‘Wonderland’ Wins Mountain Fans

  • Left, Tweedledum and Tweedledee delighted the crowds at ?Alice in Wonderland?
last weekend, (top right) the Knave of Hearts (Colton Fair) and the White Rabbit (Carey Moulder) looking for the Cheshire Cat, (bottom) the dancing Flowers (Katie Barnes, Violet Fowler, Emily McLaughlin, Madison Parrish and Carly Waites).

    Left, Tweedledum and Tweedledee delighted the crowds at ?Alice in Wonderland? last weekend, (top right) the Knave of Hearts (Colton Fair) and the White Rabbit (Carey Moulder) looking for the Cheshire Cat, (bottom) the dancing Flowers (Katie Barnes, Violet Fowler, Emily McLaughlin, Madison Parrish and Carly Waites).

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cheshire Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
—Lewis Carroll

By Sara Woerter

And you must be mad if you didn’t have a chance to attend the Alice in Wonderland presentation hosted by the Frazier Mountain High School Drama Club. From December 11 to December 13, Alice (played by Cheyenne Bell) sparked the imaginations and wonder into the hearts of the Mountain Community. The play (produced by Kat Fair and directed by Bill Fair) tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into another world. Tiny, confused and alone, she tries her best to figure out how to return home.

Along her journey she meets the Duchess (Aly Overs), the distressed cook (Jacob Perry) who douses Alice with pepper, the tap dancing Caterpillar (Morgan Decker) and the grinning Cheshire Cat (Ariel Threats). As Alice goes through the streets of wonderland, she also discovers that it is almost time-tea time to be precise!

The Mad Hatter (Romona Blomquist), the March Hare (Lindsay Hancock) and the sleepy Dormouse (Gonzalo Lomeli) gather around the table to celebrate tea time and although Alice was not invited, she ends up sitting along the table with the crew. As the play continues to develop, the White Rabbit (Carey Moulder) dashes about, the madcap Tweedledee (Amanda Walker) and Tweedledum (Kailie Shillig) fight over a broken rattle (which Alice nearly loses a limb over), the talking flowers (Katie Barnes, Violet Fowler, Emily McLaughlin, Madison Parrish, and Carly Waites) insult Alice for not being as beautiful as them and the Red Queen Queen (Shani Quibell) invites the poor girl to a life-or-death game of croquet!

Alice just wants to go home and tries her best to find the path out. As she silently observes the members of Wonderland, it turns out that the Knave of Hearts (Colton Fair) has stolen the Queen’s tarts and now is on trial. The Red King (Brandon Young) becomes the judge and the inhabitants of Wonderland are used as the jury—including the conceited Humpty Dumpty (Asia Wheaton). The grinning Cheshire Cat always seems to appear at the most dramatic moments to cause a disturbance and as the court realizes his presences, they try to capture the fellow—much to Alice’s dismay and the Knave of Hearts’ relief.

The Cheshire Cat watches Alice throughout her journey and finally offers her the chance to return home. He points her in the right direction and as Alice goes back, she tries to tell her sister (Emily McLaughlin) about her experiences in Wonderland—in which the sister pronounces her to be crazy. Was it all a dream or did Alice and the audience really experience Wonderland?

The production had three full houses in performances over two days. Ashley Schnabel was stage manager, Nick Johnson was the head technician, Tom Henderson was the sound technician, Chris Hardy worked spotlight, Anna Hart and Martin Salinas were set crew and Danielle Sturdevant was in charge of makeup.

There is no drama class at FMHS, so the actors and crewmembers took personal time out of their schedules to put together this play.

Actor Cheyenne Bell had a great time working on the set of this play: “Producing plays during school is always stressful, but as always we all pull it together and put on a great show. The cast and crew for Alice in Wonderland had their differences at times, but we all managed to work well when the pressure was on to perform. For me, the experience is best described as wonderful, and I hope to work with everyone in shows sometime in the future.”

This is part of the December 19, 2008 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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