Royal Rumblings

As a senior in college, it’s not easy to imagine himself as a king with dozens of royal wives and scores of royal children, Matthew Mikita admits.

But from the moment he steps a bare foot onto the Rogers Little Theater stage, Mikita owns the role of Mongkut, king of Siam.

He should, says Ed McClure, director of “The King and I.” Mikita worked for it for a year.

“He’s done a ton of indie films in Ohio, where he’s going to college, and a lot of student films, and he’s got a great look about him,” McClure says. What the Bentonville native didn’t have when he was cast in last summer’s “Chicago” was a lot of stage acting experience. It was, in fact, Mikita’s first play.

“When he found out about ‘The King and I,’ I told him he’d really have to work to try out for it,” McClure remembers. “The acting is very difficult - more important than the singing.

“When he came to auditions, he had memorized every audition scene we gave out and thought it through, his presence on stage commanded your attention like the king must do on stage, and he’d worked on his voice,” McClure says.

Just as quickly as he praises Mikita’s work, McClure also points out that the dozen children in the show love him - and Mikita returns the compliment.

“It’s strange for me because I don’t have much experience with children,” he says, “but working with them every day has become so much fun. I’m kind of a little kid inside, and I think they’ve caught on to that.”

On stage, however, Mikita counts on his co-star, Sarah Anders, who plays British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens.

“I am so blessed to have thatexperience across from me,” he says. “And she’s a fantastic singer and dancer.”

Anders has plenty of seasoning to share. Like Mikita, she majored in drama in college, then went on to New York City, where she landed roles in regional and touring productions. Her husband brought her to NorthwestArkansas two years ago, and Rogers Little Theater has afforded her a chance to return to the stage.

“The singing and dancing come easily for me, but it’s been awhile since I’ve done a musical with this much of a book,” she admits. “The first night I satdown to plug away at some of these lines, I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got my work cut out for me!’”

Anders praises Mikita, saying he’s charming but also has a “really great work ethic.”

“I wanted to be off book as soon as possible so we could play, experiment, try differentthings, and he was right there with me,” she says. “We’ve developed a really good chemistry on stage.”

Anders played a small role in “Oliver,” but McClure says he’s happy to welcome a lot of new talent to the RLT stage this time, including Lexie Hardcastle as Tuptim, Jim Loyd as her secret lover and 5-year-old Rohan Shaikh as the king’s adorable youngest son.

McClure says he expected the challenge to be in making “The King and I,” which is set in the 1860s and opened on Broadway in 1951, relevant. Then he discovered it already was.

“On the purest level, it’s the story of two people - and two cultures - that don’t know each other, have an inherent distrust of each other, but if we could all get to know each other and learn to dance with each other, the world would just be a better place,” he says.