Rachel Strehlow
Published: September 28, 2005
Cast members have been chosen for the Pensacola Junior College performance of the classic play “The King and I” which will be presented Nov. 11 to 13 at the Ashmore Auditorium on the Pensacola campus.
Benjamin Ayers has been cast as the King of Siam and Jennifer DelGallo-Taylor will play Anna Leonowens.
The show is a remake of the original play by Rogers and Hammerstein, first performed in 1951.
“It’s a wonderful play and it’s a very unique story about an English professor that comes over [to Siam] and is totally engulfed with this new culture and she’s teaching, [but] at the same time she’s learning about a different culture,” Ayers said.
Approximately 93 men, women, and children came to audition for a role in the play. According to Rodney Whatley, director of theatre at PJC, only the best singers, dancers, and actors of all ages were chosen.
“I have never been this excited about a cast in my entire life, and I’ve directed a number of plays,” Whatley said. “We’re going to do a marriage of eastern and western practice. Nobody’s ever done the show that way to my knowledge.”
Out of a cast filling 43 parts, Whatley estimated that more than 50 percent of the adults are PJC students. As for the changes made to the original story, Whatley said, “the main thing that’s going to be different is we’re using a much more modern theory of acting …there’s going to be much less traditional scenery.”
However, Whatley said that the show will have every important scene from the original play.
“We’ll be able to pull it all together and make it an amazing show that everyone will be able to enjoy and relate to,” said PJC student and actress Amy Patton, who will play the tragic character Tuptim.