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Swordfighting in a dress changes everything about how your character moves, says Heather McDonald, who plays Irish leader Grace O'Malley in Hale Centre Theatre's regional theater premiere of "The Pirate Queen."

Rare in the musical theater canon, the Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil musical showcases powerful female characters as it explores the 16th-century power struggles between Irish clan leader Gráinne (Grace) O'Malley and British Queen Elizabeth I.

The story spotlights the athleticism of actors who wear corsets and heavy skirts while swashbuckling about and hitting the notes of a lyric soprano.

"Weirdly enough, last night doing it in costume I found helped me settle into who Grace was," said McDonald, after the show's first dress rehearsal last week. "The corsets, because they are so tight, make me concentrate on my breathing."

Those boned corsets, which are also stuffed with two microphone packs, required that she draw upon the strength in her core to hit her highest notes. "I had to get my whole body engaged, and that helped me feel more aggressive," the actor said, adding that the feeling of the heavy skirts swirling around her ankles helped her attack her moves with "a lot more fire."

"It's the opposite of what I expected. The difficulty has helped me become a more conscious performer."

The company is betting that Utahns, who through the box office have voted Schönberg and Boublil's "Les Misérables" the state's favorite musical, will "reignite" this show, which played on Broadway in 2007 to scathing reviews. (Schönberg and Boublil are also the creators of 1989's "Miss Saigon" and 1996's "Martin Guerre.")

"Pirate Queen" is a "must-see show," thanks to its musical pedigree, proclaims HCT vice president Sally Dietlein in a press statement.

"I think the majority of Utah audiences always enjoy seeing something new," adds director David Tinney, Hale's associate artistic director. "And for those who might be a bit more timid about taking a chance on a new work, the music and the sung-through style of the storytelling will be very familiar to those who love 'Les Miz.' "

Setting aside the opinions of critics who complained that the overstuffed plot and bombastic score didn't forge an emotional connection with the audience during the show's Broadway run, Tinney says he didn't see that production, but found the script filled with moving moments. "It is definitely an epic plot, but at the heart of it is a story about family, community and the strength of this incredible woman," he says.

The Hale cast attended a swordfighting boot camp, led by fight choreographer Brad Schroeder, and learned Celtic dancing from former Riverdancer Alan Scariff.

Yet it is the director's emphasis on character and story that will set apart this production, according to McDonald. She adds: "It's about Grace and her family and her love and her duty."

And then there are those costumes: Some were special ordered from European costumers, while several of Queen Elizabeth's majestic gowns were rented from the Broadway production, including one dress that weighs 53 pounds, with a 7-foot train.

In the Monday-Wednesday-Friday cast, McDonald challenges the will of Brianna Gray, who plays Elizabeth. The costumes require what she refers to as "an army" of backstage dressers. "I had to reteach myself how to breathe because of the weight of the costume and the corsets," Gray says. "There's compression from all sides, that's for sure."

The history of fashion has been brutal to women, Tinney jokes. "Thankfully, with costuming, we can make adjustments to make things appear historically accurate, but allow for more movement."

The details of the costumes are worthy of a multimillion-dollar film, he says: "No expense was spared; every individual hand-sewn jewel, every fabric choice, the understructures — everything. They really could belong in a museum."

And there's the appeal of a score that bears similarities to Utahns' beloved "Les Miz." In early rehearsals, McDonald heard those similarities, but as the production has continued, she says she has been won over by the strength of the wide-ranging score for "The Pirate Queen."

The music includes recitative moments that land in sweeping melodies, similar to the style of "Les Miz'" score, says Rob Moffat, the show's music director, who worked with MT Pit, a local company, to record the orchestrations.

McDonald says she loves the staging for "Woman," her character's first major song, where she gets to run freely around the set's pirate ship, and it feels almost like flying.

Another highlight for her and Gray are duets such as "Woman to Woman" and "She Who Has All," when their characters realize each other's strengths. Moffat says the duets are catchy and well-positioned in telling the story. "Have you ever admired someone you wanted dead?" is one of the queen's striking lyrics.

"The music is amazing, the storyline is beautiful, and it kind of has everything, including a lot of kick-butt girl parts," Gray says. "You've got to love a show that has some amazing female lead parts."

The musical power of 'The Pirate Queen'

Hale Centre Theatre presents the romanticized story of the historic face-off between a 16th-century Irish clan leader and Queen Elizabeth I.

When • Mondays through Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday matinees, 12:30 and 4 p.m. (no Sunday shows); through April 2

Where • Hale Centre Theatre, 3333 S. Decker Lake Drive, West Valley City

Tickets • $32-$35 ($16 for children 5-11); 801-984-9000 or hct.org

Also • The HCT Applauds honoree for this show is Operation Underground Railroad, a nonprofit that works to end child slavery.