This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
1942-2006
Sally Hale Rice, executive producer of West Valley City's Hale Centre Theatre, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer. She was 63.
As the daughter of Ruth and Nathan Hale, Rice was born into the family's theater business, which was launched when her parents began writing plays for LDS Church drama productions. Family members say Rice acted, directed or produced literally hundreds of plays at the family's Glendale, Calif., Orem, and South Salt Lake theaters, before the 1998 opening of the $8 million flagship Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley City.
A few notable roles include her turn as Mrs. Kirby, in Hale's August 2004 production of the classic comedy, "You Can't Take it With You," as well as parts in LDS films, such as "The Singles Ward" and "Sons of Provo," acting
alongside her son Will Swenson.
On Thursday, friends and relatives remembered Rice's creativity and ingenuity for the business of making art. "She was a grand lady," said longtime partner Sally Dietlein, remembering watching Rice, a longtime yoga practitioner, painting sets standing up, her body folded over in half to reach the floor. "Her ideas and sense of detail were in every show."
Then there was the time she was directing a show that her parents had written, with a plot that included an off-stage plane crash. "She thought it would be more fun to see it, so we all got together and made the fuselage of a plane," said son Swenson, still laughing at the memory of how his mother liked to create something out of nothing.
She applied that same joy as the mother of four, stepmother of three, and grandmother of eight, known among the family for the random questions - "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?" - she peppered through dinner conversations.
Like her mother and father before her, Rice taught her children that the opinion of Broadway ticket holders didn't matter any more than theatergoers back in Salt Lake City. "She was popular as a theater lady and a sweet, sweet pleasant person, but as a mom she was better, somebody who spoke with her kids, and cared about what we thought," said Swenson, a film and stage actor. "Over 100-plus productions in my little career, I can't think of one my mother missed. She would fly to see me in European tours, out-of-town tryouts and New York productions."
Rice's death prompted Jayne Luke, a longtime Salt Lake City director, actor and choreographer, to quote Stephen Sondheim: "All we leave is children and art." "Sally Hale left artistic children," Luke said, "and they do it with integrity. They seem to have the kind of graciousness that I felt so strongly in her. What a huge loss. This woman was not just a theater person. She was a magnificent human being."
Rice earned a degree in education from Brigham Young University, where she was named "Belle of the Y" in the early 1960s and traveled and performed with university programs, and then spent most of her life raising children while devoting herself to keeping the family business alive.
Perhaps no award meant more than the "Best of Utah" actor award she received last month. In her sick bed, when the acting medal was draped around her neck, the longtime props master and producer cried and said: "I thought no one had ever noticed," recalled Dietlein, her business partner.
Family members plan to establish the Sally Hale Rice endowment at the West Valley theater, and donations can be made by calling development director Brent Lang at 801-984-9000.
Her funeral is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the LDS Church's Mount Olympus 4th Ward, 4176 S. Adonis Drive (3930 East), Salt Lake City. A viewing will be held at 6 p.m. Friday at the McDougal Funeral Home, 4330 S. Redwood Road, and at 10:30 a.m. at the church. "If my theatre folks sing, it should be worth coming," Rice wrote, still marketing the show, in the unusual first-person obituary she penned during her illness.
As for her legacy, Rice wished for more theatergoers. "In lieu of flowers," the longtime theater artist wrote in the obituary published in Thursday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune, "go see a play at any Hale Centre Theatre. Laugh and cry and understand how valuable theatre is."