One of the qualities that 11-year-old aspiring actor Adele Clark appreciates about the fictional character Pippi Longstocking is her ability to tell a tall tale.

For instance, Pippi waxes on about a gale she experienced on her father’s pirate ship. The waves were so huge that even the sharks were seasick, Clark quoted with a twinkle in her eye and a shake of her red braids.

“I talk a lot, and I like to make up stories,” said Clark, who will portray the perky character in the META Performing Arts production of the musical “Pippi Longstocking” Nov. 20-29 at McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon.

“I make up stories, but I never tell tall tales,” she added.

Clark said she and Pippi share active imaginations, gregarious natures and that trademark unruly red hair. In fact, Clark is braiding her hair and using wire to make the braids stick out from the sides of her head — just like Pippi.

“It’s supposed to look like a mess because Pippi’s a messy person,” said the sixth-grader, who lives in Bow. “She has an exuberant personality and exuberant hair.”

META’s 120-minute production of the musical features a score written by leading Denmark performer Knud Grabow Christensen, who uses the stage name Sebastian. The musical is a blend of tango, ballads, an English drinking song, rock and pop, said Kate Kypuros, META artistic director.

In META’s production, Pippi’s story unfolds with 60 actors, including 50 children, in a Swedish fishing village in the 1950s, Kypuros said. Kypuros picked the setting as a tribute to Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, whose Pippi books came from stories she told her sick daughter.

Seeking authenticity, Kypuros avoided the wild primary colors of the 1988 movie “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking,” and chose a more muted palette of greens, oranges and gingham that are pure Pippi.

The female version of Peter Pan or Bart Simpson, Pippi is a friendly trickster who, aided by her superior strength, humor and cunning, gets the better of adults. She’s also an adventurer who bristles when encountering adult condescension. An undeclared feminist at heart, Pippi also has no concept of the 1950s idea of proper behavior or restrictions placed on young ladies.

Author Lindgren’s beloved character Pippi Longstocking first appeared in three novels between 1945 and 1948. Six more books in the series were published between 1969 and 1975, with two final stories printed in 1979 and 2000.

After her sea-captain father disappears during a storm, Pippi returns to her home, called Villa Villekula, with her horse (which she can lift with one arm) and her pet monkey, Mr. Nilsson.

Raised by her father on a pirate ship, Pippi is a strong, independent young lady, Kypuros said. But when Pippi encounters adults in the fishing village of Villekula, she finds that most people don’t appreciate her wild approach to life.

That’s when the trouble starts.

Finding just the right actor for the part was essential, Kypuros said.

“If Pippi is played wrong, she comes off as a brat,” she said.

But that’s not the case with Clark, and the rest of the cast is just as talented, Kypuros said.

At the opening of the musical, Pippi and her pet monkey, Mr. Nilsson, played by Logan Price, 9, meet the children who become their best friends.

Hailey Azure, 11, of La Conner and Waylon Johnson, 12, of Burlington portray sister and brother Annika and Tommy, respectively. Johnson said he enjoys how the characters in the musical care for each other and Pippi.

“The happiness in this play is unbounded,” Johnson said. “Trust me, it will be good. We have some great songs.”

Price has the tough task of conveying Mr. Nilsson’s emotions without words, only gestures and expressions.

While attending a circus, where Pippi shows up the strongest man in the world, the friends attract the attention of two thieves, Mr. Bloom and Thunder Carlson.

Bloom, played by Mount Vernon High School graduate Doug Zwick, 27, of Bellingham, hopes to steal Pippi’s gold.

“Bloom is great. He’s a lot of fun,” Zwick said.

Carlson is Bloom’s protégé and not exactly the smartest partner in crime. Sometimes Carlson’s eagerness to get the loot prompts indiscreet comments.

“I get to nudge him in the ribs or smack him,” Zwick said. “It’s a lot of fun to have that foil.”

Pippi also encounters Mrs. Prysselius, director of the Social Welfare Office (a departure from Lindgren’s novel), who sets Constables Clang and Cling, played by Michael Marlin and Tracy Johnson, respectively, on the girl in a madcap chase involving a tandem bicycle.

But Pippi’s toughest challenge in the musical may be what happens when her beloved father, rescued by his band of pirates, arrives in town.

Pippi then must decide between returning to sea with her father or remaining with her friends, Annika and Tommy.

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WANT TO GO?

What: META Performing Arts’ production of the musical “Pippi Longstocking.”

When: Nov. 20-29. Show times are 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, with a discounted show at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21.

Where: McIntyre Hall, 2501 E. College Way, Mount Vernon

Cost: $20, $24 and $35, with $2 discounts for ages 65 and older, 18 and younger and groups of 10 or more. Tickets for the discounted “pay-what-you-can” show Saturday, Nov. 21, will go on sale at 1 p.m. that day.

Tickets, info: 360-416-7727 or http://www.mcintyrehall.org.