By Brittany Karford
When Sydney Riggs directed plays at the Hale Center Theater in Orem, she would always say, ?We have to tell the story.?
Riggs passed away from a pulmonary embolism Friday, and now those who knew her best look to tell hers.
?We can?t even begin,? said Linda Hale, co-owner of Hale Center Theatre. ?She was brilliant, caring, loving ? artistic like no other.?
Riggs leaves her current production, ?Brigadoon,? which runs through July 18, and had ?Disney?s Beauty and the Beast? on the docket for this fall.
?You can?t replace a Sydney Riggs,? Hale said between tears. ?She will leave us with an empty space.?
Riggs taught theater at Orem High School and has directed at Hale practically since it opened 15 years ago, doing four or five shows a year.
?She would have one in production, one in rehearsal and one in audition,? Hale said. ?She never slept ? she would just go.?
Auditions for Hale?s special fall engagement of ?Beauty and the Beast? were scheduled for Saturday. Now, under what Riggs had envisioned, the theater plans to continue just as ?Syd? would have.
?We know what she wants and we?re going to try our hardest to do the show how she wanted it done,? Hale said.
A new director for the production has not yet been selected.
BreAnne Folkman, an actress at Hale, still plans to audition for ?Beauty and the Beast,? although she said it wouldn?t be the same without Riggs at the helm. In the four years she known Riggs, she participated in 20 of her productions.
?When I heard , I wasn?t sure I wanted to do it anymore,? Folkman said. ?We used to say that every show she did was ?Syd magic.? Now I want to do that show for her.?
A 2004 graduate of Orem High School, Folkman took theater from Riggs. The news of her death shook students, even those from several years past.
?She always told us to create memories,? Folkman said. ?She?d come backstage and say, ?Take in what you hear, taste, smell and see ? make a memory of this.??
Folkman said she was more than a teacher to her students ? she was a mentor, friend and mother.
Even on the night of her death, just hours before she passed away, she was checking up on her actors, calling Linda Hale?s son, who was ill.
Those who worked with Riggs filled the entire Hale theatre Sunday night for a memorial in her honor.
Her death was sudden and unexpected. A blood clot, likely stemming from a foot injury that had confined her to a wheelchair, stopped her heart.
?It was a fast, dramatic exit,? Hale said. ?She always liked fast, dramatic exits.?