Stephanie Summar

Features Reporter

Outside Robinson Theater last Friday, Colter Harkins, Tony Fox, and Andrew Johnsen were making up words. It seemed like a fitting way to pass the time, as the three will be performing this week in “Alice in Wonderland”, Mesa State’s latest whimsical main stage musical.

The three actors are clearly excited to be participating in such a well-known and well-loved show.

“It’s definitely a lot of fun,” said Harkins, who plays the Mock Turtle, an odd amalgamation of a turtle and a calf. “It’s been one of the more interesting character processes, with the different variety of animals and various characters.”

His part in particular has taken some work. The Mock Turtle is a particularly sad character who juxtaposes a love of singing and dancing with a lot of crying and grumbling.

The script stays close to the book — closer than either the animated Disney feature or any recent film interpretations of the story. This means things get a little random throughout the play. For instance, character descriptions call for both Fox’s and Johnsen’s characters to speak with accents. Johnsen will perform as a Salamander with an Irish accent, although, true to the source material’s oddities, it’s not immediately clear why that is.

“What’s funny is when I went through the audition process, it’s very written in the character description that I needed to have a very strong Irish accent, but then it turns out that this character doesn’t have any lines in the show. So I was… I was just confused by that, but all my grumbles are very Irish,” Johnsen said.

Fox plays the Dodo, whose Scottish accent is based on Mike Myers in “So I Married an Ax Murderer”. If that’s an odd choice for a character in a children’s play, it doesn’t worry Fox, who had a relatively blank slate upon which to build the Dodo, but a limited amount of time in which to do it.

“I was brought in halfway through rehearsal. Something happened with another person that got cast. They needed someone to replace them, and I was it,” Fox said. He’s managed to create a unique persona in two and a half weeks while the other cast members auditioned nearly five weeks ago.

The auditions themselves were a unique experience. Taylor Young plays the Queen of Hearts, and although she feels that by now, after her eighth main stage performance, musicals are her forte, she found the audition process a little tricky.

“We had to memorize two poems. The first one, we performed as any character. For the second poem, we had to switch back and forth between four different characters, so you’d be loud and yelling when you were the queen, or down low when you were the cat. It was a new challenge,” Young said. “Alice” has a reputation for being vaguely psychedelic, and the play follows the occasionally chaotic plotline surprisingly well.

“It’s very close to the book and actually a lot closer than any of the movie versions that I’ve seen. The biggest thing that they have in common is that it just doesn’t make any sense,” Harkins said.

“It’s actually an interesting process because it’s very freeform, as opposed to going in and getting exact choreography and being told what to do; we kind of get our character and are allowed to do whatever. It’s pretty cool,” Johnsen said.

This version of the classic story is geared towards children and will have several matinee performances during the school week, which has added a level to the cast members’ excitement.

“Kids’ theater is always fun. It’s nice to bring joy to the kids. It’s going to be a great show. I hope we get a lot of people that show up. It’s always fun to have a packed house,” Fox said.

“We’ve all become little kids again,” Young said. “My character is exactly as mean and crazy as you remember from the movie, and to get to do it onstage is very exciting.”

Performances of “Alice in Wonderland” run Nov. 17 through Nov. 21. Wednesday through Saturday, performances are at 7:30 p.m. in Robinson Theater. Saturday and Sunday have 2 p.m. matinee show times. Tickets are $6 for students, $15 for facualty/staff and seniors, and $20 for adults.

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ssummar@mesastate.edu