not brought Salt Lake City's "gentile, liberal" community and the suburbs' "devout, Republican Mormons" into one theater. But no one can deny the near cultlike following it has developed over more than two decades  even if it requires a rotating cast of characters that, this year at least, lobs arrows toward the mayor and his sibling.

"My brother Bill says the appetite for overcooked French musical melodramas in Utah is still huge," says Baigue, playing the mayor's alleged naiveté to its dramatic hilt.

"If SLAC wants to put me in a script, that's fine," Bill Becker says. "I've got thicker skin than that, but there's probably a point at which you could prick me."

Until UPAC is built and proves its success, the mayor's brother may have to endure manywere also surprised at how well people responded to the steep ticket prices, which climbed as high as $120.

"We learned the community would rather be in a 2,500-plus seat venue and pay $80 to $100," he says, "than be in a hockey arena and pay less."

Ted Conner, vice president of economic development for the Durham Chamber of Commerce, says maintaining a private operator and promoter for the venue was crucial to its success. Durham owns the $48 million center, contracting with New York City's for-profit Nederlander Producing Company of America to book shows. The city shares in the profits, Conner says, and received a $400,000 check after the venue's first year.

Not everyone ended up a winner. Raleigh's Memorial Hall, Greenwald says, had to "seriously retrench" its own series