Richard Rodgers’ daughter wrote the music for this confection in the 1950s and it was a big hit for Carol Burnett. A recent Broadway revival featured Sarah Jessica Parker. Filling those shoes is a spirited, and strong voiced, Kathleen Gallagher who sells her big numbers. She sings in a strong, clear voice about how "Shy" she is and how she longs to live "Happily Ever After."  She has a nice stage presence and fine comic timing. Her Prince, J. R. Owens, has less command when singing – although his work translating the mute King’s version of a lesson on the birds and the bees into the song "Man-to-Man Talk" is very good. He is at his best, however, in the comic postures he assumes when peering out at the newly arrived Princess from behind his over-protective mother, played with a nice sense of vigor by Jane Squier Bruns.

It appears that The Montgomery Playhouse is a fortunate community theater troupe both in the resources they can put on the stage and in the stage itself. The facility at Asbury is first rate with comfortable seating, excellent equipment and a playing space that, while a bit shallow, is well used in David Jones’ excellent set design. The show has no fewer than ten locales in a medieval castle. Jones resists the temptation to make each spectacular or even distinct and, instead, provides a number of set pieces that slide, glide and rotate into different arrangements smoothly and quickly. Color is added primarily by the costumes of Monica (Wenzel) Russell and Diane Garies. It is a combination that works well and has the benefit of never delaying an already overlong performance.

The sluggishness that hides these charms comes in both the stage direction and the musical direction. The director, Patti Woolsey, is also the choreographer and deserves kudos for an intriguing opening routine in which the chorus performs a mock-mechanical mime that illustrates the prologue sung by Ken Kemp as a Minstrel. Woolsey also does a nice job on the big dance, "The Spanish Panic." Anne Raugh, who provides a well played keyboard accompaniment to this and all the numbers, fails to establish much rhythmic energy or to get her singers to pick up the pace when needed.