NEW PALESTINE — The massive, hand-painted canvas hanging in the New Palestine High School auditorium at the back of the stage helps set the scene for this weekend’s performances of “Alice in Wonderland.”
Standing in front of the backdrop, play director Caroline Clayton stood on the stage while her cast and crew sat in the NPHS auditorium chairs listening to some of Clayton’s final instructions as the students prepared for final rehearsals. The performances are slated for 7 p.m. Friday, April 28 and Saturday, April 29 as well as a matinee at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 30.
“If you have something about the show you need to talk to me about, now is the time. I’m here all day,” Clayton said earlier this week.
The fact that the performances are being presented inside the NPHS auditorium is a bit of a minor miracle. Just a few weeks ago Clayton and cast were informed they’d have to do the show at another location because construction on the NPHS stage was set to start in late April. However, due to renovation delays, the show will go on as originally planned at the NPHS auditorium.
“We get the whole stage and the background area and everything,” Clayton said. “It’s really hard to come up with the right words about how happy that makes us, but our kids were willing to do whatever we needed to put this play on and, now that it’s going to be here, there is real enthusiasm.”
Due to the location changes, it meant stage expert Steve Beebe, along with the students in the play and those working as crew, had to kick it into high gear to get the stage ready for NPHS. They did so, adding a massive backdrop and other “Alice in Wonderland” props such as a large mushroom for the caterpillar to take a seat on and a wall for Humpty Dumpty.
“It was a great team-building activity,” Clayton said. “The kids all worked really well together to get this all ready.”
Junior Vivian Hart is playing the lead role as Alice and said she’s looking forward, along with her castmates, to showcasing their skills in front of an audience after months of rehearsals.
“This has been a little nutty because at first we were supposed to perform here, then it got switched to New Palestine Intermediate and now we’re back here, so it’s definitely been more chaotic. But this group, we’ve really stuck with it,” Hart said before noting perhaps it’s all par for the course with a fun and wild play like “Alice in Wonderland.”
Hart noted the play is an adventure and thinks the audience will love watching the characters come to life.
“I love playing Alice because she’s so innocent and curious and gets herself into all kinds of trouble and that’s fun for me to do,” Hart said.
Hart, who has been a part of school performances since sixth grade, said she truly enjoys the performing arts and is grateful to be part of a program where shows like the spring play are a big deal.
“I hope people come to the play because it’s going to be lots of fun,” she said.
Sophomore Quinn Crawmer gets to play Tweedle Dum and said don’t be fooled, he’s actually the smarter of the two fellas, referring to his brother, Tweedle Dee.
“He’s a very intuitive character,” Crawmer said. “He acts like a child some and he gets to yell so that’s a lot of fun.”
Senior Ethan Stearns is the King of Hearts and said it’s quite the role, not at all what people might think.
“In this performance, we do kind of a different spin on the King because the King is usually seen as the dominant one but, in this show, the Queen of Hearts definitely wears the pants,” Stearns said. “We get to see a lot of power dynamics where the King wants to look tough but, around the Queen, he’s super soft and does what she wants.”
Stearns noted Alice in Wonderland is truly a special show and should get lots of laughs. He’s thrilled with getting the chance to do his last high school performance at the NPHS auditorium.
“When I was first told we were gonna have to perform the shows elsewhere, I was pretty sad because this is my last show, so it’s nice we can perform it here on this big stage,” Stearns said. “We’re really excited to have a good time.”
