I've heard of several productions cutting Larken's pregnancy, and I wanted to see if you all thought it would hurt the show. Here's my thoughts: it would give Harry and Larken so little to do in the show that you may as well cut them entirely. And you need them to balance out the craziness of the other characters. Also, it would majorly detract from the paradox between Fred and Larken. Larken should be a princess because she's everything Fred's not. The only thing that sets her apart is the fact that she puts out. And to me that's the most enjoyable part of the show: that in a perfect world, Larken would be the princess and Fred would be the chambermaid. So, what do the rest of you think; would cutting the pregnancy hurt the show?

Even more than the plot, it would hurt the whole idea of the show, this fairytale where nothing is as it supposed.

In fairytales, true love ends at the first kiss and never mentions the sex and the princess-like character (in this case, Larken) doesn't get pregnant because she waits to be married. So first, you hurt the paradox.

Secondly, plotwise, then there's no reason for Harry to go looking for a princess and then he'd never find Fred. Larken wouldn't want to run away, etc.

And it would make the Harry/Larken secondary plot really weak and short.

In the junior version of the show (Getting to Know Once Upon a Mattress), the pregnancy is cut entirely (as in, the show is edited to cut it and licensed that way). It's really stupid. That's the first way I saw the show, and I was just like "Wow. What was the point of that character? She didn't do anything but sing a duet."

Basically, it doesn't work.

Do the real show for goodness sake. Losing the pregnancy cuts the heart out of the show. I don't understand why it is so controversial when worse stuff than this is all over the TV set on the Disney Channel. We did it in Jr High with the pregnancy intact and only had one mild complaint from one parent. We live in a pretty conservative school district too.

I never knew R&H Theatricals did their own abridged series to mimic MTI's Broadway Junior Collection. You learn something new every day, I suppose!

As far as the main topic of the thread goes, I highly doubt R&H Theatricals would allow a company to edit the show. You're paying to perform the script as written and nothing different. Plus, I see it as an immense artistic violation.

Last I heard they had four junior shows out: Cinderella, King and I, Once Upon a Mattress, and Oklahoma. It's called the "Getting 2 Know" (or G2K) series. I've not seen G2K Cinderella, but I've seen the other three. I didn't care for G2K OUAM, but the other two worked fine. They weren't really edited for the purpose of editing anything out, they just cut a few smaller things (I can't remember which songs specifically) and made some of the ranges easier to be handled by younger singers.

Which duet does she sing?

I've seen a couple of productions where right before Lady Larkin says that she's pregnant, she adds a line about how during her romantic time with Harry, the priest gave them a quick, secret, illegal elopement. That way, they could keep the pregnancy in, but the overly conservative parents wouldn't complain.

That sounds like a great idea! Though, in my production the extent of complaints we got from the audience was how lame the Act II opener was and some of the modernizing we did in the orchestrations.

Yeah...... Our Larkin won't have anything to do.

I do agree with you. The time for the fairy tale stories are over and now people are expecting more reality and which includes everything. The pregnancy is not such a bad thing that you should cut it down from the shows. It is very natural and a normal thing.






Thanks
Chris
www.omnitechsupport.com