I suppose operating a string of successful playhouses in Utah and Southern California teaches a theater company how to do a show right.

So it shouldn't have been any surprise that the Hale Centre Theatre the fifth theater in the Hale-Dietlein chain, nestled elegantly in Gilbert would put on a production as utterly wonderful as the Western comedy "Man With the Pointed Toes," making its Arizona premiere and running through Oct. 4.

It'd be hard to top the show in terms of bucks-for-yuks comedy quality. Husband-and-wife writers Lynn and Helen Root, along with director Allan Dietlein and a cast of inspired actors, woo the audience with a sweet opposites-attract romance while offering as many unabashed laughs as a TV sitcom.

The laughs are as big as the belt buckles.

In fact, "Green Acres" meets "The Beverly Hillbillies" is the plot for "Man With the Pointed Toes": It's 1980 in Texas, and young country stud Tom Coterel (played by Scottsdale Community College student Chad Krolczyk) has come into a lot of oil money. Naturally, a money-grubbing New York gal (Alaina Beauloye) soon schemes to charm him to the chapel. Poor, naive Tom immediately falls in love. While she's away, he hires a fancy schoolmistress to live with him and teach etiquette and elocution.

We know what teacher Florence Rains (Tamra Mathias) is up against as Tom tries reading aloud a poem by Robert Herrick:

"Git up, git up fer shame!/The bloomin' morn' . . ."

"Get up," Florence says. "You're not talking to your horse. You're reading beautiful poetry."

We also know, before intermission, that the point of this play is to get Tom and Florence together. Tom's trio of cowboy friends, as well as a hilarious Mexican butler (Toby Ambrose), grease the wheels of that love while the proper lady and her rugged student try to make sense of their hearts.

As the play's stars, Krolczyk and Mathias shine. His Tom is more than hunky; behind a macho goatee is an innocent, pinched smile and eyes that could charm the rattle off a snake. And Mathias' schoolmistress is a mix of Hayley Mills prim and young Judy Garland adorable.

"Man With the Pointed Toes" is the kind of show you take people otherwise theater-phobic to see.

The in-the-round Hale Centre Theatre is Disney-clean, plush and cozy, though try to get a seat higher up in the audience for this show: There's a Texas-size couch that threatens to block the view from one side of the room.

After all, why would you want to miss any bit of such a great show?

Man With the Pointed Toes
Where: Hale Centre Theatre, 50 W. Page Ave., Gilbert
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Through Oct. 4
How much: $9 to $14
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