Marshalltown High School is getting ready to entertain the town with their production of “Once Upon a Mattress,” a musical rendition of the classic fairytale “The Princess and the Pea.”

A cast of approximately 30 teens and 10 crew members have been working on the musical for over a month, alongside co-directors and MHS teachers Theresa Theis and Amy Ose, and with opening night less than a week away, everyone is working out the final details to put on a good show.

“Once Upon a Mattress” is based on the book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller and Marshall Barer, with the lyrics written by Barer and the music composed by Mary Rodgers. This musical follows Princess Winnifred, an ungainly, brash girl who is competing for the hand of Prince Dauntless. Queen Aggravain, the prince’s mother, insists he must marry a true princess before anyone else in the kingdom can marry.

Theis said this play has been done many times by different theatre groups and she is impressed with the vast array of students who chose to get involved with the MHS production.

“We’ve got a lot of interesting people. We’ve got people that are out for drama that have never been out for drama before, and it’s a great experience to kind of watch them come together from all kinds of different areas,” Theis said.

Students who participate in other extracurriculars, like football, cross country, swim team and more are involved in the show, and Theis said working with all the different schedules of the large cast can prove challenging at times. In addition to that, this show is the first production Theis has directed in 15 years, so sitting back in the director’s chair has been an adjustment as well, but challenges aside, she’s excited to see students trying out so many different things.

Theis said getting to see teens experience what it’s like to be both an athlete and an actor and experience the “creative life” is very rewarding, despite having to work through the different challenges. Theis has been involved in the Marshalltown Community Theatre as well, and she found her experiences with MCT helped her as a director.

“Doing community theatre like I have, and being on the stage and directing is completely different, but I then get to empathize with the actors,” Theis said. “Lots of challenges, but very rewarding and I absolutely love it.”

T-R PHOTO BY SUSANNA MEYER — Marshalltown High School will be putting on a production of “Once Upon a Mattress” next weekend, and the large group of cast and crew members, pictured at top, have been hard at work for over a month to prepare for the musical rendition of the “Princess and the Pea” fairytale.

Theis said she has helped a lot with the blocking of the show, and Ose, who is a vocal music teacher at MHS, has focused more on directing the musical numbers. This is the first full length musical presented by MHS since fall 2019, which was just before the onset of the pandemic. Ose said that remembering all the necessary steps to putting on a full-blown musical after a three-year hiatus has definitely been challenging, but nonetheless, it’s been a good experience.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Ose said. “I’ve done a lot of musicals here at MHS, this one doesn’t have quite as many part splits, which is nice, because it made the music just a little more accessible for us right off the bat and the kids seemed to take to it really, really quickly. I mean, within the first couple of weeks we were sounding great.”

Ose said there are some “really interesting rhythms” in the play, and certain songs have been more difficult to master than others, like the song that introduces the second act which Ose classified as more of a chant than a song.

“I think the most challenging song is the opening of act two, where there’s really not any — there’s very little accompaniment. If I add up the number of measures that the pit orchestra plays, it’s maybe 15. The rest of it is all rhythmically created by the singers,” Ose said. “It’s made it a harder piece to learn because it’s not a song, it’s a chant that then just evolves into stomping and clapping and snapping and timing.”

About 15 students from both the MHS string orchestra program as well the MHS band program will be playing accompaniment during the show, which Ose is excited about because not all high schools have the ability to have a live orchestra backing up their on-stage performers.

T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Science teacher Theresa Theis and vocal music teacher Amy Ose are co-directing the musical. At bottom, vocal music teacher Amy Ose directs some of the “Once Upon a Mattress” cast members in one of the opening musical scenes.

She said with some exceptions, MHS has always used a live orchestra to accompany their shows, and she’s glad that’s the case so they don’t have to rely on recordings to accompany the performance, even if recordings have come a long way over the years.

A large projector screen will be used to change the backdrop quickly, and Theis has largely been in charge of building the sets and props. Ose said both she and Theis got to make the trip to Party Productions in Fort Dodge to choose costumes to rent for the show, and everyone is eager to be in costume.

“It’s a much more authentic production when we can have our actors in costumes that are true to the time period, and it helps put them in character and make it a little better for them,” Theis said.

Both the directors and students are looking forward to the debut show, and opening night is Friday at 7 p.m. and the second performance will be on Saturday, also at 7 p.m. Both performances will be at the Marshalltown Performing Arts Center, located on the MHS campus at 1602 S. 2nd Ave. Tickets are $5 at the door, but MHS activity tickets will also be accepted.