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Director Emily Arnold '10: "The joys of Wonderland can
be found inside of all of us." |
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Alice in Wonderland will be performed March 17-20
in R-MC's Cobb Theatre. |
The Drama Department at Randolph-Macon College presented William Glennon’s adaptation of
Alice in Wonderland March 17-20, 2010. For Emily Arnold ’10, directing this theatrical production has been as intriguing and magical as Alice’s escapades.
“I am fascinated by the fact that Wonderland can be different for different people,” says Arnold, who wanted to approach the play from a unique perspective. “To William Glennon, who adapted Alice’s story into the script I chose for this project,
Wonderland is about imagination and childhood. This adaptation calls for the director, the cast and the audience to embrace the wonders of childhood. The joys of
Wonderland can be found inside of all of us.”
Click the link to see a slideshow of photos from Alice in Wonderland:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/randolphmacon/sets/72157623515940465/show Arnold’s directorial debut is the culmination of her senior project as a drama major, but her love of all things Alice started several years ago. “I was the technical director/stage manager for an adaptation of
Alice in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass in high school,” she says. “That version, called
The Alice Project, was a nightmarish look at Alice’s adventures. It was very dark, often scary, and it was entirely different from my pre-conceived Disney notions of what
Wonderland was. Since then,
Alice in Wonderland has become one of my favorite stories.”
R-MC Drama Professor Joe Mattys thinks Alice appeals to audiences of all ages for several reasons. “Alice is a very imaginative child and the story emerges from her imagination as much as anything. In many ways, Emily is like Alice; she had done some really imaginative—and wildly funny—things with her cast on a script that at first blush looked pretty ordinary to me. We haven’t done a lot of children’s theatre at R-MC, and this is exciting new territory for the department and its students to explore. They have all responded to the challenge with amazing energy and inventiveness.”
Gregg Hillmar is R-MC’s scenic and lighting designer and a professor at the college. For the
Alice set, he and Arnold chose to embrace the idea of “daydream” and the specific theatricality of the material. “The audience is made very aware of the theatre at the beginning of the production,” says Hillmar, “and then we drift into a performance in that space that sort of magically happens. There isn’t, for example, a scenic design per se, just pieces of scenery lying about that the cast uses to present the production. The lighting also changes from a ‘worklight’ look to a more theatrical look, but is it a performance, or just Alice’s daydream?”
Arnold, a Virginia Beach native, has been involved in almost all of R-MC’s drama performances since she started her career at Randolph-Macon. “I cannot say enough about how much I love the drama department,” she says. “At Randolph-Macon, we foster the idea of doing theatre for theatre’s sake and encourage working as a community to put together a production. Through R-MC’s drama department, I have learned valuable lessons about art and myself.”
“What I love about directing this piece is how much talent and enthusiasm I have found in my cast and crew,” says Arnold. “The members of my ensemble are amazing individuals who attempted anything I threw at them—and I gave them a lot—with excitement and skill. The work that they can do is incredible and I just couldn't wait for them to show it to the world.”
For more information about R-MC’s Drama Department, visit
http://www.rmc.edu/academics/drama.aspx