The words of William Shakespeare and the music of Elvis Presley will intertwine onstage in McComas Hall beginning Thursday. Theatre MSU will showcase its fourth production this year, “All Shook Up,” a musical written by playwright Joe Dipetro and directed by MSU communication instructor, Jo Durst.
JJ Haight, freshman music performance major, described his character Dennis and the musical’s plot. Haight said the show is a Shakespeare play tossed into the world of the 1950s, full of rockabilly tunes and complicated love stories.
“I play Dennis, the aspiring dentist and best friend of Natalie. I’m awkward, geeky and secretly in love with her,” Haight said. “The show is based off Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and set in the ’50s to Elvis music, so there are a lot of crazy love triangles and trapezoids and lots of Elvis music and dancing.”
“All Shook Up” takes place in a small town that outlaws music until one fateful day a rebellious stranger comes and shows everyone in the town the power of rock and roll. 
Michaela Moore, freshman communication major, plays Natalie, the lead female protagonist who changes her identity to get closer to the town’s rebel.
“I’m the female slash male lead throughout the show,” Moore said with a bashful chuckle. “It’s set in a small town, and it’s kind of got some ‘Footloose’ vibes. We don’t allow loud music or anything, and then there’s some little roustabout named Chad who comes and shows everyone we could be having more fun than this. My character is just absolutely enamored by him, but he doesn’t pay any attention to her because she’s a grease mechanic, but she discovers once she dresses as a boy suddenly he’ll be friends with her.” 
Moore said the show’s varied influences, from classical English literature to the American 1950s, result in a unique performance that sidesteps typical categories and expectations associated with musicals.
“I think it’s one of the most interesting shows I’ve ever done,” she said. “I’ve done a lot of shows before but this one is nothing like you’d expect for a show at all. You can’t go in there expecting your typical musical. It’s really quirky, fun and there’s even a little bit of audience participation. There’s lots of dancing, and if you love Elvis, definitely come to the show.”
Showtime is 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, and performances run until Saturday. General admission tickets are $10 and are available for purchase on Mississippi State University’s theatre department website, comm.msstate.edu/dept/theatre/.