Teenagers are squawking and screeching in the hallways. Some are laughing manically, attempting to fix a broken watch with butter while drinking tea. A girl sleeps the day away, only bothering to awake to interrupt others by bursting into song. This setting is not what it appears to be; it describes the set of the Revere Players’ production of Alice in Wonderland, where the actors are participating in a normal day of rehearsal.

Rena Baker, director of the Revere Players’ fall play, chose to take on Alice in Wonderland as this year’s fall play with assistant director Laurie Russell. The two women have been choreographing and directing Revere plays for 18 years, and they are now eager to tackle this production, which combines Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. While it will prove to be a challenging feat, Baker and Russell, who are confident in the abilities of the actors as well as everyone else involved in the show, expect this play to be a success.
           
Baker explained that she has been intending to put on Alice in Wonderland for a while, but the difficult and elaborate special effects have stood in her way. After the success of the Players’ performance of The Wizard of Oz, however, Baker decided that the group was fully capable of such an accomplishment.

Revere art teacher Robert Pierson will reprise his role as set designer for this year’s play, and this year the special effects will pose as one of the play’s biggest challenges. Pierson has met with Baker and together they have come up with specially designed sets and plans that will help them pull off the more challenging special effects. For example, in one scene Alice will need to grow and shrink, so they have designed a rotating stage that will allow them to achieve this illusion. Pierson noted that he just wants to make the performance believable.

“This play is not realism, it’s a fantasy. It’s more of a dream or nightmare of Alice’s. Hopefully the audience experiences the dream as Alice does,” Pierson said.
           
Baker also noted that Alice in Wonderland should prove to be a good choice because she prefers to stick with classical literature.
           
“[Classic literature] has been my focus for the fall Players. I really like doing Dickens, Shakespeare, and other classical works,” Baker said.
           
The audience should expect the play to be a closer portrayal to Carroll’s books rather than the Disney animation. In fact, the script takes many of the lines in the performance directly from the books. The play will still include many of the more popular characters for which the stories are known.
           
“I searched long and hard to find [a script] that was a lot closer to the book. That’s important to me. When you’re going to do an author’s work and it’s being turned into a play, I think it’s important to honor his or her words,” Baker said.
           
Russell explained that she and Baker hope for the play to appeal to all ages, but adults and teenagers will especially enjoy the clever word play and humorous characters.
           
“It’s more of a sophisticated version, but it’s also very funny and very wacky. I think that [the play] will appeal to everyone. The little ones will come because it’s Alice in Wonderland, and they’ll enjoy it for the costumes and the silliness. I think adults and young adults will appreciate it even more because [they’ll] understand more of the subtle humor and some of the more adult aspects,” Russell said.
           
The production will consist of 32 roles, and Sarah Blake and Lucia Boulos will play Alice whom the directors chose to double-cast. Alice has over 400 lines, including a soliloquy. Baker explained the essential of double-casting Alice because of her importance and the stress that comes along with the role.
           
“We had to double cast Alice because what if someone gets sick? The play is gone. Also, it’s very, very stressful to do that many performances as the only person being Alice. [Blake and Boulos] are old friends, and they really support each other. They make notes for each other, they help each other, and they direct each other when I’m directing other people,” Baker said
           
Baker explained that while it was difficult to cast Alice, both Blake and Boulos looked the part and she was confident in Blake’s and Boulos’s abilities to perform the role well.
           
“We were definitely looking for a child like quality. With Sarah and Lucia, they have a young look. I also knew that they could handle the lines. I had total faith that they could handle those lines, so it wasn’t a guess. I knew they could do it,” Baker said.
           
Blake, who performed in her first Players’ production in fifth grade, explained her excitement about being a part of the play, especially as a lead character.
           
“I wanted [the part of] Alice because I thought it would be cool to be a lead and because Alice is a younger girl, and I’m better at playing those kinds of roles. I think it’s really cool how she gets to be in every scene, have all these adventures in Wonderland and interact with all these cool characters,” Blake said.
           
Blake also noted that she anticipates the audience really enjoying this play because of the action, humor and creativity.
           
“I like that it’s one big crazy adventure. Some people can see musicals or plays as boring because it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of action, but in this play something is always happening. There’s always something for you to look for, and there’s always something for you to laugh at. It’ll be super colorful and just super fun,” Blake said.
           
Russell noted that she enjoys the fact that all grades are represented in this year’s cast and that this year’s cast adapts well to the craziness that the play involves.
           
“This is the most diverse [cast] that we’ve had in a long time, and we’re really happy about that. The new kids add a breath of fresh air, but we need the juniors and seniors because they’re the pros. Plus it’s a really crazy show, and the kids really showed us some bizarre stuff, which is what we wanted in auditions. They’re really having fun with developing these crazy characters,” Russell said.

The actors taking part in this production include the following: Sarah Blake, Sydney Borcherding, Lucia Boulos, Mariam Boulos, Gina Ciolli, Caroline Crawford, Sasha Desberg, Libby Duncan, Ellie Edwards, Lexie Farist, Paige Fritz, Grace Godard, Karl Godard, Alex Isada, Nick Jones, Macy Keaton, Russell Klein, Shelby Kohmann, Sia Konstantinopoulos, Ethan Lockmiller, Tim Miller, Ryan Nadzam, Ashley Oakley, Patrick O’Malley, Garrison Peters, Micah Post, Susie Post, Kelly Schikowski, Julia Schwertner, Noah Sigsworth, Madison Stumbaugh, Madison Umina, Claire Weihe, Jessica Weil, Madison Williams and Jacob Zimmerman.

The Stage Manager of the production is Will Ackermann. The stage crew of the production consists of Mackenzie Moore, Eve McCarty, Anna Gerber, Evie Solis, Megan Travers, Alec Pardi, Brandon Dutkiewicz, Ben Tipton, Katie Hanus, Molly Oldham, and Becca Schmidt.

Students working in the tech booth during the show include Steven Banis, Jason Choy, Andrew Kosich, Brendan Loeb, Chad Nicholson, and Liam Pinney.
           
After weeks of hard work memorizing lines, rehearsing the carefully planned out stage directions, perfecting their bird noises and  timing the exact moment in which to “Move on!” at the tea party, the Revere Players will put on their performance of Alice in Wonderland  on November 5, 6 and 7 at 7:00 P.M. and November 8 at  2:00 P.M.