“In three months I could pass this girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. I could pass this incarnate insult to the English language off as the Queen of Sheba,” so explains Henry Higgins to fellow phonetics enthusiast Colonel Pickering as they watch over a simple, outspoken, flower girl in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, playing in The Edward K. Daniels Auditorium at Southern State Community College, Hillsboro, Ohio, March 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m. and on March 6 at 3:30 p.m.

Pygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw’s feminist views. In Shaw’s hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins (played by Benjamin Gullett) is the Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle (Veronica Carpenter), a cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in polite society. The one thing he overlooks is that his ‘creation’ has a mind of her own. The success of Pygmalion led to the creation of the well received musical and film, My Fair Lady.

Pygmalion also features the talents of: Casey Baker, Juliane Cartaino, Blayne Dalton, Hannah Hengler, Leslie Holmes, Mark Holmes, Jeff Horick, Emmy Lakes, Jessica Morris, Deven Rine, and Terry Washburn.

Pygmalion is directed by Rainee Angles and stage managed by Kat Castle. Fulfilling crew positions are: Brent Angles, Paul Davis, Donald Gehres, D.J. Griffith, John Hancock, Ashley Jett, Alicia Jones, Kelly Lay, Kristi Lay, Abe Martin, Laura Martin, Wayne Noble, Seth Potts, McCaylee Priest, and Calin Rushing.

The Saturday, March 5, performance of Pygmalion will feature American Sign Language interpretation performed by students from the A.S.L. classes, taught by Kathey Carroll at SSCC.

Tickets for Pygmalion are on sale now and can be pre-ordered, for only $6, by visiting www.sscctheatre.com. All Major credit cards are accepted. At the door, tickets are $8 for general admission and $6 for student and faculty, with ID. For more information about Pygmalion, tickets, and other SSCC Theatre productions, please visit www.sscctheatre.com.