Camptonville Academy Players focus on what's important

The Camptonville Academy Players of Camptonville Academy, a charter school in Marysville for grades K-12, will perform Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper," directed by Ellie Palmer, beginning Thursday at Lee Burrows Center for the Arts in Marysville. The story is adapted for the stage by James De Vita.

"This is the advanced drama class semester project," Palmer said.

"The kids have worked really hard, and the high school kids in the class get performing arts credits for their efforts," she added.

"The play is about two young boys who are doppelgangers — they look exactly the same," Palmer said. "One is very, very, very poor, and the other is Prince Edward VI of England — who was a real person who reigned for a short time and died at the age of 15.

"Twain did his homework. All the royal family (in the play) is actual — Bloody Mary (Mia Eyre), King Henry VIII (Jesse Peterson), his cousin Jane (Marissa Corona) and Hereford (Bill Socha) were actual people during those times who worked for or were part of the royal family," Palmer said.

The lookalike for Prince Edward (Jonathan Socha) is Tom Canty (Ethyn Fox), Palmer said. Tom "is a street urchin who dreams of being a prince. He wants to learn to read, and he dreams of having food to eat — just like any poor boy does," she said.

By chance, the prince and the pauper meet, and the two boys rapidly become fast friends. They discover that the prince secretly longs to live like a commoner, whereas the pauper longs to live like a prince. The boys think it would be great fun to trade lives for a while, so they put on each other's clothes and play in the castle.

"Suddenly, their play is interrupted, and they are thought to be each other and get stuck in each other's world," Palmer said. "It's a hilarious concept, but it has very, very deep societal meaning. They learn to understand how the other side lives.

"That was one of Twain's favorite themes: imagined superiority. And it takes place both at the poor end of society and at the castle," Palmer added. "There are people like Pap and the dauphin in 'Huck Finn' who put on airs and can be very mean or just plain foolish — but it's very funny."

Palmer said the cast of 25 students includes fifth-graders through 12th-graders.

"We have several kids whose stage experience is the most minimal we've had so far, so in the next couple of nights, it's really going to hit them: the extreme thoughtfulness and discipline that theater requires. It's like juggling six balls at the same time for an hour and a half. You're just thinking about so many things and having to remember so many things," she said.

"I've told them, 'This is the hardest class that you're ever going to take,' because it's authentic assessment right there on the spot," Palmer added.

"Our motto is 'Excellence is not an accident.' We work really hard to make (the performance) a meaningful, expressive experience for the audience. So I think it's well worth the few bucks that we're asking," she said.

"I think it's an important play. Especially in these hard economic times, it shows some things that we all need to remember about what's really important," Palmer said.

CONTACT Susan Benitez at sbenitez@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4773. Find her on Facebook at /ADFeatures or on Twitter at @adfeatures.