Spring play students soar to new heights in ‘Lookingglass Alice’ and ‘Winnie the Pooh’

WAUCONDA – Students from Wauconda High School have been preparing for their spring plays, “Lookingglass Alice” by David Catlin and “Winnie the Pooh” by Kathryn Schultz Miller, since February.

More than 70 students are participating in acting, creating sets and student directing the two shows.

“The juniors and seniors in our program have been with us through so many challenges and we wanted to give them something different, something unique, something fun,” director Scott Metzger said in a news release.

“Lookingglass Alice” premiered at Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago on Feb. 13, 2005, and was developed in affiliation with the Actor’s Gymnasium Circus and Performing Arts School. With the physical demands of circus theater, theater that uses movement, aerial, and acrobatic skills to enhance the telling of the story, many high schools are apprehensive to produce shows such as Lookingglass Alice.

To prepare, the drama students attended two workshops at The Actor’s Gymnasium in Evanston and brought in one of their trainers to work with the students at the school. The result is a beautiful performance that features students breakdancing, tumbling, juggling, walking on balls and doing aerial acrobatics to tell the story of Alice as she goes through the looking glass and encounters all the characters you know and love.

The school will be starting the evening of performances with a one-act “Winnie the Pooh” directed by juniors and seniors in the drama program.

Both shows will be presented in traverse staging where the audience is seated on two sides of the stage. To accomplish this, the crew built a unique stage in the auditorium, with the audience sitting within an arm’s length of the actors on stage. This type of staging creates an immersive, interactive and intimate experience for the audience.

“It’s very new to the program and many programs around, so I feel like it will be very fun to see what everyone thinks,” stage manager Olivia Czyz said.

The shows are at 7 p.m. April 19-22. There are two matinees, complete with a meet and greet tea party for children under 10, at 1 p.m. April 22 and 23.

Tickets can be purchased at waucondadrama.ludus.com. Tickets are for both shows. Tickets for Wednesday and Thursday nights are Buy One Get One if you use the discount code listed on the website.