From the Wings: Aberdeen students bring comedy and song to the stage in Once Upon a Mattress

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 29, 2026

On April 27, before an empty auditorium, save for the staffed control booth, the Aberdeen High School cast did a dress rehearsal of Once Upon a Mattress.

Debuting off-Broadway in May 1959, this musical later moved to Broadway and has seen revivals in subsequent decades. Well-known actors have performed in this musical, including Carol Burnett playing the role of Princess Winnifred in her Broadway debut, Buster Keaton as King Sextimus The Silent and Jane Krakowski in the role of Lady Larken.

As the cast gathered on stage prior to curtain call, Director and Producer Maria Manning said, “I’m excited about tonight, I’m excited about the work that you’ve done, and I’m excited to see where we’re gonna go tonight.”

Other reminders of scene changes and mic checks followed before Dylan Brown, who plays the Minstrel, took the stage before the curtain to deliver the prologue.

Among the students are experienced actors who have performed in 7th Street Kids, Driftwood Players and in Grays Harbor College productions, while for other students this is their first time acting in a play.

“I have really, really sweet new students, especially the freshmen and the sophomores who haven’t auditioned before,” Manning said, adding, “the new kids are especially generous with their time and with their efforts and everything.”

Given the students’ performance to an empty auditorium, audience members who attend the performances can expect a show with high energy and tight timing. And this timing is not just due to the actors on stage, but the backstage crew too, all of whom Manning also praised.

Before the dress rehearsal, The Daily World had the opportunity to chat with a number of the students to discuss what they enjoy about staging this play and how to get into their characters.

What follows is our conversation edited for length and clarity.

The Daily World: Nevaeh and Braden, what grade are you in this year?

Nevaeh Kiper [Lady Lynn]: I am a sophomore.

Brayden Dawson [Sir Studley]: I am a freshman.

TDW: What role are you, Preston?

Preston Williams [King Sextimus]: I’m playing the King.

TDW: What was your reaction to the play choice?

Dawson: Very surprised, I didn’t know what it was. Then she [Maria] told us the whole story and then we kind of liked it.

TDW: Did you see the play before auditioning?

Kiper: When I first heard about it, I watched some of it and thought, ‘Oh, this is interesting. This is going to be different.’

TDW: How so?

Kiper: This is my first year of doing a musical and I’m kind of getting into the theater now.

TDW: Dylan and Simon, what are your roles?

Dylan Brown [Minstrel]: I’m the minstrel, and I’m the first person on stage

Simon Jeffery [Wizard]: I’m the wizard.

TDW: How did you choose which roles to audition for?

Dawson: We came in the first day and sang.

Williams: To be honest, I didn’t audition at all. This is my fifth year in the Aberdeen High School musical. The director asked me, ‘Hey, you might be good for the role for the king.’ And then I watched the play and was ‘Oh, I could see it.’

TDW: Do you bring any theater experience to these roles?

Kiper: For me, I kind of got pushed in here by my choir teacher; I wasn’t planning to audition at all. I didn’t know what I was doing, because like I said, this is my first year. And now I’m in it.

TDW: Of all the other activities that you could do, why do theater?

Dawson: It’s the people

Brown: I would say there’s not a lot of clubs or sports that are as close as theater kids.

Dawson: The cast members are all great people.

Brown: It’s just like getting to know more people who are not really normally your friend type, and then becoming friends with them and meeting new people who you’ve never seen before.

Angel Covault [Nurse Angel]: This is my fourth year, and I don’t even go to this school, and it’s welcoming.

TDW: Does wearing the costumes help you get fully into your characters?

Brown: Yeah, it’s like the next step. It feels like we’re finally starting to make it finished; we’re starting to actually make a show.

Williams: It’s getting to our character.

Jeffrey: It feels real.

TDW: How does being part of theater translate into other parts of your life, such as self-confidence with public speaking?

Kiper: Confidence, because I’m very stage shy. When we do sole ensemble for choir, that builds up my confidence a little bit, but I think this will build it up more.

Williams: My technique of doing theater when it’s a real rehearsal is pretend that no one’s here. There’s no one judging you, just nothing there.

TDW: Brinnley, I recognize your last name Colburn from your sister, Violet, acting in Matilda and your dad directing The Spongebob Musical. I assume you grew up in theater too?

Brinnley Colburn [Queen Aggrabain]: I’ve been in theater since I was probably 5. I’ve been in lots of small productions because I’ve moved around all over the country. And I do opera workshop at the college.

TDW: Did you audition for Queen Aggrabain?

Colburn: Yes, I wanted either actually Larkin or Winnifred, but I’m really happy that I got the role of the Queen because I actually think it’s probably the part that I would have played the best.

She’s very dramatic and it’s very easy for me to like dramatize everything that I’m saying. I have this big cape that, when I walk, it billows out and it’s very fun. She’s very fun to embody.

TDW: Gabriella, how long have you been in theater?

Gabriella Abruscato [Winnifred]: I’ve been doing theater since I was 7. This is probably my 10th show between 7th Street, Bishop Center and this.

TDW: What has kept you doing theater since you were 7 years old?

Abruscato: I just really love performing and being on stage. I have videos of me at 4 years old dancing in a subway, and I’ve been making little performances. I’ve just always wanted to be on stage and perform for people. No matter what show it is or what role I am, principal, ensemble, it doesn’t matter to me.

Whoever it is I’m portraying, I want to bring people into that fantasy performance. I like being able to see people be happy and especially to see little kids and older people. I can see how happy it makes them to see performances when I can help deliver like fantasy world.

TDW: Earlier during warmup, Maria talked about the importance of making connections between the characters. How do you know when your character has made a connection with another character? What does that feel like?

Abruscato: I definitely feel it. When we’re doing a scene, I feel like I really am the character — I forget about Gabby. I no longer think of my costar but their character, and when I talk to another actor on stage, I feel like I am Princess Winnifred right now.

TDW: How do you make that mental shift from being Gabby to Winnifred?

Abruscato: I noticed myself my inner dialogue stops being my own and it starts being the character’s. And it’s manual at first: what would Princess Winnifred be thinking right now? But then eventually it gets to a point where in my head I’m thinking as Princess Winnifred. I’m not, ‘Wow, I’m so hungry. I wonder where I’m gonna eat dinner tonight.’ I’m super in the moment and like my inner dialogue is Princess Winnifred’s inner dialogue.

TDW: Can the audience tell the difference between when you’re speaking the lines versus you’re fully in character?

Abruscato: I think so; it’s that next step from learning how to be in theater to learning how to perform for people. When you go to professional shows, it’s really just a notch up, the chemistry that all the actors have with each other because they are their characters versus I’m playing this character in a show and I know all their lines and their songs.

As an actor, maybe I just pick up on that more but I definitely think it brings the show to a new level of realism.

TDW: How valuable is having high school drama clubs, Driftwood Players and 7th Street Kids for young performers to learn that transition from learning how to be in theater to learning how to perform?

Abruscato: Getting people into it young is really good, because a lot of people, if they never got to do anything like that as a kid, it can be really intimidating to start as an adult, like audition at the Bishop Center.

So they can learn, even at the 7th Street level, acting and realize this is fun and I can make people feel this way with my performance — that’s really important.

TDW: Brinnley, why do you enjoy performing on stage?

Colburn: I’ve never had stage fright and I’m a leader in a lot of the things that I do, so I love being able to be a leader for people and talking in front of them is part of that.

And I love being able to hear an audience clap because I know that I breathe in joy when they laugh. It feels so nice to be able to share that with them and hopefully have a good time.

TDW: Simon, have you been in other productions before this one?

Jeffery: I have been in two productions prior to this one. I was ensemble for Oklahoma, and then I was also in 7th Street one year for High School Musical 2.

TDW: When performing in Oklahoma, did being around veteran actors help you grow as an actor?

Jeffery: Having adults around as actors made it easier for me to come on stage and be part of the ensemble because there were already stronger people there leading. Whereas here, everyone needs to work together because we’re all in similar levels. So I had a better ensemble experience because I was just able to be on stage and I do my best because they had the support of genre singers.

TDW: And so what’s it like having a main role now?

Jeffery: It definitely makes the show a lot more fun to do. I’m enjoying the challenge and the practice of it. It gets my creative brain going: How can I deliver this line properly and How would this character do this scene?

TDW: How do you make that transition from reciting lines to actually being the wizard?

Jeffery: I’ve had practice with things like D&D [Dungeons and Dragons] and other improv stuff. I also like to read a lot and think about character perspective, so I gauge who the character is and then I just incorporate the bit that I know about the character onto me.

TDW: Why is theater even more important when generative AI is capable of producing videos?

Williams: I don’t (ever) think that AI will replace theater actors. I went to Seattle to listen to Les Misérables, and it was beautiful. The characters get you, and in the final, I cried.

Without humans, how are you gonna get this emotional scene? How are you ever gonna have a robot to ever make you feel emotional, make you cry?

Jeffery: My thought is that each actor is very different from one another, and no two performances are alike. Each actor brings something different to the table, a different take on the character, slightly different voice, different singing level.

Whereas AI, it’s coded by one person to imitate things, but it’s the same thought process. AI can’t reflect each character properly because it’s not making each character unique.

If you want to go:

Once Upon a Mattress will run on Friday, May 1 and 8 at 7 p.m., Saturday, May 9 at 7 p.m., and Sunday, May 3 and 10 at 3 p.m. Location: Aberdeen High School Auditorium, 410 N. G St, Aberdeen

Tickets can be purchased at RevTrak — https://aberdeen.revtrak.net/ahs-musical/#/list, Harbor Books in Hoquiam, Tinderbox in Aberdeen or at the door.