Richard Wruth, director for the Vanderhoof Children’s Theatre, had the premier production Alice in Wonderland open last Thursday, November 28.
The play runs about one and a half hours with an intermission and is filled with the small but confident voices found in children’s theatre.
It is the classic story of Alice making her way her through Wonderland and meeting all of its strange inhabitants until escaping at the end. All the while children are singing and laughing and sometimes scrambling around on stage to get to their places.
The children’s theatre has been practicing this play since the middle of September and now they will do two weeks of plays here in Vanderhoof and two weeks in Prince George.
“It went really good,” said Wruth after the first performance. “It really did. I mean there were a few mistakes but if you’re in the audience you would never know they were mistakes. It’s a lot of work to figure out what to do with 40 children, you have to figure out who’s going where and doing what,” said Wruth.
Adding to the confusion was the fact that everyone has a second role that they switch to every second night. So all the children can get a good role. This means that there are six Alice’s, three per group.
“It can get a little confusing when you have it set up like that,” said Wruth. “I have to remind myself which night is which.”
This performance is the 32nd production for the Vanderhoof Children’s Theatre since it was set up in 1999. And Wruth has been involved in over 40 productions since 1997 as an actor, director and stage manager.
It was a great show on Thursday night and the audience of parents and children found the antics of the young kids hilarious at times. The next performance of Alice in Wonderland will be on Thursday, December 5 at 7 p.m.
