'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' Opens at Parkway West

Two students are getting to try their hand at directing a play, which they say has been stressful at times but overwhelmingly worth the experience.

Seniors Billy Nease, of St. Louis, and Megan Hawkins, of Ballwin, will see their hard work come alive on the stage when Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland opens Thursday night. The pair has worked with their cast of about 30 students for the past six weeks to bring the popular children’s tale about the girl who fell down a rabbit hole and into a very strange land to the stage. This week, when dress rehearsals began, it all came together.

“Seeing (the actors) in costume, and how they really, really came to life…It’s like a real-life cartoon,” Nease said. 

Neither Nease nor Hawkins had directed a play before. But, they’ve both been involved in theater for years. They said they were able to work off each other's strengths. Nease has mainly acted, so he said he felt comfortable communicating with the actors. Hawkins has been a stage manager and better knew the theater tech side of a production.

The student-directed play drew a bit of a different crowd of students to auditions. Many in the large cast have never acted before, which Nease and Hawkins said was both challenging and exciting.

For example, Nease said he realized early on that he couldn’t give stage directions like, “Cross downstage left.” Instead, he had to explain that downstage meant the part of the stage closest to the audience.

“I had to kick myself, because you can’t assume they know that,” he said.

But, novice actors bring a fresh perspective to the stage.

“You can kind of mold them,” Hawkins said. “They don’t bring any past characters with them, so they can make everything their own.”

The student actors said they’ve enjoyed working under student directors. The flexibility has allowed them the freedom to explore new ideas when developing their characters, senior Connor Perkins, of Chesterfield, said. Perkins plays the perpetually late White Rabbit. 

“It’s not too hard, because punctuality has never been one of my strong suits,” Perkins said about developing his character.

Like Nease and Hawkins, the actors have noticed a difference in the cast since dress rehearsals began this week. 

“Whenever I saw everyone in costume for the first time, with hair and makeup, it was so cool,” sophomore Kristin Branson said. Branson, of Town and Country, plays Alice.

Costumes and makeup have added a bit of stress to Kelli Jaycox’s life, though. The Ballwin sophomore plays the Mad Hatter, but has also been heavily involved in creating the costumes, hair and makeup for the rest of the cast. 

“Getting myself ready has been down to the last second,” Jaycox said. But, it’s worth it, she said, to see everyone’s characters come to life. 

Perkins said that adding costumes has lifted the energy of the cast, which is good because in a play aimed at children, movements and lines have to be larger than life.

It’s that larger-than-life element that Branson said makes this play so fun.

“Everything about this show, the lighting, the makeup, the hair, the costumes, allows us to be a kid again,” Branson said.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland runs at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday at the Parkway West stage. Tickets are $5.