Britney Spears jukebox musical gets its Long Island premiere

Britney who?

That was pretty much the response from many of the 28 performers in the local premiere of the jukebox musical “Once Upon a One More Time,” which features the songs of Britney Spears and is being presented at the Suffolk Y JCC in Commack on Thursday.

To be fair, the cast is made up of kids between ages 7 and 14, so if they’re not all familiar with the pop music queen who reigned before they were born, it’s understandable.

That didn't keep the staff of the summer camp at the Suffolk Y JCC from jumping on the show immediately when the rights came out late last year, said Gayle Gitlitz, director of theater education. Woven in with the songs is the plot, an updated fairy tale that focuses on women’s empowerment. "Once Upon a One More Time" ran on Broadway in 2023 when some of the performers saw it during a camp field trip.

“It was perfect for us,” Gitlitz said. “It’s brand new, hasn’t been done much, and has a lot of females, and we knew we’d have mostly girls,” she said. “We were really excited to do a mostly girl power show.” The group didn’t realize until much later in the process that their production, though it’s the school edition, is the first on Long Island. There’s only one performance (free and open to the public) and while no big red-carpet event is planned, just the idea, Gitlitz said, is “pretty exciting.”

The show only ran about three months on Broadway, “but we really loved it,” Gitlitz said. It came out about the same time as “& Juliet,” another show that makes use of some Spears songs, and that production proved more popular. But don’t tell that to this cast. The girls (27 of them) and one intrepid boy who plays the narrator are putting it all out there. Since Aug. 4, they've been working from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays for a short three weeks to learn complicated music and even more complex choreography.

“We have some incredible young talent,” musical director Sid Cherry said. “We have some exceptional singers, they’re at the top of their game,” adding they’re all more than capable of performing what they’ve been given. “We may not have seven Broadway stars up there outriffing each other,” he said, but there is “a lot of potential.”

Getting the message

Imparting an understanding of the musical’s message is important to director Jennifer Cové. In the story, six Disney princesses, led by Cinderella and Snow White, discover that Prince Charming is a louse who’s been dating all of them. Their Original Fairy Godmother (OFG, for short) shows up to let the women know they’re being played. Hoping to set them on the right path, she leaves a copy of Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique.”

None of the campers had any idea who Friedan was, Cové said, and in three weeks, she didn’t have time to go into the history of the women’s rights movement. But in any show, she said, “as I go along, I try to teach them what it all means.”

With the older girls, she said, “I realize they don’t have the life experience, but I try to put it on a level they understand — like if there was a boy that liked you, but he also liked your best friend, how would you feel?”

Even the younger cast members seem to be picking up on the general message. Ariana Ramos, a 12-year-old entering Commack Middle School, who plays the evil stepmother, gets it. She became a fan of Spears’ music after seeing the show on Broadway with the camp group, and doesn’t hesitate when asked about the musical’s message. “Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you have to love housework, and you need a prince to save you,” she said. “You can do anything you want.”

“It’s all about women being accepted and having more equality,” said Maya Sachs, 14, an incoming freshman at Half Hollow Hills High School in Dix Hills. Sachs plays the real villain of the piece, the philandering Prince Charming. “It’s a fun part to play,” she said, and not just because she gets to perform two of Spears’ biggest hits — “Circus” and “Oops, I Did It Again,” a perfect lyrical response for the moment the prince is caught cheating on everyone. “He’s very dramatic and self-absorbed,” she said.

More than children's theater

Will this show play to anyone other than friends and family? Cherry believes it will. “People don’t realize how dedicated and talented 13- and 14-year-olds can be,” he said. And while the show won’t have the dazzling costumes and pyrotechnics of the Broadway production, “we’ll give it as much of that as we can,” Cherry said.

Beyond that is watching the joy these young performers bring to the stage. “In general, people think children’s theater is not going to be that good,” Cové said.

They’re wrong, she adds. “They will get a lot out of this” — and if they’re Britney Spears fans, so much the better.