Mallory Hacker, 20, formerly of the Virginia Run community and now living in Arizona, has achieved her first leading role in “42nd Street,” a play about three different individuals all trying to accomplish a goal in one Broadway play. The play will open Sept. 7 for four weeks at the Fountain Hills Theater, Fountain Hills, AZ.
MALLORY PLAYS the part of Peggy Sawyer, a small-town girl from Allentown, Pa., who’s trying to land a role in the chorus. This is not Mallory’s first play however, she has been in productions since seventh grade at Stone Middle School and community theater that include “Annie Get your Gun,” “Kiss me Kate,” “Mame,” “Oklahoma,” “Music Man,” “Bye-Bye Birdie,” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
A dancer for over 17 years, she began as a tap dancer, and through out the years added Jazz, and even some ballet and lyrical (a form of ballet).
“I didn’t do the ballet for very long … I like to say I look like a jazz dancer doing ballet … I kind of stuck to the stuff I had fun with,” she says.
A student of Virginia Run Elementary school, as well as Stone Middle school, she moved to New York in 2000 at the beginning of her high school years, where her family is originally from.
While there she attended North Point High School on Long Island as a member of the class of 2005 before attending Arizona State University. Her parents Mary Ann and Peter Hacker moved out to Phoenix, AZ, with her, while her grandmother, Eva Hacker, still lives in Virginia Run.
Mallory describes them as, “… my pillar of support.” Starting her junior year at ASU, she’s continuing her pursuit of her BSA, yet still trying to figure out what she wants to use it for.
“I thought I knew what I wanted to do, now I see there are so many options, you could be a teacher, you could go to Broadway and be an actress, you could even be a voice actor, there are just so many options to consider it’s hard to know anymore,” says Mallory.
“If I had to pick my strengths it would go: singing, dancing, then acting. I probably haven’t gotten a chance to use my acting as much, and now I do. The order may change over time.”
WHEN IT COMES to her acting, she claims, “If the role is more demanding then it tends to be harder, I’m better at character roles … a character role is someone who has an extreme definition to their personality, like a valley girl, etc.”
As for her spare time, Mallory says, “My spare time is usually for theater … my mom is doing the costumes for the show so we’re very busy … I usually go see movies, go out to eat, I like to find new and interesting things to do. I love game nights and those classic cliché kind of things, because no one really does them anymore.”