Summer Musical Marks John Anglin’s Farewell Performance
The upcoming production of Once Upon a Mattress by the East Central College Theatre Department will mark the end of an era in local theatre.
This summer’s performances will be the final regularly scheduled musical directed by longtime ECC Theatre mainstay John Anglin, who has led the College’s summer musicals for the past 20 years.
Anglin is no stranger to ECC, having served as Theatre Program Director from 1972 to 2004. He is also the namesake of the John Edson Anglin Performing Arts Center.
His final production features a cast of 26 and dozens of crew members who continue to support ECC Theatre year after year. Since 2006, ECC has presented a summer musical annually, apart from one year when the theater rigging was being updated, and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Once Upon a Mattress will run July 24–27 in the John Edson Anglin Performing Arts Center. Evening performances will be held July 24–26 at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee scheduled for Sunday, July 27, at 2 p.m.
Tickets are available through the ECC Box Office by calling 636-584-6693, emailing boxoffice@eastcentral.edu, or tickets can be purchased online.
About the Show
Set in a far-off kingdom, Once Upon a Mattress tells the story of Queen Aggravain, who declares that no one may marry until her son, Prince Dauntless, finds a bride.
Suitors and princesses are left in limbo as the Queen subjects each potential match to impossible tests—until Winnifred the Woebegone, a “shy” swamp princess, arrives and changes everything.
Will she pass the Queen’s Sensitivity Test and help Lady Larken and Sir Harry reach the altar? This witty and whimsical musical, based on The Princess and the Pea, has entertained audiences for generations.
The cast for Once Upon a Mattress includes:
- Carol Buescher as Queen Aggravain
- Bethany Herron as Princess Winnifred
- Michael Finck as Prince Dauntless
- Andy Wanager as the Minstrel
- Elin Schmidt as Lady Larken and the Nightingale of Samarkand
- Eli Bray as Sir Harry
- Cassie Semonis as the Jester
- Darrell Herron as the Wizard
- Scott Mirly as King Sextimus the Silent
- Shanee Haynes as Lady Rowena
- Rylee Collard as Lady Lucille
- Anne Brock as Lady Merrill
- Sarah Scharfenberg as Princess No. 12 and a lady-in-waiting
- Johnny Cojocaru as Sir Studley and Knight No. 2
- Patty Kellmann as the First Lady
- Owen Brown as Sir Luce
- AJ Haynes as Knight No. 1
- Josiah Frame as Knight No. 3
- Abby Sokeland as Lady Mabelle
- Lucy Burd as Lady Beatrice
- Aiden Ashe as Sir Harold
- Rita Bub, Kathy Emmert, Clara Frame and Sue Spann as ladies-in-waiting
- Alex Wanager as a knight
