A marriage ban has been announced in a faraway kingdom preventing anyone from marrying until the prince does so himself. The overprotective queen has set up all possible candidates from surrounding lands for failure to ensure that no one is worthy to marry her son. A pregnant lady-in-waiting who is desperate to get married to hide her inappropriate pregnancy moves to help the thirteenth princess pass the test so the marriage ban can be lifted. The test that the princess will have to undergo is pretty strange; it involves a lot of mattress and one pea.

Once again the Patriot Players are putting on one of their award winning shows. This year they will be performing

Once Upon a Mattress — a spin on the story of “The Princess and the Pea”. The Players hope this will be a show that everyone can enjoy.

The audience will “not to have to think or work too hard” to understand the show, the director and drama advisor Katherine Klekas said.

The role of the son, Prince Dauntless the Drab, will be split between Junior Lorrin Hunt and Junior Jason Jarman. Each performance will be slightly different because each actor has his own take on the role. The actors were given choreography that they could change to show how they each think the role should be performed.

“In scenes where we are saying lines, we portray who we think Dauntless is,” Hunt said, “Dauntless is a little bit of a different character so that will be interesting to see.”

Once Upon a Mattress

was performed at Liberty ten years ago under Klekas’ direction.

“The chorus in this show sounds amazing, and it makes it really fun for me to re-experience it” Klekas said.

The director of the chorus, Robin Wood, on the other hand, has never before been the musical director for this production.

“It’s a cute send up of ‘The Princess and the Pea’,” Wood said. “It’s a kitschy fairytale the kids have really grabbed on to and it’s a lot of fun.”

The show will be running starting April 25 for two weekends in the PAC.