The summer reconstruction of Lakeridge Middle School brought students, teachers and staff plenty of bright and shiny amenities to enjoy: a new science wing, a large, open entryway and a smoothly operating heating and ventilation system.

Last week, Lakeridge Drama used the campus feature perhaps most important to them: the amphitheater stage. March 18 and 19 marked the first use of the stage for a school theatrical production.

“It’s phenomenal to have students at their home school, practicing at the school and performing at the school,” Co-principal Toby Udager said by the tech booth during the March 18 show.

Udager soon left to attend to a non-functioning microphone backstage, but it is a significant leap forward for drama to have a sound system at all. Past productions took place on a portable stage dressed up with whatever backdrops and props could fit on the relatively small surface.

The new stage, by contrast, is wide and deep, giving actors freedom of movement and the ability to change set pieces between scenes, sight unseen behind a curtain.

It also comes with an integrated sound system, acoustic paneling to bounce noise out to the audience, and an array of stage lights.

“Because of those—you can see some kids operating the sound and lighting board here—our students also get that hands on experience running the lights and sound of the show,” Udager said. “It’s like being in high school drama.”

The show, “Once Upon a Mattress,” is a musical comedy adaptation of “The Princess and the Pea” that originally debuted in 1959.

It deepens the story of the original tale by postulating the pea test, by which a princess could prove her worthiness to marry the prince, was devised by an over-mothering Queen.