Missouri Southern Theatre has paired up with the Show-Me Celebration Company to perform “Commedia Princess and the Pea” by Lane Riosley and Rebecca Le Byars.  

The play is directed by Missouri Southern’s Ann G. Lile and will be performed on April 23 and 24, 2016 at 2:30 p.m. in the Taylor Preforming Arts Center on campus.  

The performers are poor travelers who have made all their props and costumes from objects that they have found.  

“It is the classic Princess and the Pea story,” said Ann Lile, associate professor of theatre at Southern.

 “The spin is that it is told in a very Italian way where they used to preform stories from just an outline and they would improv everything,” Lile added.  

There are only four basic stock cast members that use a trunk to get their costumes and props from.  

Those people adapt and play every character in the story. 

“We’re going to set it in an abandoned court yard with houses and things,” Lile explained; so expect to see the performers “hanging out windows.”  

The target audience is mostly children, ages preschool through elementary school, but the comedy aspects, the sound effects, and the imaginativeness will draw in all ages.  

In reference to future plays at Missouri Southern in this style, Lile says that “this author wrote lots of them.  There’s probably about seven or eight of them that all have the same characters and are set up the same way.”  

The cast includes: Kelly Campbell, senior psychology major as Rosetta, Kendric Carlock, sophomore theatre major as Arlequin, Joshua Lee Pruss, freshman theatre major as Punchin, and Mollie Sanders, senior theatre major as Columbine.  

Carlock described the experience so far.

“[It is] nothing short of amazing being able to work with such an amazing cast and director,” Carolock said. 

“This will be my first Spring Children’s Show and I couldn’t choose a better group to work with,” Carolock added.

Admission is $3.00 for adults and $1.00 for children 12 and under.  

The Southern Theatre box office will be open Monday, April 18 through Friday, April 22, 2016. Box-office hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.  

Tickets are also available online starting April 18.