But Denise Woodbury and her friends, Anne and Gavin Hutchinson, never got to see the musical from the front row. They never saw the show at all.

The reason: Woodbury uses a wheelchair and the Tuacahn Amphitheatre couldn't accommodate her on the front row. On this night, she would have to settle for the back row.

So the trio left.

"It was disgusting," recalls Anne Hutchinson, a physician at a South Ogden clinic. "We went from having the best seats in the house to being offered the worst."

Kevin Smith, chief operating officer of the Ivins-based Tuacahn Amphitheatre and Center for the Arts outside St. George, says he's sorry, but that the fire marshal won't allow wheelchairs on the front row.

"We are in a natural amphitheater and because we use pyrotechnics in some productions, [people] need to exit at the back," Smith says. "A person in a wheelchair could cause a problem [if there were an evacuation]. It's a matter of safety."

Todd Hohbein, deputy state fire marshal for southwestern Utah who inspects Tuacahn at least once a year, says it is not uncommon to have handicap access near exits.

“You don't want to have someone who needs to be pushed upstairs in a wheelchair to an exit if people are scrambling to get out,” he says.

Smith says the $23 million Tuacahn facility, which was completed in 1995, complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act by offering wheelchair seating in the center and back of the 2,000-seat theater.

He says he cannot comment on the specifics of Woodbury's experience, but adds that such cases usually boil down to a misunderstanding.

Woodbury and Anne Hutchinson will remember the experience as a nightmare. "It was extremely embarrassing," says Woodbury, who teaches finance at Southern Utah University.

She says the Hutchinsons drove from their Ogden home to take her to see the Sept. 24 performance of "Joseph."

Gavin Hutchinson had ordered the tickets in advance, Woodbury says, and was told there would be no problem seating her in her wheelchair along with the rest of the party on the front row - provided she could go down just a few steps. With the use of crutches, she says, that would have posed no problem.

Woodbury says she even phoned the box office before leaving Cedar City and was reassured her wheelchair could be accommodated on the front row.

But when the three arrived at the theater, they were informed they had to walk down 32 rows of seats to reach the front.

It might as well have been 32 miles.

"I suffered from Japanese encephalitis," Woodbury says, "and can't look down a slope without becoming violently ill."

As the group discussed its options with Tuacahn officials, a crowd was building at the entrance gate.

"The [house] manager asked us to move to the side and let others in," Woodbury says. "The gate that opens to let people in rolls on a track and the wheels of my wheelchair got stuck in the track. It was embarrassing, she [the manager] was shouting at us and there were people around, with some pulling their kids away."

Says Anne Hutchinson: "[The manager] said we were creating a scene and that we had to leave because she had paying customers to take care of."

Rather than be relegated to the back row, Woodbury and the Hutchinsons chose to leave. Tuacahn refunded their tickets - worth about $100.

Anne Hutchinson says she wrote a letter to Tuacahn's Smith and filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Justice Department alleging ADA violations but has yet to receive a response.

Patrick Going, director of the Colorado Springs-based Rocky Mountain Disability & Business Technical Assistance Center, says any post-1992 building with an assembly area should offer dispersed access throughout the facility.

"They said they want us back at the theater for a good experience," Woodbury says. "But I'll never go back."

mhavnes@sltrib.com