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The hills of Mt. Eskel are alive with the sound of Scandinavian folk music in Kensington Theatre Company's "Princess Academy," an original musical adaptation of local author Shannon Hale's best-selling 2005 young-adult novel. The show makes its premiere Friday, Dec. 9, featuring a special Q&A session with Hale after the performances that night and the next afternoon.
The book, which earned a 2006 Newbery Honor, comes to life onstage in a way that director Toni Butler feels was made to happen. Butler, who has been friends with Hale since they both graced community theater stages as young actors, read "Princess Academy" and immediately thought it would lend itself to dance numbers, string instruments and a chorus of folk songs.
"The music is so written...