Atascadero! (Spanish slang for 'pigpen' or 'big mess'), premiered at The Santa Barbara Playhouse, Santa Barbara, California, in 1974. Since then, it has been successfully produced by community theatre organizations, as well as college and university theatre departments. It is adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's The Swineherd, a story he first heard as a bawdy German joke.The Santa Barbara production used two real pigs, and those beasts were as charming as they were alarming. Human actors have since played the pigs, adding an entirely new and welcome dimension to the play's humour.Whereas other versions change the ending to 'happily ever after', this play retains the bittersweet ending as in the original folk tale.
