theater. The production was directed by Rob Ruggiero and ran from September 26 to November 29, 2008. The Encores! staged concert opened on February 8, 2017, and ran to February 12, 2017. The production was directed by Lear deBessonet and starred Kyle Scatliffe as Jim, Nicholas Barasch as Huckleberry Finn, Christopher Sieber as the Duke, Lauren Worsham as Mary Jane Wilkes and David Pittu as The King. International An Australian production starring Cameron Daddo as Huckleberry Finn, Jon English as Pap Finn, John Bell as The Duke and featuring Venetta Fields and Michael Edward Stevens opened in 1989 at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney. It also played Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, with Marcia Hines, as well as Festival Theatre in Adelaide. Synopsis Act One In pre-Civil War Missouri, near St. Petersburg, the vagabond child Huckleberry Finn describes the events by which he and Tom Sawyer had discovered a fortune. Huck has been adopted by the Widow Douglas and her spinster sister Miss Watson, and his guardians, Judge Thatcher, Huck's best friend Tom Sawyer, and practically the entire town inform Huck that he needs to learn to read and write and read the Bible if he ever hopes to go to Heaven ("Do Ya Wanna Go To Heaven?"). The only one who does not attempt to pass judgment on Huck is Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who predicts that he will lead a life of "considerable trouble and considerable joy". Exasperated with the constraints on his daily life, Huck escapes his bedtime and steals away to Tom Sawyer's "hideout", an old cave. In the cave, Tom, Huck and a group of their friends plan to form a band of robbers who will rampage around the countryside ("The Boys"). Huck, on his way home, thinks about the confines of his life and his wish that he will find meaning in his life. ("Waitin' For the Light To Shine") Huck returns home in the darkness to find his Pap, a violent drunk, waiting for him, who drags him off to his cabin in the woods. In his drunkenness, Pap swings from tomfoolery to extreme violence as he rails against a government that would take his son (and his son's money) away from him ("Guv'ment"). Pap attempts to kill Huck, hallucinating that he is the Angel of Death, but passes out in an inebriated mess. The next day Pap goes off to trade and Huck takes