James’ Brand New Blog

Looking forward & back at Alice

- January 23rd, 2013

Alice with TweedlesAlice with TweedlesSarah Polley 1996

Sarah Polley, The Road To Avonlea star, is featured in the move Joe’s So Mean To Josephine, which opens Friday (a c. November, 1996, photo).

JBNBlog is looking forward to a revival of Alice Through The Looking-Glass being staged at the Althouse auditorium next month. Details follow.

The first staging of Alice at 1994′s Stratford Festival is recalled on caea.com in a neat summary:

 Dir. Marti Maraden, Chor. Donna Starnes
James Reaney’s adaptation of the classic Lewis Carroll story has had several healthy runs at Stratford since its inception in ’94. Director Marti Maraden, herself a singer/performer attached to Stratford for more than 30 years, moved on to head the English Theatre Division at the National Arts Centre. Keith Dinicol and Bernard Hopkins were long-time Stratford players, and this was the stage debut for Sarah Polley, a film and television veteran since age four. (Mervyn) “Butch” Blake was in his 37th of 42 consecutive years on the Stratford stage.
JBNBlog hasn’t been able to track a photograph from the 1994 production to use here . . . Sarah Polley, seen in a slightly later, non-Alice, image was terrific & so was Ashley Taylor who took on the role in 1996.
Bernard Hopkins, a longtime Londoner, was Tweedledum.  What was his first role in a James “Jamie” Reaney play & where & when was it staged?
While you mull on that, here are the Alice-in-February details:

ALICE Through The Looking-Glass
February 13-16, 2013at 8:00pm
Presented by Althouse 2013 Production Team
Written by Lewis Carroll
Adapted by James Reaney
Directed by: Amy Whitfield, Steve Senik, Julia Lacasse
“Presented with Permission of Susan Wallace and the Reaney Estate”
*WARNING- This show contains the use of strobe-lights*
Tickets: $15 Adult | $10 Students
Tickets available from: The Grand Theatre Box Office,
The Faculty of Education and Western Connections

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1 comment

  1. Leith Peterson says:
    January 23, 2013 at 10:16 am

    I know I attended the 1994 Stratford production of “Alice,” but cannot locate any information about it in my files.

    Also attended the London Central Secondary School production of “Alice” in 2007, and still have the program. Plus I have your column about the Central production from the London Free Press, Sunday, February 18, 2007.

    Looking forward to seeing the Althouse production on February 13.

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