Weber Middle School presented “Once Upon a Mattress” from March 21 through March 23. More than 120 students participated in the cast, stage crew, and pit orchestra, making the show one of Weber’s largest productions.
Director Stacey Portmore-Davies has led the team through rehearsals four days a week for the past few months. The cast includes double-cast roles, so the leads in some performances take ensemble roles in other performances, while ensemble members take center stage in lead roles.
Portmore-Davies said the whole team worked two hours daily, sometimes over four hours, in the weeks before the performances. Allison Friedman served as the musical director, while the Fina Farasciano Community Theater Grant from Hearts PW helped the team hire choreographer Suz Dervish-Ali.
Weber alumnus Hannah Siskin and Ben Hagerty worked as the production’s costume and lighting designers, respectively.
“Once Upon a Mattress” is a musical retelling of the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea. ” It is set in a Kingdom where the domineering Queen Aggravain declares that nobody can marry until her son, Prince Dauntless, finds a wife. One of the nearly impossible tests the Queen forces interested suitresses to take is placing 20 mattresses over a pea and seeing if the interested princesses can sense the pea while sitting on top.
Portmore-Davies’ husband, Richard Davies, built the sets for the medieval kingdom, which Portmore-Davies helped design with the support of parent volunteers.
“We wouldn’t have been able to do it without the parents helping us,” Portmore-Davies said. “The parent volunteers were wonderful, and so appreciated.”