Centerstage Theatre is pleased to offer to any high school student tickets to the opening night of the new musical, Nicholas Nickleby, for only one dollar. These tickets are good for Friday May 5 only and are for students with current student IDs.

Accompanying parents and others pay normal prices. The $1 tickets are only available on the night and may not be reserved in advance.

This version of Nicholas Nickleby is a new adaptation of one of the greatest masterpieces of the English language. The story of the struggles of young Nicholas, his sister and mother, and their triumphant conquest over poverty and evil, could not be better material for young minds to absorb.

Dickens, more than any writer, has associated himself with the thought of suffering childhood. What made Nicholas Nickleby so poignant at the time was the disturbingly accurate account of the unregulated "Yorkshire Schools."

Dickens saw his portrayal of Nicholas as a radical departure from conventional heroes. Nicholas, though good and honorable, bears all the confrontational hallmarks of a twenty-first century adolescent, struggling to give his life purpose.

Mrs. Nickleby, his mother, is one of Dickens' great comic creations. She is well meaning, gracious and tolerant; she has natural affections, and would be sincerely distressed by a charge of selfishness. But unhappily the poor woman has been born with the intellectual equipment of a Somerset ewe. We must endure her, as we endure the caprices of the sky. An ultimate fact of nature and a great argument for those who decline to take life too seriously.

Nicholas Nickleby opens Friday May 5, and runs through Sunday, May 28, at the Knutzen Family Theatre.

For tickets, call (253) 661-1444 or visit their web site:

www.centerstagetheatre.com