Mountain Ridge High School theater teacher Sydney Southwick chose this year’s fall musical based on the students’ skill sets.

“These students are so funny that I wanted to do a comedy because they’re hilarious and watching them do it is so much fun,” Southwick said. “The students are just so creative and so funny, and I love seeing the choices that they make. They are so creative in coming up with how their character should act and things like that. They are so creative and fun to be around.” 

The storyline of “Once Upon a Mattress” is, as one senior explained, “an unhinged ‘Princess and the Pea.’”

“We guarantee you'll laugh a ton,” she said. “I’m laughing while I’m on stage, there’s no way you can’t be laughing in the audience.”

One of the funniest characters doesn’t have any lines.

“There is a lot of physical comedy going on, thanks to our king,” a student said. “He is a mute character, so he can't speak, and so he's doing all of his lines through actions.”

The king, played by a sophomore, relies on hilarious games of charades and silly bouts of pantomime to get the other characters to guess what he is trying to communicate.

“It's a challenge as an actor, because one of the main tools you have to convey the story is just completely out of your disposal, but it makes you realize how much more fun you can have with physicality,” the student playing the role of the king said. “I feel like a totally mute scene, but with a lot of acting, would be more fun than a speaking but no acting scene.”

All the movement makes the scenes more alive and makes the show more entertaining for him and for audience members, said one student. “This whole musical is just about having fun, that’s the most important thing,” he said.

Students have had fun together, developing their characters and interacting in their roles.

“I hope that the actual chemistry that is behind-the-scenes can be perpetrated into the audience to feel the connection between every character,” a student said.

Audiences will see the cast of 60 embracing the playful nature of the show with the on-stage games of duck-duck-goose, charades and pretend-play which are part of the script.

“The children are going to enjoy this one,” the stage manager said. “It's been very centered around childhood humor, like kids playing dress up in the backyard.” 

 He said the message of the show is to not take life too seriously and to learn to continue to be a child. And while the high school students have fun on stage, they take their responsibilities in the show seriously. In this student-led production, the lights, sets, props, costumes, sound and stage crew and stage management are all responsibilities of individual students. λ