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Fifth TUTS for Carney grad

You're prone to injury if you're an Angel.

You're prone to injury if you're an Angel.

Just ask Shannon Hanbury, a recent graduate of Port Coquitlam's Archbishop Carney regional high school who's cast as one of four of Reno's Angels in this summer's blockbuster musical Anything Goes, a Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS) production at the Stanley Park Malkin Bowl.

Since it opened - coincidentally on Hanbury's 18th birthday - on July 13, two Angels have had to drop out for a short time to recover.

And because of their temporary absences, "we've had to change the show around until they get back," Hanbury said, "so it puts a lot of pressure on us. It's a lot of teamwork: We have to rely on each other and trust each other to know that we're still going to get it done."

"We also have to make sure we take care of ourselves and each other," she added.

Luckily, Hanbury knows the other Angels well: she has been in a number of TUTS shows with Linzi Voth, in TUTS' Thoroughly Modern Millie with Maddeleine Suddaby and, as a young student at Coquitlam's Lindbjerg Academy of Performing Arts, with Angela King.

As well, all four Angels were in The Will Rogers Follies, a Royal City Musical Theatre event that ran in April in New Westminster.

Despite their misfortunes, "being an Angel is totally fun. We get a really long dance number," said Hanbury, whois the great-great-granddaughter of William and Marion Malkin, for which the Malkin Bowl is named, and has performed in five TUTS shows to date.

This year alone, Cole Porter's Anything Goes has seen a phenomenal revival.

The Broadway production garnered 2011 Tony awards for best revival, best choreography and, best actress in a musical role for Sutton Foster, who plays Reno Sweeney. That show was originally slated to end on Sunday but it will now run past its already-extended January 2012 end date.

The TUTS production, which is directed by Sarah Rodgers and choreographed by Dayna Tekatch, has won high praise from critics, too.

Still, though Hanbury is relishing her role as Purity, it may be the last time she hits the Malkin stage - at least for a while.

In September, she's off to Los Angeles to start her bachelor's of fine arts degree at the world-renownedAmerican Musical and Dramatic Academy.

And next summer, Hanbury plans to be part of a touring company or a major show in the United States "so I may not be able to make it onto TUTS, which is really sad because I love TUTS. But, something may happen. There's no doubt in my mind that I would come back for it."

jwarren@tricitynews.com