Fountain Hills Theater

A RESPECTED COMMUNITY FIXTURE CELEBRATES ITS 32ND SEASON

Attend any performance in the Fountain Hills Theater and you’re bound to pass an award-filled wall on your way to one of its two stages. The accolades come from the AriZoni Theater Awards of Excellence, an organization dedicated to recognizing excellence in theatrical performances statewide. “We have more awards than any other theater of our size,” Peter J. Hill, the Theater’s artistic and technical director, said of the more than 200 awards displayed. “Locally, we’re the busiest theater in the Valley.” Hill said the Theater produces a minimum of 15 productions each year, each needing its own cast, set, costumes, lighting and sound. “It’s the immediacy of it,” Hill said of live theater’s appeal. “It’s happening in front of you -- and it will never happen like that again. We often joke that we’re like race car driving. People don’t attend races to watch people turn left, they go to watch them crash.” Now in its 33rd season, Fountain Hills Theater also offers performing arts workshops and camps. A complete schedule of events is available on their website: www.fhtaz.org. Hill, a widely respected artist in the state of Arizona who has been with Fountain Hills Theater for 28 years, attributes the Theater’s success to the quality of the performances.

“We have a pretty good reputation so we get a lot of really terrific talent both locally and from across the Valley,” he said. “We cast the strongest people we can find. We don’t scrimp on sets and costumes. This is a great place to come and see shows. It’s a wonderful, surprisingly professional place to see live theater in a tiny corner of the Valley.”

Peter J. Hill as Don Quixote and Roy Hunt as Sancho Plaza in Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha.