Theater has long been a passion for Sandra Millet. For the past 20 years, she has been teaching drama at American Leadership Academy, and has recently embarked on her own adventure in community youth theater production.
“I was the crazy kid on the block who was always trying to do a play in my backyard and drag everybody into it,” she said. “I moved around a lot growing up, but I lived in Cedar City for five years, and got chosen for a part in the Utah Shakespeare Festival when I was 12. I thought I had died and gone to heaven, and it was kind of formative.”
Millet went on to attend BYU and said that the theater “just kept calling” her.
“I ended up with a double major in English and theater, and then I went back for a teaching degree,” she said. “I got to perform at BYU quite a bit and I loved it. I raised my family, and in 2006, I got the job at ALA when my youngest was starting kindergarten. I got hired to teach theater and French and speech and debate, and I’ve been here ever since.”
The dream of opening her own theater was long in the back of her mind, but it wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic when she and her daughters realized that the power of theater could really bring the community together.
“It has been a dream of mine for a really long time to have a theater group where we could do what we wanted and bring the community together,” she said. “During the pandemic when everybody felt so isolated, my oldest daughters and I really felt like it was important to keep theater going at ALA. With my administration’s blessing, I did as much as I could because the kids were so hungry for that connection.”
It was during that time when she and her family moved to Payson, and when they began the search for a place to start a youth community theater. They contacted Peteetneet Museum, and were able to get on the schedule. Halfpenny Theatre’s beginnings were small, with 20 kids in their first production of Aladdin Jr., but have been growing by leaps and bounds ever since.
“We decided we wanted to do some one week summer camps where the kids could come five or six hours a day in the summer and rehearse like crazy and perform at the end of it,” she said. “That first year of the summer camp, we did 101 Dalmatians, and then it really started growing faster than we expected it to. We’ve done a musical every school year and then this last summer we did four summer camps. We’ve also been doing an adult show, which is also part of the dream to utilize adults in the community and bring them together. We’ve also done an adult play or musical every summer and we’ve done those on the outdoor amphitheater stage at Peteetneet in the summer and that’s really fun.”
The theatre does one youth production during the summer and one in the spring, and has already held auditions for the production of The Little Mermaid that will be performed this coming March. Even with auditions complete, Millet said that those interested are always welcome to contact the theatre to see if there are openings. She also said that they do their best to make the program affordable so that all can have a chance to experience the joy that theater brings.
“We try to offer scholarships to anyone that really needs them,” she said. “I was a single mom when my kids were young and I understand that feeling of wanting to give your kids these experiences, but you can’t afford it. We do ask them to do what they can as far as volunteering to help out because there’s a million jobs in theater. We try to accept everyone and find them a place. We just feel strongly that theater is an antidote to a lot of the problems in society today.
It gets people connected. It helps them feel like they belong. And our kids need that right now.
Halfpenny Youth Theatre is a family owned theatre company in Payson that focuses on bringing “quality theatre education and experience to all those who are interested.”
For more information, go to halfpennyyouththeatre.org.
