The Little Mermaid

About LCT’s Touring Productions

The Little Mermaid is one of our Touring Productions, which means it doesn’t just perform here in Lexington! Our two professional actors are traveling with this and our other production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe from September through December to schools, libraries, and theatres all over the Commonwealth and beyond! As a touring production, the show is designed to be performed by a smaller cast, so you will notice that the two actors play multiple different characters throughout the course of the story.

About your trip to the theatre

Be sure to arrive early to find a place to park – options include metered parking surrounding the theatre and the parking garage on the corner of Broadway and Short Street. LCT unfortunately cannot validate garage parking.

Masks are required in our building at all times, regardless of vaccination status. If you forget your mask we will be happy to provide one for you. For more information about our safety procedures for performances, visit https://www.lctonstage.org/covid19-safety/.

The Larry and Vivian Snipes Main Stage will open 30 minutes prior to show time. While the Box Office will be open 60 minutes prior to show time for those who still need to purchase tickets, if you have already purchased your seats, we encourage you to arrive no earlier than 30 minutes prior to showtime and plan on going directly to your seats to prevent congregating in our lobby.

LCT is moving to contactless/paperless ticketing and playbills. Your ticket confirmation email will have all the information you need to check in, no physical tickets required! It’s a good idea to have the email pulled up on your phone when you arrive so you can reference your seat numbers. At the theatre doors, just tell our ushers the name your tickets are under and they will be able to check you in and help you find your seats.

To offset the heat generated by stage lighting, the Larry and Vivian Snipes Main Stage theatre can get pretty cold. It’s a good idea to bring a sweater or additional layers with you!

For more on planning your visit to LCT, click here.

The Little Mermaid adapted by Mark Kenny is based on the original story by Hans Christian Andersen. This production features two storytellers named Flotsam and Jetsam that act out the harrowing tale of the little mermaid’s journey from the friendly depths of the sea to the unfamiliar world of dry land. Actors use costume changes, physical transformations, and unique voices to aid in their storytelling.

After deciding to become human in an effort to convince the handsome prince to marry her, the mermaid visits a mysterious sea witch. The sea witch offers to grant the mermaids desire to become human…at a price. She must sacrifice her beautiful voice and undergo a painful transformation into a human body. In keeping with the original fairy tale, the little mermaid experiences moments of physical pain as a result of this transformation. While the actor’s performance does not suggest anything beyond mild discomfort, the script refers four times to how painful it is for the mermaid to walk and dance on her new human feet.  In one blink and you’ll miss it scene the mermaid turns away from the audience while the sea witch quickly “cuts out” her tongue. These moments pass quickly, and serve to underline the sacrifices she has made to join the world “up there”. There is no blood, screaming, or anything to suggest the mermaid has been injured.

Fully transformed, the mermaid travels to the land of humans to pursue her true love. Throughout the play are several mentions of love, romance, and marriage. These moments are presented appropriately for the age of our audience. The prince and mermaid become close, and seem as though they will spend the rest of their happy lives together, when a princess from a neighboring kingdom arrives to marry the prince.

When the prince marries the princess, the little mermaid is devastated. At the end of the play the mermaid is faced with the choice to sacrifice the prince to save herself. The mermaid listens to her heart and does the right thing by sparing the prince. She faces the consequences of her choices, and transforms into “foam on the water”.

Our narrators spend the last moments of the performance reminding us that even sad stories are worth hearing. To quote one young audience member, “It was funny, then it was sad, but then it was a little funny again, so now I’m ok.”

This play is a great way to spark conversations about making decisions and thinking through your choices. We see the mermaid make several difficult choices, sometimes impulsively and sometimes with much thought. This show also highlights the need to consider consequences, both positive and negative. Finally, The Little Mermaid is a fabulous story to inspire discussions about storytelling! Why is it important to sometimes tell sad stories? How do we choose the stories we tell? And why do we revisit the same stories?

We love this story because its returns to the basics of the original Hans Christian Andersen tale, and relies on just two actors and a few props to create two entire worlds, below the sea and above it. Floatsam and Jetsam show us what it is to tell a story, how to decide which parts to include, how to work together as a team, and how storytellers sometimes feel the same emotions as their audience. This heightens the fact that, at the end of the day, it is simply a story, with twists and turns and an ending that leaves you thinking. Stories don’t have to have a happy ending to be important, and even familiar stories are worth rediscovering!