'Alice in Wonderland'
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald The White Rabbit (Jay Echols) and Alice (Jori Pierce) discuss the Caterpillar’s future as a butterfly, played by Paige Tolley (standing on the box) and Stella Butterly, Ryleigh Brown, Alleeann Mayberry and Mikayla Schwartz.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Red Queen Abigail Dale listens to the pleas of the pack of cards who follow her.
MOSES LAKE — Some area children stepped through the looking glass last week and ended up in Wonderland on Saturday.
Hosted and sponsored by the Columbia Basin Allied Arts, the Missoula Children’s Theater was in town to stage a version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which showed twice on Saturday at the Wallenstien Performing Arts Center.
But there was a catch to this performance. With no way to haul 50-60 children around, the play’s producers cast local young people to fill nearly every part in the play, from an entire school of tiny lobsters to a pack of playing cards to a handful of Cheshire cats and three Alices of different sizes.
“This is the part I wanted most, and I really like the thrill of being on stage,” said Moses Lake High School sophomore Abigail Dale, who spent much of the day as the Red Queen tromping around stage shouting “Off with his head!”
“Everything we need for this production fits in the back of a pickup truck,” said Abigail Kohake, 22, one of the play’s two tour actors and coordinators.
Kohake added that the arts had a huge influence in her young life, so she wants to help other children have some of the same opportunities she had.
The Missoula Children’s Theater began staging these touring “plays in a box” 45 years ago, hauling around costumes and scripts and auditioning local children as a way of involving children in the arts.
“We usually arrive on a Sunday night, and we hold auditions for two hours on Monday,” said Jay Echols, 22, the other tour coordinator who also played the White Rabbit. “Eighty-two kids came to this audition, and we immediately start rehearsals so we’re ready to go.”
“We have a large creative staff in Missoula who write these shows,” he added.
Echols, still wearing the remnants of his white face makeup, was humidly disassembling the set, getting ready to pack the production off to their next destination, Puyallup.
“I love this. It’s combined everything I want to do — travel, and teach, and work with kids,” he said.
If the goal was getting kids interested in the arts, it seems to have worked.
“I just enjoyed the whole experience,” said Elise Mathias, 13, of Moses Lake, who played one of the flowers. “I hope to do more of this. I really like acting.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.