The novella of the same name, written by French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is loved for its simple story of an aviator stranded in the desert who, in attempting to repair his plane, hears the little prince tell the story of his life.

Saint-Exupéry disappeared in 1944, but the book lives on, translated into 250 languages, and now WA’s Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is bringing an adaptation here in a 50-minute stage show.

Children aged 4 to 12 will “ooh and ahh” at designer Jiri Zmitko’s hand-carved puppets of the Little Prince, the Rose, the Fox and the Snake, and at his set, a giant wooden box that the actors unpack as they become the different characters.

Puppeteer, dancer and soon-to-be primary school teacher, Jess Lewis, who plays the Prince, is a graduate of WA’s Academy of Performing Arts and no stranger to Canberra, having been taught by QL2 Dance director Ruth Osborne.

“I play the Little Prince and Shane Adamczak plays all of the other nine characters,” Lewis tells “CityNews” by phone from regional Victoria.  

“He puts on different voices that give each one a different personality, it’s a bit of fun on such a long tour.”

Using rod puppets, she says, is “super challenging… I have to keep working on it and taking points from our director Michael Barlow.”

She says, some of the story’s ideas may go over the head of very little children.

“It’s quite a philosophical story with big ideas in there, but I think we sometimes underestimate how deeply little kids think about things,” she says.

In the Q&A they do after the show, kids want to know what happened to the Little Prince at the end… “it kind of implies he died, and the children ask, ‘did he die?’ and ‘where did he go?’”

The end is a big surprise and Lewis won’t say what it is – “that always takes people’s breaths away.”

“The Little Prince”, The Street Theatre, July 13-16. Bookings to 6247 1223 or thestreet.org.au