FUN Arts & Culture
Gypsy
Setting the Stage for
Maricopa by Blake Herzog
Western Pinal County’s largest theater company was born 12 years ago from Carrie Vargas’ “show must go on” ethos. An arts-focused academy she had been teaching folded just before its first production, The Importance of Being Earnest, was scheduled to debut. “In like two days’ time, I partnered up with the City and it went from being this School for the Arts show that it was going to be, and that’s when I founded Maricopa Community Theatre and we had our first show,” she says. The all-volunteer nonprofit has staged numerous musicals and plays, from The Music Man to Sweeney Todd, supported by ticket sales, sponsorships and a few donors. Current and former Maricopa residents, performers from the Phoenix and Casa Grande theater scenes, Central Arizona College students and others bring 106
G O L D E N C O R R I D O R L I V I N G | L AT E SU M MER 2022
their talents to the stage. Vargas and three more members of the board of directors trade off directorial duties with a handful of others in the community. The season typically consists of two musicals, one play, one kid-oriented show under the Maricopa Community Youth Theatre banner and one spun out of its summer youth camp program done in partnership with the City of Maricopa. The next show will be Aladdin Jr., featuring the summer program’s students, July 14 to July 17 at the Maricopa Community Center. Vargas says smaller productions are now staged in the recently opened community center, housed in the City’s former library, and larger musicals are hosted by Leading Edge Academy’s auditorium.
