Jim Bruce hopes he can smuggle an 18-inch doll with breasts that light up, across the border when he heads back from Seattle next week.

The play director plans to use the doll as prop for an adaptation of Herb Gardner’s 1962 play A Thousand Clowns, which opens up at the Merritt Royal Canadian Legion Hall Dec. 10.

“We got about 10 people who read for parts,” said Bruce of the auditions held earlier this fall.

After all was said and done, Bruce had the cast narrowed down to just six.

“It’s generally a young and enthusiastic cast.”

The four-night play will feature some of Merritt’s finest actors; Alex Grebenyuk, Sarah Hyde, Rolie Wood, Rachel Drew, Brian Snee, and Lin Sherwood.

“Murray Burns is a large part and he is on stage for almost a two-hour period,” said Bruce.

“It’s a comedy but with some very serious social issues wrapped up with it.”

Burns will be played by Grebenyuk. Burns is an unemployed television writer who lives in a crowded New York City one-bedroom apartment with his 12-year-old Nephew Nick Burns (Sherwood), the illegitimate son of Murray's sister Amie Burns (Drew) a Tim Horton’s worker.

Social workers are sent to the apartment after Nick’s school sends a copy of an assignment Nick wrote on the benefits of unemployment insurance.

Child Welfare Bureau investigators Sandra Markowitz (Hyde) and her supervisor and boyfriend Albert Amundson (Wood) confront Murray and threaten to remove his Nick unless Murray can prove his worth to society.

Sandra finds Murray charming and is quickly seduced. The two begin a relationship and Sandra convinces Murray to find employment.

Murray soon finds himself in an uncomfortable position. If he wishes to keep his nephew, he must discard his stubbornness and tackle his responsibilities head on.

Murray realizes that he must get a job to satisfy the welfare board and goes back to work writing jokes for a children's television show called "Chuckles the Chipmunk,” a job he quit because of a serious dislike of the show’s host Leo Herman (Snee).

Bruce’s play will be an adaption of the original American theatrical work but with a slight Canadian twist.

“This is an incredibly talented small group,” said Bruce.

“I think people are really going to be impressed.”

A Thousand Clowns opens Dec. 10 and continues Dec. 12, 13, and 14. On each performance night the doors will open at 6 p.m. with the performance starting at 7 p.m.