"The Princess and the Pea" was performed by 40 talented, shining stars from Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall's Child, Youth and School Services Aug. 19 at the JBM-HH Community Center.
"This ain't your grandma's 'Princess and the Pea,'" program notes stated. The description of the play was an understatement. The fun-filled performance tickled the fancy of the Family, friends and CYSS staff members who attended the musical and theatrical performance.
In conjunction with the Missoula Children's Theatre tour of residency, the JBM-HH kids auditioned for the roles the week before the performance with only a few days to rehearse and perfect their characters.
"Our reading theme for the summer was 'Your summer adventure begins with the turn of a page,' and the kids read books that were popular during parents' childhoods," said Ola Barnes, CYSS administrative assistant.
"Some of the kids were nervous they were going to forget their lines, but I told them to have fun. They're not being graded on it," said Annette Engum, School Knowledge, Inspiration, Experience and Skills director and Youth, Sports and Fitness director for CYSS.
The kids did not disappoint. For about an hour, the youth, from kindergarten through 10th grade, generated constant laughter from the audience. Included in the play were a few quirky musical numbers the kids sang a capella.
The quirky version of the play included a snow kingdom called Glacierdom, with winter wind workers, blizzard bringers, icicle sharpeners and snow smoothers as residents, ruled by the storm king, snow queen and prince looking for a proper princess to share the throne.
The Princess and her friend the Pea, live in the Kingdom of Riverdom, with her subjects, the flower gardeners, river runners, green shoot growers and tree barkers. Her parents, King Size and Queen Size do everything in their power to keep things running smoothly, including help from the dancing dust bunnies.
Despite both kingdoms thinking they have nothing in common, with the exception of a pesky Jack Frost freezing everything, the hilarious peace-loving leprechauns are out to prove otherwise.
Phony princesses added to the mix create a real fiasco to the quirky tales twists and turns.Under the direction of the traveling theatre's staff, other kids from CYSS had behind-the-scenes roles on the production team.
The performance was a rollicking good time.
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