Des and Sara onstage

Beaumont Community Theatre became our Texas family during the seven years we lived there between Ireland and Utah. I don't have photos of every production, but some of our favorites:

Des had been in plays in Ireland before coming to teach at Lamar University. He also helped with stage managing Camelot, Music Man, and other shows. Sara helped with publicity. Des did perform a few times in plays after moving to Cedar City and was in the Utah Shakespeare Festival for one summer. His teaching duties made it hard to continue in theatre, but he continued performing music until Covid sidelined all of us.

Some of his favorite roles in Texas:

Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady

Starbuck in Rainmaker

Mr. Lundie in Brigadoon

Koko in Mikado (this was at the Orange Theatre, near Beaumont)

Priest in Hamlet (he also performed this role in Cedar City at SUU) 

Ghost in MacBeth

Sara's favorite roles were in Oldest Living Graduate playing a snarky small town woman with "big hair" and one of the ladies in Music Man

Midsummer Night's Dream

Priest in Romeo and Juliet

Flea in Her Ear

Koko in Mikado

Sara in Oldest Living Graduate

Sara was one of the ladies in Music Man

Camelot, Sara was in the chorus (front row, middle)

Des was wonderful as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady.  

"The love story is so shockling evident that when Desmond Penny as Professor Higgins sings "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," you don't see he how he can bear to enter his empty house (empty of Eliza that is). It's obvious he longers wants a woman to be more like a man. And, to get downright corny, the usually caustic gentleman tears at your heartstrings." wrote Lela Davis in the Beaumont Enterprise, 1982. 

Des is in the middle 3rd row up. Sara played violin in the pit orchestra, front 3rd from left.

Rehearsal