Alice in Wonderland Jr. climbs out of the rabbit hole to feature AHN’s very own Bayshore Players on February 24-26 with Thursday and Friday evening performances at 7:30 pm and Sunday performance at 3 pm. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students and seniors.
This play may be a junior version, but it holds all the strange characters and scenarios Lewis Carroll created. A cast of 22 Bayshore Players, grades six through twelve, will take on the roles of Wonderland’s characters for this year’s production.
Alice shrinks and grows in the play, which means there are three Alices. Small Alice is played by eighth grader Valerie Ely, while tall Alice is eleventh grader Meghan Wallace. Also, not only did AHN girls audition, but two Jesuit seniors auditioned and won parts: TJ Muscaro (King of Hearts) and Fromie Gonzalez (White Rabbit).
Alice in Wonderland Jr. takes place in a park where Alice and her sister Mathilda are looking through school books. Alice starts to drift off to sleep but sees a white rabbit run towards a rabbit hole. She becomes curious and follows him to the edge of the rabbit hole. Before jumping, she ponders what her sister’s advice was. Once down the rabbit hole, Alice must eat a cookie and drink a potion before she enters the randomness of Wonderland and its characters.
Along the way she comes across strange characters such as at the Unbirthday Tea Party with Tweedle Dum Tweedle Dee, played by Brianna Wharton (11) and Ashlee Wallace(11), the Mad Hatter played by Charmaine Bondoc (12), and March Hare played by Ashlyn Bradshaw(9). At the King and Queen of Hearts’ castle garden, she meets the Royal Cardsmen played by Gracie Hancock (8) and Rachel Saunders (6).
While Alice is shrunk, she meets the Girls of the Golden Afternoon who are prissy flowers who pick on anything smaller than they. Rose, played by Cavesha Anderson (12) and Petunia, played by Gabriela Henderson (11), are the top flowers of this association and call Small Alice “different weed.”
Many Wonderland characters try to make Alice conform to their ideas, but in the end Alice realizes that she can’t be someone she’s not. “I’m Alice!!!!!” she screams by the end of the play.
