Critical Praise for The Naked King

"The six-member cast have fun playing foppish courtiers, like Colin Jackson’s officious Minister of Tender Feelings and Ryan Massie’s court poet for hire, as well as flattering fops, easily scandalized ladies-in-waiting, and subservient subjects.  Terrence McClellan’s comical set, a series of colorful and skewed picture frames, sets the right tone for some sweetly silly summer fluff."

- Lawrence Bommer Chicago Stage Style

Who says that fairy tales are for children only? Can the belief that love and honesty just might conquer all be held only by the youngest of us? "The Naked King" joyfully affirms the opposite. The calamities in the world are no match for the wit, ingenuity and love the characters in this play use as their weapons. The plot charts the engaging journey of a swineherd, who falls in love with a princess and is sent into exile by her disapproving father. In the next kingdom, he discovers a monarch who has not been entirely honest with his people (does that ever happen in real life?). This whimsical and entertaining cocktail of three Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, "The Swineherd", "The Princess and the Pea" and "The Emperor's New Clothes," has some other tasty, original ingredients.

The Naked King by Yevgeni Schwartz