`SOME ENCHANTED EVENING': SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY TOURING THEATRE PRESENTS ROGERS & HAMMERSTEIN MUSICAL REVUE

Song titles by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II conjure up a cockeyed-optimist, pre-feminist version of America, where "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" wasn't corny and "There is Nothing Like a Dame" wasn't sexist. R&H, whose teaming produced two Pulitzer Prizes, also are responsible for some of the classic songs of American musical theater.

The Southeast Missouri State University Touring Theatre is about to take a bundle of R&H's musical Americana on the road, but before they do they'll entertain audiences tonight and Saturday night at the Rose Theatre on campus.

The one-hour, 40-minute musical revue, "Some enchanted Evening: The Songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein," will be presented at 8 both nights. Tickets are $3 and $5 and will be available one hour before show time.

The husband and wife team of Dennis and Ellen Seyer have collaborated on the musical revue, he serving as director and designer, she providing the musical direction and choreography.

Both teach in the department of speech communication and theatre at the university.

They have intertwined the songs "The Gentleman is a Dope" follows "There is Nothing Like a Dame" in a two-act format that presents 45 tunes. Included are familiar showpieces from "Oklahoma," "South Pacific," "The King and I" and "The Sound of Music."

Those who come to hear "My Favorite Things," "If I Loved You," the revue's title song, or "It Might as Well Be Spring" won't be disappointed.

The Seyers also have gleaned some lesser-known songs "A Puzzlement" or "Lonely Room," for instance from the R&H oeuvre, which also includes such less-successful musicals as "Me and Juliet" and "Pipe Dream."

"It's all the favorites and maybe some new favorites," Dennis Seyer says. "We wanted people to come to the theater and simply enjoy it."

The company consists of Chris Hayes, Patti Miller-Hunt, Joshua Rhine and Delisa Hedspeth. Tim DePriest, a graduate of Cape Girardeau Central High School, is the accompanist.

Hayes is from Festus, Rhine from Mt. Vernon, Ill., and Hedspeth from Puxico.

Miller-Hunt, a senior, lives in Cape Girardeau and is president of the College Music Educators National Conference Chapter.

All members of the company are music majors at the university.

Brandon Nielson, the company's stage manager-technician, also went to Cape Central, graduating in 1992.

In the production, the women wear satin evening gowns, the men tuxedos, and in various combinations they sing the R&H songs before a set of mock-marble columns and benches and ferny plants.

After the two-night stand in Cape Girardeau, the touring theater will pack the set, lights and sound equipment into a van and head for Perryville on June 2. They'll perform there at the American Legion Hall.

The next night they will perform on an elementary school stage in Hickman, Ky., followed by two nights as the dinner theater entertainment in a Paris, Tenn., Elks Lodge.

On June 6 they play the Orris Theatre, a converted movie house, in Ste. Genevieve. After a night off, they're at the Dyersburg State Community College in Dyersburg, Tenn., followed the next night by a performance at Bootheel Education Center in Malden.

The final performance on June 10 will be at the Sesser Opera House in Sesser, Ill.