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There are people, one supposes, who wait all year to see Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Once on This Island, that cool-as-an-ocean-breeze tuner that turns up each summer like sunburns and triple-digit temperatures. This time out, the duo’s tropical love story — a multiple Tony nominee and the 1991 Olivier Award winner for Best Musical — is told by Mesa Encore Theatre. A cast of locals will — hey, jambo jambo! — sing and dance their way through this island fable of romance between a peasant girl and a rich boy she saves from death.
The production, filled with calypso and reggae rhythms and bursting with archetypal island characters plays at Mesa Arts Center’s Nesbitt/Elliott Playhouse.
June 4-5, 7 p.m.; Sun., June 6, 2 p.m.; June 10-12, 7 p.m.; Sun., June 13, 2 p.m., 2010
