By DELANEE BOGAN AND TYLER PATRICK
When one takes a classic fairytale like The Princess and the Pea and combines it with modern society, one is given an adventure like no other.
On April 12, the drama department will premier its production of Once Upon a Mattress.
The drama department’s director Steve MacKinnon, who comes in to help with productions, had the idea to make the play modern.
To modernize the musical, the castle resembles a rock concert. There is a scaffolding, cast iron for the walls and PBC pipes.
“I think [making the play modern] will add a good modern touch to it and it will draw more crowds since the show isn’t that well known,” senior Alicia Kent, stage manager, said.
Costumes for the play also help contribute to the modern aspect the cast is going for.
Prince Dauntless, played by junior Caleb Roche, wears a hoodie and balloon pants with Converse, which adds a contemporary touch to his royal costume. Characters will use cell phones as a modern element to the play.
However, despite the present-day touches, the cast will still resemble aristocracy with brightly colored dresses and knight costumes.
The cast rehearses four to five days a week for three hours to prepare for the show. During this time they dance, sing, set-block around the stage and rehearse their lines with each other.
“Rehearsal helps keep me on pitch. Without it, we would be horrible. It really helps us get to workshop our characters and get to know them,” senior Veronica Kelly, Princess Winifred, said.
The play features five main characters and four comic relief characters, with an ensemble cast of 18.
In The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Alderson, a young prince must marry a real princess, meaning she is of royal blood. One night, a young girl arrives during a storm asking for a place to stay, claiming she is indeed a “real princess” despite her appearance from the rain.
In an attempt to test the young girl’s royal status, the queen secretly hides a single pea underneath the bedstead. She then piles 20 mattresses and 20 feather beds on top of one another. According to the queen, any “real princess” would feel discomfort from even a tiny pea underneath her mattress.
The following morning the queen asks the princess how she slept, and when she replies that she slept awful on some “hard lump” all night, she proves that she is in fact a princess and she then is able to marry the prince.
However, this vision is not the typical Princess and the Pea story people know. It dives deeper into the stories of other characters and adds comic relief to the fairytale.
The musical takes a different spin on the classic princess. Princess Winifred the Wobegon is known as the Princess from the Swamps, which makes the queen doubt her royal status.
In the beginning of the play, Princess Winifred swims through the castle moats to get inside. Once in, she is harassed by Queen Aggravain, and the princess plays up her awkward nature by singing the song “Shy.”
Other elements of classic fairytales appear in the show by including the three princesses Snow White, Cinderella and Rapunzel.
The show features a lot of innuendos that help appeal to an adult audience viewing the production.
In the song “Man to Man Talk,” King Sextimus, played by senior Jackson Upperco, who can not speak, pantomimes to his son Prince Dauntless about the “birds and the bees.”
“It literally is about the birds and the bees, it features a lot of innuendos, the song is really funny and easy to sing,” Roche said.
Other songs that accompany the musical help blend different styles of music like classic Broadway, Latin and hip-hop.
The play uses light cues, hazers and a fog machine as a way to add special effects and transition between scenes. LED lights are used to help give a rock concert feel to the show.
“I hope that [Once Upon a Mattress] will make money, people will enjoy it and support the play, the students involved will grow from the experience and parents will be proud,” drama teacher Tiffany Weagly said.
Once Upon a Mattress will show in the auditorium on April 12 – 14 at 7 p.m. and on April 14 at 2 p.m. Children under five are free. The matinee show on April 14 features $8 tickets for students and senior citizens.
//