A Wrinkle in Time, the classic story of a sister and brother, who rescue their father from captivity on the planet of Camazot opens Friday, Aug. 19 and runs through Sunday, Aug. 28, at Prescott Valley Performing Arts, a community theater located at 3235 Main St.

Director Randy Smith said that he is comfortable working with a cast of children, teens and adults, but the real challenge for this unique play is the set design.

Normally, I build really elaborate sets for my cast,” Smith said. “This one, because it takes place in so many different places throughout the story, some of which we don’t even know where it is, so how do you build a set for it? So, that’s been a challenge for me, but I am going to overcome that with special effects and lighting. That’s what’s going to bring this one to life and then the actual characters themselves, their costumes and the story, because I think it’s more about the story than it is about the set.”

The story follows siblings Meg Murray and Charles Murray on an adventure through time.

“Both of their parents are, I guess what you would consider almost mad scientists,” Smith said. “They’ve discovered a way to, I’ll call it time travel to make it easy, and Dad gets lost out in wherever time travel goes for this story. Mom sticks around and is trying to do her mad scientist thing and raise two brainy children that are having adjustment problems in school. So, there are a lot of life lessons aimed at children through this.”

Lily Todd, the actor playing Meg, explained that living without a father weighs heavily on her character.

“Since her father’s not around as much as he was, she has become really quiet and she’s really reserved now,” Todd said. “She’s very upset when people make fun of her brother. She tries to fight everybody who makes remarks about trolls.”

Todd said that the hardest part of preparing for her role has been memorizing the lines.

“There’s a bunch of wording in it,” Todd said. “It can be kind of hard to make sure you get all the words right.”

Frankie Schachtner, the actor playing Red Eyes, explained that her character is the villain of the story.

“He’s kind of like the darkness that people are trying to fight against,” Schachtner said.

Schachtner said that she was familiar with the story before auditioning for the part.

“We did it as a homeschool curriculum one year and we read the book and really liked it,” Schachtner said. “Also, we watched the movie. It was good.”

For more information about Prescott Valley Performing Arts, visit pvperformingarts.org.

Jesse Bertel is a reporter/videographer for the Prescott News Network. Follow him on Twitter @ JesseBertel, email him at jbertel@prescottaz.com, or call 928-445-3333, ext. 2043.