“Quiet on the stage! ‘The King’s Creampuffs, A Royal Recipe Goes Astray,’ by Martha Swintz. Characters: Carrie Di-Lorenzo as King, Gabrielle DiLorenzo as Queen, Nicholas DiLorenzo as Algernon, Monique Leguey-Feilleux as Princess, Debbie Wilmering as Page, Peggy Newsham as Witch of all Witches, Molly McCarthy as Second Witch, Jane Newsham as Herald, Peter Cantwell as Baker and Kitty Newsham as Lady-inWaiting. Leo DiLorenzo, Hughie Bender, Dan Mestres and Joe Newsham, Theater Staff.”
This is what you would have heard if you had been part of the happy audience at our play late this summer. Then you would have seen each character in fine costume introduce himself with a bow. And quickly followed the play in three acts.
“Practice makes perfect” well describes the effort that we all put into this production. It began in June when my sister Gabrielle and I decided to put on a play. We found a good one in the Des Peres Library. We decided on some neighborhood friends for characters but didn’t realize the upcoming perils of choosing so quickly.
First our father made some Xerox copies of the script. Then we tried to get the cast together for practices, but many times it was hard to get everyone at once.
All of us struggled to learn our parts. And before we arrived at a permanent cast we went through 2 Pages, 2 Princesses, 5 Bakers, 5 Heralds, 3 Witch-of-allwitches and 4 Second Witches. Then everyone had to leave for vacations, so we had a temporary cancellation of practices and postponed the play five weeks.
Next I think we worked on the scenery. We used a raised platform in our basement for the stage. For the throne-room scene we decorated the wall with hangings and draped two stools to make thrones. The next scene called for a witch’s mountain den. We wanted a cobweb effect, so we tie-dyed some sheets black and draped them over the stage, Against the back wail we used a board decorated with drawings of many colorful potions. Finally we set up stage curtains which we even got to open and close. We also curtained off a back-stage area for the cast to use when waiting to go onstage.
All of us got to like the story of the play. It’s about a king who craves creampuffs. When he sentences a witch to her den for life, she steals his recipe. He has planned to have the princess marry a certain royal personage, but she informs him she will recover his recipe only if she will be allowed to marry the Page in his court whom she truly loves. She cleverly forces the witch to hand over the book and returns it to the King. The witch suddenly appears at the castle and tries to get her to drink poison but her sister witch comes in just in time to save her life. The first witch is ordered to take the poison and the second witch takes over her job as chief witch. Her first accomplishment is discovering that the lowly Page is really a wealthy Prince. The play closes in happiness and triumph as the Princess goes off with the Page-Prince to a life of royal wedded bliss. Life at the court returns to normal as the King urges the Queen to stop reading novels and learn to make creampuffs.
Original photograph caption
THE KING’S CREAMPUFFS, a play produced by neighborhood children. Left to right are Nick DiLorenzo, Gabriel DiLorenzo, Kitty Newsham, Kerry DiLorenzo, Monique Leguey-Feilleux.
Originally published in The Paper, October 1970.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1970_10.pdf, printed page 11.
