With happy memories of her time in India, an imagination fueled by her love of books and more than a little help from her friends, young Sara Crewe finds hope and magic in her dismal attic room after a cruel reversal of fortune in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1905 children’s novel A Little Princess.
With Academy Award-nominated assistance in cinematography and set design, director Alfonso Cuarón’s 1995 film version became a beloved family classic noted for its sumptuous visual style despite disappointing box office returns.
With thoughtful staging and lighting and two young actors playing Sara, Storyteller Theatre co-founder Brenna Wickstrom will direct her own adaptation of the 120-year-old story in a basement black-box theater.
“I grew up with the story, like so many little girls in the late ’90s, early 2000s did, with the Alfonso Cuarón movie version,” Wickstrom said. “It was just a lovely story, and I read the book as a kid, and it just, it felt like a great nostalgic piece that I’ve wanted to adapt for Storyteller for a while.”
A Little Princess runs Aug. 15-24 at CitySpace Theatre at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave. Tickets are $25.
While recreating the film’s rich set design on a small stage would be impossible, Storyteller’s adaptation of the story still takes inspiration from the movie’s visuals.
“We are in a minimalist space,” Wickstrom said. “It’s a black-box theater, so it is very intimate, but we’re trying to incorporate a lot of Cuarón’s work in the color theory that he used in the film. We’re really wanting to draw on that and bring in those rich colors, especially when she references her home in India, really pulling in those bright oranges and pinks and greens, and the lighting is going to help a lot. … And then it really comes down to just incorporating interesting costumes and props with everyone and consistent movement on stage.”
Still princesses
Actors Betsy Bergthold and Agatha Silva will take turns in the role of Sara, whose standing at an upper-class boarding school changes suddenly after she’s informed of her father’s death. Formerly a favored student, she’s forced to become a servant to her classmates and find hope in her friends and fantasies.
“The biggest thing that I was looking for when we were casting Sara is somebody who could captivate us with their imagination,” Wickstrom said. “Sara has a huge imagination that kind of keeps her going, even through all of her grief. I didn’t want to cast some child who would get so bogged down in the drama of it but could keep us lifted throughout the story and inspire us the way that she inspires all of the girls throughout her struggle. So that’s really what Betsy and Agatha both brought to the table, was that they had this enthusiasm for pretending and imagining and for storytelling that they could draw us in the way that they approached their monologues and their relationships with the other characters.”
In the book, Sara says, “I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart or young. They’re still princesses.”
Bergthold and Silva are both experienced stage actors, but Bergthold will be making her Storyteller Theatre debut. The other children’s roles were also double-cast using a combination actors from Lyric Theatre’s Thelma Gaylord Academy, returning actors from previous Storyteller productions and first-time actors.
“About half of our young actresses haven’t done anything before,” Wickstrom said. “This is their first show. They were spectacular in auditions and they’re doing a great job in rehearsals as well.
“I really enjoy working with young actors, and especially young actors who have never done things on stage as opposed to a seasoned veteran actor because a seasoned veteran actor is more stuck in their ways. … Not all the time, but most of the time, they’re not willing to be flexible with direction. Whereas a new actor, a fresh actor, they are so eager to learn and they’re so excited to get started that it’s kind of the sky is the limit. And they’re so much more willing to collaborate together on their character.”
Angela Lux, the drama teacher at Crossings Christian School, plays boarding school headmaster Miss Minchin, who begins cruelly mistreating Sara when she suddenly goes from heiress to indigent orphan.
“She’s fantastic,” Wickstrom said. “She just brings this quiet evilness to her character that Miss Minchin has to have, where she’s not, like, overbearing but doesn’t say much. It’s mostly in her actions and the things that she doesn’t say.”
In a change from the original story, Wickstrom gender-swapped the role of Ram Dass from a man to a woman. Kat Abdallah, seen recently as the Wicked Witch in Storyteller’s adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, plays the role of the servant who befriends Sara and helps transform her attic into a magical space inspired by the India they’ve both left behind.
“I really wanted to draw on the femininity of the Indian culture and how that related to Sara, and it felt more relatable to Sara,” Wickstrom said. “Also, there are things in the book that feel strange, like Ram Dass comes into her attic and leaves her gifts. It felt strange to have a man do that, and we really wanted to kind of change that up. The name actually isn’t depicting of gender. It just means ‘one who walks with God.’”
In the book, Burnett wrote, “Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”
Wickstrom said Sara’s story explores spiritual themes without adhering to any particular religion.
“There’s the magic being all around her, which is really very spiritual … but not moralistic,” Wickstrom said. “There’s always some type of greater good working for all of us, whether we want to believe in a higher being or not, which I think is kind of special.”
Similarly, she said Storyteller Theatre’s adaptation is suitable for smaller theatergoers but isn’t exclusively intended for children.
“We just consider ourselves mostly family friendly,” Wickstrom said. “We try to make sure that all of our works can engage a wide variety of audiences. So it’s not children’s theater. It’s not theater for young audiences, but mainly just theater for everyone to come and enjoy it.”
Related events
Storyteller Theatre presents A Little Princess
Fri., Aug. 22, 7-10 p.m., Sat., Aug. 23, 2-5 & 7-10 p.m. and Sun., Aug. 24, 2-5 p.m.
Location: CitySpace Theatre, Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N Walker Ave, Oklahoma City
This article appears in Best of OKC 2025.