Former Centreville resident Mallory Hacker, 21, is starring as the lead as Millie Dillmount in the musical, "Thoroughly Modern Millie" in Fountain Hills, Ariz., Fountain Hills community theater. The show runs Jan. 15-Feb. 8.
"It's about a small-town girl from Kansas who moves to Manhattan to marry a millionaire, but she ends up falling in love with someone else who she didn't plan," says Mallory. The movie version starred Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing.
A senior at Arizona State University, Mallory is working on her B.A. in theater education and plans to pursue her MFA when she graduates in May.
"I think what I like most about acting is the ability to play something else that's not yourself," she says. "…The ability to explore something new and different."
She says her biggest challenge is the actual singing. "It's very demanding," she says. "There are a lot of songs that have a lot of emotion and power in them."
Originally from New York, Mallory moved to Centreville when she was 1. She is the daughter of Mary Ann and Peter Hacker. While living here, she attended Followspot Theater Camp at Ormond Stone Middle School. She also danced with Centreville Dance Studio, Bright Lights Dance Studio and Creative Dance Center in Chantilly. The family moved out of Virginia Run in 2000.
Last year, she played the lead role of Peggy Sawyer in "42nd Street." She won a Prism Award for Best Actress in a Musical and was nominated for an AriZoni Award (a version of the Tony).
The show opens Jan. 15 and closes Feb. 8. Showtimes are Sundays at 2 p.m., and Thur.-Sat. 8 p.m. at Fountain Hills Community Theaters in Fountain Hills, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix. For more, go to the theater's web site, www.fhct.org.