There is a particular energy to the moments leading up to a final dress rehearsal that is hard to describe unless you have experienced it. Walking into the Norris Family Theater on Thursday evening, a faint smell of hairspray and recently dried stage paint hung in the air. It was what remained of all the work and finishing touches that take place during Tech Week, culminating in the final dress rehearsal before opening night. Downstairs, costumes hung in rows along the dressing rooms, each one a labor of love. On stage and in the wings, students paced and ran lines under their breath, the soft murmur of memorized text blending with the occasional burst of laughter and nervous energy.
Then, in a moment that repeated itself in the minutes before the show, actors entered through the stage left door in full costume to full-throated cheers from the rest of the cast. The cast and crew pulled into a circle for the pre-show “shake-out” and chanted in unison: "One two three four five six, one two three, one two, one two," finishing with a loud cheer. Director Amy Hubbard began calling time: fifteen minutes, ten, five, and then places. A hush fell over the theater. Up in the booth, Sam Wyckoff '19 on lights and Seth Currier and Max Carton '29 on sound ran final cues over the headset. Backstage, the crew checked props one more time. In the wings, actors found their entrances. The house lights dropped, the first sound cue rolled, and a wash of blue and white lit the stage. The production of Alice in Wonderland was underway.
A peek behind the curtain is not unlike a look inside one of our athletic programs over the course of a season – the hours, the coordination, the planning, and the repeated practice. The difference is the culminating event – not a regular season of dozens of games with a chance at a playoff appearance, but a single weekend, two nights, where the season and the championship are folded into one.
The breadth of community participation is striking. Beyond the cast and crew who chose the spring play as their afternoon activity, the baseball team is in for a dance number, and members of the professional community and their families round out the cast list. By the curtain call, it seems a quarter of the school is in the building in one role or another.
View the Alice in Wonderland Program
The story of how Alice in Wonderland came to the Norris Family Theater stage began more than a year ago, during the spring 2025 run of A Midsummer Night's Dream. A handful of cast members started tossing around what they wanted to do next, half as a joke, and the idea stuck. Penny '27, who plays Alice in this production, put together a slideshow making the case for the show, and director Amy Hubbard took it on.
For Amy, the story felt right for this moment. "Our students are in a constant state of becoming, figuring out who they are, where they fit, and how to move through a world that doesn't always make sense," she writes in her director's note. "Alice's journey through Wonderland mirrors that experience in a way that is both whimsical and honest." The production takes a 1960s lens, with the music throughout drawing from that era – a homage to the animated Disney film, and a way to give the story a more mature edge. Two characters carry particular weight in Amy's reading. "The Red Queen and the White Queen are not just rulers of Wonderland, but reflections of Alice herself, different forces within her that challenge, guide, and, at times, contradict one another."
Getting to opening night has taken a great deal of work in the compressed timeframe of a Proctor spring term. The cast started with the basics – figuring out characters, running lines, blocking scenes – and the show's world did not fully come together until the final weeks, when the costumes and set were finalized. "I have never been busier in my life," Hazel '26 said, laughing off the idea that senior spring is supposed to be a downshift from the rest of the year. The line between cast and crew blurred as actors pitched in on set construction and painting.
Alongside that work comes the harder work of becoming the character. Alice in Wonderland is absurd by design, and the cast has leaned into that. "You've got to really step outside of yourself and be someone that you don't see every day," Penny '27 said. Hazel has found her character partly by reaching back into past Proctor productions. The Red Queen, she noticed, shares mannerisms with Miss Scarlett, the role Hazel played two years ago in "Clue." She is wearing the same red shoes. Max '26, who plays the Caterpillar, has said his first line – "Who are you?" – at least a hundred different ways until it felt just right.
For some, the theater has become a second home over four years. Penny described arriving at Proctor, too nervous to step on stage, starting instead in Tech, watching, learning, and gradually finding the confidence to perform. "I've definitely gained a lot of confidence in doing theater here and come out of my shell a lot since freshman year," she said. "Everyone is so welcoming and so loving." That kind of growth is what the performing arts make possible at Proctor. A stage offers no place to hide and no second chance after the curtain rises. The work asks the same of its participants as our athletic teams, our off-campus programs, and our most challenging courses – show up, do the work, trust the people around you. Alice in Wonderland runs this Friday and Saturday, May 15 and 16, in the Norris Family Theater at 7:00 PM both nights.
Thanks to PBN, the Performance will be livestreamed HERE.
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