The Missoula Children's Theater put on two showings of Alice in Wonderland this weekend with the children of Big Sandy as the stars of the show. Two volunteers from the Children's Theater came to Big Sandy on Monday, held auditions, gave every child a role in the play, spent the week rehearsing, and finally put on two shows for the community over the weekend. The Children's Theater had been putting on shows in communities all over the world, bringing high production values as well as professional experienced actors since 1970.
Big Sandy welcomed the Children's Theater Team of Madelynn Evans and Emily Wunderle last week to put together the show. The pair is new to the program, but is already ready receiving rave reviews from other communities where they've put on their show. During our interview, they received notice that they were dubbed the "best team ever" to put on a show in Frenchtown, MT by local organizers. That's no small feat for a community where some of the kids in the show had parents who were in Missoula Children's Theater productions as children.
Madelynn Evans played the white rabbit in the show. Evans is from South Lake Tahoe, California and attended college at UC Davis. She explained that both she and Emily (her tour partner) were in the beginning of their first tour with the theater. "We've been doing it for about a month so far. This is our fourth show that we're doing with kids. So it's still a little bit new, but we're getting the hang of it pretty quickly." Madelynn actually was in a Missoula Children's Theater show as a 5-year old child.
Emily Wunderle, who is from Vermont, started her career in children's theater at the Rev in upstate New York. The program there is a little different in that it has a full cast of actors performing a highly interactive show for children and putting on a theater workshop for children in attendance. She explained why the Missoula Children's Theater experience is different and exciting: "It's fun every week because the kids are always different, so the show is always different. It's so much fun and never gets stale. And Missoula is all about traveling. I am from Vermont, so being able to travel all along the west coast is really cool."
The pair also expressed gratitude and appreciation for the welcome they received in Big Sandy and their accommodations in the community. "Karen and Norm [the Reinertsons] are our home stays, and they've been wonderful. We went to Elevated Grains this morning, which is what everybody said we needed to do. And it was wonderful. Pastries were delicious. Yeah, it's been great. And the kids have been amazing, the people we've worked with, amazing. Everything's been perfect."
Emily explained that after the show they would be on the road again to their next show: "We're off on Sunday. We have an 11-hour drive to get to Washington. We're in Washington, Oregon, and the tip of California" in the coming weeks.
The show itself lived up to the high standards we've grown to expect from Missoula Children's Theater productions. The sets and costumes were high quality, colorful, and brought a feel of wonder to Wonderland. The lead role of Alice was played by three young actresses, each a different age, allowing the show to create the feel that Alice grew older and younger during the course of the show. London Keane, Thea Merrill, and Kennedy Keane each did a fantastic job as Alice. In particular, Thea brought her own type of charisma to the role that was fun to watch. The King and Knave of Hearts played by James Calvao and Antonio Fabrizio were very expressive and fun, doing a great job with their roles. Riley Echols played Humpty Dumpty in the production and elicited quite a few laughs from the audience with his performance. Elise Hartley, who has played quite a few roles in Big Sandy Theater productions in recent years, was delightful as the Queen of Hearts. She almost seemed to be born to bellow, "Off with their heads!" She remarked, tongue in cheek and very much in character, that the role of Queen was the role she was born to play. I asked her for any final remarks on the show, which she prompted her to add an emphatic, "Off with their heads!"
Interviews with other local leaders involved in the production yielded a long list of "thank you's" to those who made the show possible. Parents, volunteers, the Reinertsons, and especially the Rotary for their financial support.
