Margit Moe has decided to reprise “My Fair Lady,” a show the school staged in 1993. This year’s cast of 60 far outnumbers the original performance’s 20 students, and the sets and costumes are more elaborate, said Moe, the show’s director and Mountain View theater teacher.

But the theme of transformation, as well as beloved songs such as “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “On the Street Where You Live,” remains the same.

The play is set in London in 1912 and centers on linguistics professor Henry Higgins (played by senior Winston Slocumb) and poor flower peddler Eliza Doolittle (junior Breegan Harper). As part of a bet, Henry agrees to work with Eliza and turn her into an elegant lady. In the process, he finds himself changing as well.

“It’s a two-way street,” Moe said. “Not only does Eliza transform into a lady who could work in a flower shop, which was her goal, but Henry transforms from a confirmed bachelor into someone who realizes he really needs people.”

The evolution is obvious when contrasting the show’s earlier songs, numbers such as “I’m an Ordinary Man,” to the later tune “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”
In the former, Henry sings that he’d “be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling than to ever let a woman in (his) life.” In the latter, “he realizes, much to his chagrin, that he needs (Eliza) and misses her,” Moe said.

In addition to change, “My Fair Lady” also focuses on the contrast between the haves and the have-nots, a distinction easier to illustrate with a large cast, Moe said.

In the 1993 production, many people played multiple roles, but this year she has enough actors to have separate cockney and High British ensembles.

“One thing we tried to point out was the difference between the two classes,” Moe said. “Not that one was better than the other, but they had to coexist.”