Fairy Tale Told in a Sunken Garden

If you see a crowd of small children in Radcliffe Yard, don’t be alarmed. They’re only there to take in the Children’s Theater production of The Princess and the Pea, written by Adam Kline ’02 and directed by Eva Furrow ’03 and A. Alexandra D. Cooley ’03. But this is not your typical children’s theater.

The plot goes like this: the queen won’t let the prince get married because she is overprotective, so she sends all suitors away by telling them that their behavior contradicts the “true Princess manual.” But the prince loves Lilybell, the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, so he creates a plan to have her shipped from the castle to the castle in a carton so she can take the princess test.

The Queen tries to test Lilybell by placing a pea under her mattress, but the prince’s servant and rapper, Pea-Ditty, manages to confuse the Queen’s henchmen into putting him under the mattress instead. He wakes the potential princess so she can pass the test, and they all live happily ever after—except for the henchmen, who get fired, and the Queen, who must sleep on the royal couch for some weeks to come.

Last year, the company performed Julius Caesar, in which the would-be emperor, clad in a sequined blue toga, died of a paper cut and Brutus and Antony played rock-paper-scissors for the rule of Rome.

The Children’s Theater, now in its seventh year, is still going strong.The company, which has about a dozen members, uses Common Casting but sticks together by grandfathering in members who successfully auditioned in previous years. Their shows are low-budget and minimalist; they run about half an hour and take place outdoors, with no sets or lights.

Rehearsal is upbeat. In the third hour, the cast is still adding new lines to the script (“Have you heard about the vegetarian knight? He likes war and peas.”) and trying out different rap poses.

In a few weeks, they will spread their good cheer and bad puns to the children of Cambridge.

“Some kids come to every single performance,” says Furrow. The target audience ranges in age from two to 11, but according to the producers, undergraduates often appear with siblings or wards in tow.

—The Princess and the Pea will be performed in the Radcliffe Yard Sunken Garden at 4 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, 12 and 1 p.m. on Saturday and 2 and 3 p.m. on Sunday.