St. George Musical Theater Seeks Public Support For Expansion And New Theater

St. George Musical Theater has some big plans to expand their community theater in Southern Utah, and they need your help to make it happen.

SGMT will host two benefit concerts on February 10 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the Hafen Theater at Tuacahn to raise money for their new theater which is expected to be completed in 2025. On top of the new theater, they plan to remodel the abandoned Cinema 6 movie theater, which sits right across the street from the new building on Main Street.

First, let’s talk about what you can expect from the benefit concert. World renowned Irish tenor Emmet Cahill from the performing group Celtic Thunder will be featured along with award-winning soprano Lisa Hopkins Seegmiller who is no stranger to the Southern Utah community theater scene.

Bruce Bennett, the president and artistic director of SGMT, said the featured artists will perform various love songs just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Bennett said, “The focus is going to be on romantic songs, Irish songs, considering the Valentine’s Day theme, right? There will be beloved classics and some new songs too. They’ve got a whole setlist, it’s going to be just great. We want an easy event that people can just go to sit back and just be entertained by these amazing performers.”

Bennett said these types of events help secure the future of SGMT, especially since there is so much to do over the next 18 months.

Bennett said, “This is just another way of presenting something that patrons will find enjoyable, maybe reach new patrons, and make them aware of what we’re doing and, you know, raise funds, but also increasing awareness about the brand and theater we’re building, and of course, the theater we’re remodeling across the street.”

Let’s move on to the remodeling of Cinema 6. Bennett said the goal of remodeling the abandoned movie theater is to provide more spaces for the arts to thrive in Southern Utah and could also be used for musicals of smaller scale.

Bennett said, “We are remodeling those six auditoriums in order to support other activities, tribute concerts, smaller musicals, and youth programs along with rental space for other community artists and organizations. It’s an ambitious project, but it’s literally across the street from the new theater, so we thought this would be a great opportunity to create even more artistic space in the community.”

Each of the six auditoriums will have 180 seats while the new theater being built from the ground up will have a 380-seat theater-in-the-round.

If you’d like to support SGMT in their future endeavors, you can purchase tickets to one of the benefit concerts on February 10 by clicking on this link or by calling 435-628-8755.