Getting into their roles

Young Chang

For 12-year-old Andrea Adnoff, the chance to play Sara Crewe in

Trilogy Playhouse’s adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “A Little

Princess” is the chance to be the lovable, victimized princess who

has the whole audience on her side.

As one of two girls acting in the title role (the other is Alexa

Wildish), she gets to warm hearts. Incite laughs. Choke people up.

But for Leslie Williams, who portrays the evil Miss Minchin (we’ll

get to why she’s evil in a second), the role is a chance for her to

bear a “heart of coal,” to be so awful that she gets booed onstage

and to do all this without making anyone hold a grudge.

“Nobody’s going to hold it against you once the play is over,”

Williams said. “It’s just so much fun. I was just so happy when I got

this role.”

The playhouse will stage “The Little Princess” through Sept. 8.

The classic story is about a young rich girl whose widowed father

gets sent to serve in World War II, which leaves her in a London

boarding school. All is well enough at first, as the sweet Sara

becomes quickly popular and loved. But then the school hears that

Sara’s father has been killed in the war. Miss Minchin, who is the

head of the school and a recent victim of bankruptcy, plots to steal

Sara’s inheritance.

She ends up living in the school’s attic with a servant girl,

trying hard to believe she is still a princess, which is how her

father saw her, and working in the kitchen. But the story ends well

and justice is served.

“She’s a favorite author of mine,” Williams said. “My all-time

favorite book as a child is Francis Hodgson Burnett’s other classic,

‘A Secret Garden.’ Of course I had seen the movie ‘A Little Princess’

years ago.”

Both Williams and Andrea had to swallow a British accent to play

their parts. Andrea said that was probably the most difficult thing

about getting into her role. But after listening to a lot of movies

in which the characters speak with the accent and listening to a

British tape that teaches the skill, the task got easier.

The hardest word, though, was “doll,” as the “l” is held longer on

the tongue and the “o” is a long one.

“It’s my first time in a lead role at a different theater from my

school,” the Newport Beach resident said. “I’m kind of happy because

I wanted to work up to that ... so I was kind of really glad when I

got it.”

Williams, who has some Irish and Scottish genes in her, said she

had an easy time sporting the British accent.

But the easiest thing in the world, she said, is being mean.

“It’s fun to play mean, and the reason why it’s fun to play mean

is because it’s hard being nice every time, in normal everyday life.

To be nice to everyone with whom you come in contact with is

incredibly difficult. Somebody’s going to do something to irritate

you.”