Centenary Stage Company’s critically-acclaimed Young Performers Workshop returns to the Little Theatre for the annual Spring Festival of Shows. The Spring Festival of Shows runs May 24 through June 2 with specific performance times listed below.

This year’s Spring Festival of Shows features American musical favorites including Grease, The Clown, Once Upon a Mattress and Count to 10.

Grease is among the world’s most popular musicals with an eight-year run on Broadway, two subsequent revivals, a film adaptation, and innumerable school and community productions.  Here is Rydell High’s senior class of 1959: duck-tailed, hot-rodding “Burger Palace Boys” and their gum-snapping, hip-shaking “Pink Ladies” in bobby sox and pedal pushers. Head “greaser” Danny Zuko and new (good) girl Sandy Dumbrowski try to relive the high romance of their “Summer Nights” as the rest of the gang sings and dances its way through such songs as “Greased Lightnin’,” “It’s Raining on Prom Night,” and “Alone at the Drive-In Movie.” Grease is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.

Performance dates and times for Grease are Friday, May 24 at 8pm; Sunday, May 26 at 7pm; Thursday, May 30 at 7:30pm; Saturday, June 1 at 8 pm and Sunday, June 2 at 1pm.

The Clown is the story of Mumbles, a shy clown, who falls in love with the beautiful ballerina, Doria.  When Dr. Tutto, the jealous circus owner, discovers this, he frames Mumbles with the theft of the circus money box, and Mumbles is banished. The Clown is presented through the Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency, Inc.

Performance dates and times for The Clown are; Saturday, May 25 at 2pm; Sunday, May 26 at 4pm and Saturday, June 1 at 5pm.

Count to Ten (A Brand New Family Musical) is about loner and unemployed actor/writer Victor, as he heads to Starwood Performing Arts Camp in the Catskill Mountains where he is forced into producing his unfinished original musical with a cast of adolescents. Madoc Dean, whose long unkept hair barely covers the suspicious look in his eyes, learns with Victor that no man can make it alone. Despite Victor’s inherent distrust of women, he eventually learns to love one, Claire, the camp’s ballet teacher. Count to Ten is a high-spirited, toe-tapping, rich and satisfying musical that gets richer with repeated viewings. Count to Ten is presented through special arrangement with Group Theatre Too.

Performance dates and times for Count to Ten are; Saturday, May 25 at 5pm; Friday, May 31 at 8pm; Saturday, June 1 at 2pm and Sunday, June 2 at 7pm.

If you thought you knew the story of “The Princess and The Pea,” you may be in for a walloping surprise! Did you know, for instance, that Princess Winnifred actually swam the moat to reach Prince Dauntless the Drab? Or that Lady Larken’s love for Sir Harry provided a rather compelling reason that she reach the bridal altar post haste? Or that, in fact, it wasn’t the pea at all that caused the princess a sleepless night? Carried on a wave of wonderful songs, by turns hilarious and raucous, romantic and melodic, Once Upon a Mattress is a rollicking spin on the familiar classic of royal courtship and comeuppance, which provides for some side-splitting shenanigans. Chances are you’ll never look at fairy tales quite the same way again. Once Upon a Mattress is presented through special arrangement with R&H Theatricals.

Performance dates and times are; Saturday, May 25 at 8pm; Sunday, May 26 at 1pm and Saturday, June 2 at 4pm

All performances are held in the Little Theatre located at 400 Jefferson Street, on the campus of Centenary University. Tickets are $12.50 for adults and $10 for children under 12.

For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit centenarystageco.org or call the Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979–0900.

The box office is open Monday through Friday from 1–5 p.m. and two hours prior to every scheduled performance. The box office is located in the Lackland Performing Arts Center at 715 Grand Ave. Hackettstown, N.J., on the campus of Centenary University.