THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409160295
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: BY HENRY EDGAR, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
The Portsmouth Little Theatre kicks off its new season Friday with the musical ``Once Upon A Mattress.''
``Once Upon A Mattress'' is the first big, splashy musical the troupe has presented in several years, said Adam Ivey, who is directing the production.
Featured is a cast combining a number of regular Portsmouth performers with actors gathered from the entire Hampton Roads area, including several Churchland High students.
The show is a musical version of the classic fairy tale, ``The Princess and the Pea,'' but Ivey explains ``The premise in this edition is that this is the real version. The fairy tale is just a sugar-coated story somebody made up, but this is the real story. Princess Winifred, in our show, is about as far from being a standard princess as you can get. She's a tomboy and outspoken and aggressive. When the queen sees her, she just goes berserk. But she has to give her the test, the test of the pea under the mattresses, and of course, she passes, proving she really is a real princess.''
Her whole character is perhaps best summed up in a comic song the prince sings, ``I'm in Love with a Girl Named Fred.''
Ivey points out that ``Once Upon A Mattress'' was the Broadway show that brought stardom to the then-unknown comedienne Carol Burnett. ``That's the best way to describe Princess Winifred,'' she says. ``Think Carol Burnett. Think of the show as one long sketch on `The Carol Burnett Show,' and that gives you an idea of what it's like.''
Ivey's excited about Jamie Bender, featured on the Portsmouth Little Theatre stage last season, who has the challenge of bringing Winifred to life in this production.
``She's about as perfect for the role as you can get. She's wonderful. And the way she belts out the songs . . .''
This is the second time the Portsmouth Little Theatre has offered ``Once Upon A Mattress,'' bringing the show back ``because we were thinking it was time to do another big musical and this show is so much fun and it has so much of the bawdy-type humor our audiences seem to like it so much.''
For Ivey, the biggest challenge in directing his first musical is ``getting all those bodies up there on stage and moving them around.''
He's quick to praise the contributions of vocal director Craig Robertson, choral teacher at Churchland, who has made the show a special project for his students, and choreographer Gwen Spear Meng, a dance instructor at Old Dominion University.
``One of the neatest things about the show is that we have this large cast of about 25 people and we have this honest-to-God choreographer,'' he says. There are a lot of production numbers and it's really exciting to see all these polished production numbers that are really moving.
``I think the high point of the show is going to be this series of production numbers that build on each other at the end of the first act. We're going to have choreography at a level most community theaters never see. And the show is just so much fun. That's always been our goal with the Portsmouth Little Theatre, to do shows that are a lot of fun for the audience.''
The show also features Brian Bender, the lead actress' husband, Cybil Macbeth, Larry Patterson and Alice Everhart. Ivey also will appear in the show, briefly.
A graduate of the College of William and Mary, Ivey teaches at The Pines Residential Treatment Center during the day. Ivey also works weekends at a local convenience store.
And he still does ``as many shows as I can squeeze into my schedule,'' sometimes as many as four in one season. ILLUSTRATION: AT A GLANCE
``Once Upon A Mattress'' opens at 8 p.m. Friday in the Wilson
High School theater, which is located at 1401 Elmhurst Lane.
Additional performances are scheduled at 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m.
Sept. 25; and 8 p.m. Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 7 and 8 and 2 p.m. Oct. 9.
Tickets, available from cast members and at the door, are $8 for
adults, $7 for students and senior citizens.``Once Upon A Mattress''
opens at 8 p.m. Friday in the Wilson High School theater, which is
located at 1401 Elmhurst Lane. Additional performances are scheduled
at 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sept. 25; and 8 p.m. Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 7
and 8 and 2 p.m. Oct. 9. Tickets, available from cast members and at
the door, are $8 for adults, $7 for students and senior citizens.
by CNB