely Goatherd," "Oklahoma," and "Some Enchanted Evening," moving ever so easily from tune to tune, mood to mood.

Even with so wide and delightful a repast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's marvelous menu, so impeccably served, one wishes for more but of course, it really is an "Enchanted Evening," and the enchantment of it all goes on and on as we all feel, with Rhine, "Younger Than Springtime" and memories keep reprising themselves in our heads and hearts.