The King’s Players put on their production of “The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon” on Nov. 4 and 5, a comedy that showcased a wide range of whimsical characters and stories all mashed together into one wildly entertaining rollercoaster of events. Caroline Judd, a junior in the House of Margaret Thatcher, and Emily Zielinski, a transfer student in the House of Susan B. Anthony, directed the play.

The two narrators, played by Matthew Petterson, a freshman in the house of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Sarah Arrigotti, a freshman in the House of Queen Elizabeth I, attempted to guide the audience through 209 storybook classics. The classics range from Little Red Riding Hood, who quite literally is from the “hood” to Snow White, where one of the dwarfs gets his chance to shine as a princess.

Consisting of a small cast, The King’s Players showed their versatility during the performance as they played a wide range of roles, from man-eating crabs to troubled princesses, witches, and wolves. Daniel Carpenter, a senior in the House of Bonhoeffer, played both a troubling servant going mad by the voices of a crow and Hansel of the duo Hansel and Gretel, portrayed as a struggling “fairy dust” addict in his later years.

“I played two roles at once,” said Petterson. “I did do a lot of shifting of voices and countenances, so it was challenging. You would finish Little Red Riding Hood, and hop into Cinderella, then you’d have to completely readjust your mindset. But it made it a lot of fun…I liked playing the devil the most.”

However, it did not stop at just the cast. Peterson and Arrigotti interacted with the audience, calling them to make sound effects or simply bantering with them throughout the performance, which created an engaging atmosphere for the show.

As one of the first performances by The King's Players post-pandemic, the directors and actors during the production faced many new challenges.

“It was really difficult because The King’s players haven’t done anything since the pandemic,” said Judd. “So there wasn’t any institutional memory on how to do a show, and we kind of had to make up things a lot to reinvent the wheel. It was a lot of fun though, and really nice to get back to that level of community.”

“My roommate was in the fall play, so before when she was just talking about it, I thought it sounded really interesting,” said Emma Bruce, a freshman in the house of Truth, curious about the King’s theater community. “I think it’d be really fun to actually do a play. It looked like a lot of fun, and the actors had to figure a lot of things out themselves rather than doing what they were told. So if I’m unable to do the play, it’d be really fun to go again because of how fun Brothers Grimm was to watch.”

The production made a fantastic impression on the audience, making them, as well as the actors, eager for the next show-stopping performance to arise in the Spring.

“I was very happy with the outcome for sure,” said Judd. “We did very well pulling it all together in a very short rehearsal period for a play that long. We only rehearsed for three and a half weeks, so the response from the audience was great. We had about eight people between both nights in attendance, so it was pretty well attending, and I’m hoping for more people in the Spring and pack up the City Room as much as we can.”

Angelina Ispir is a freshman at The King’s College studying Journalism, Culture and Society. She is enthusiastic about the arts and is an avid coffee drinker.

The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon: Where Imagination Takes Flight