A rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.

Or in Stephens Auditorium, as soprano Sarah Thompson, senior in music, stars in the musical “My Fair Lady,” a combined effort of Stars Over VEISHEA, ISU Theater and ISU Music.

The musical will take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Stephens Auditorium.

Poverty, romance and trying to understand what it means to be refined are themes in this sometimes playful, sometimes heart-wrenching classic by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

“It’s a very intricate and lovely story,” said Brad Dell, lecturer in music and director of the musical.

The story centers around Thompson’s character, Eliza Doolittle, a brash, cockney flower girl from London’s merciless-but-colorful streets, who falls into an interesting relationship with linguistics professor Henry Higgins, played by Micah Morgan, sophomore in music.

Appalled by her crude manner of speaking, Higgins takes Doolittle in as a student – a project, rather – and the story of her upward climb into society and refinement makes up the musical’s “lovely” plot.

The cast has aimed to not make the show a carbon copy of what people know and expect from it.

“I feel like we’re trying to take a bit of a fresh approach to it,” Dell said.

The character of Higgins, for example, whose self-importance is unbearably cold in the well-known movie version starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, is going to be a little more lighthearted.

“He’s a fun-loving child at heart,” Dell said.

Another important difference between this Higgins and the Harrison portrayal is his musical ability, Dell said.

“Our Higgins sings a lot – and very gorgeously,” he said.

Doolittle, the story’s spunky Cinderella, braves the onslaught of Higgins’s arrogance and somehow maintains her sense of dignity despite his ruthless pushing and belittling.

The beginning of the play has Doolittle dancing through the streets in dreamy song, before her ideas of speech and lifestyle are turned on their heads.

“She has this really wistful naivete,” Thompson said of her character. “She’s just this ordinary woman living an ordinary life and she hungers for the extraordinary.”

Doolittle may begin naive, but Thompson likes that she doesn’t stay that way.

“She longs to be a woman, but she becomes Eliza,” Thompson said.

The 45-member cast, 15 crew members, producing team of 10 and orchestra have been rehearsing “My Fair Lady” most of the semester.

“It takes a village to raise this baby,” Dell said, “and the baby is going to be really cute.”

This year is the 50th anniversary of “My Fair Lady.” It opened March 15, 1956, on Broadway.

The show has a lot of wonderful, crowd-pleasing songs, said accompanist Adam McDonald. He said it’s the best Stars Over VEISHEA production he’s seen in his four years participating.

“They’ll leave humming ‘Wouldn’t it be Lovely,'” he said.