Test driving a new direction, the Traverse City Children's Theater had the cast of its upcoming "Alice in Wonderland” production involved behind the scenes.
In addition to learning lines and rehearsing for the June show, the 23-member cast has also been making props, pitching in with costume construction and learning about sound, sets, lighting and stage managing.
Some of the aspiring actors ages 10-18 spent Tuesday afternoons this month making trays of tea cakes and tarts. Transforming Styrofoam balls using paint and plaster of Paris or shaping miniature fruits (and even a pepper) out of salt dough, they are in at the ground floor of the theater's new On the Scene effort.
"I like getting into it, it feels like we're part of the Old Town Playhouse,” said Harold Kranick, a seventh grade student at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Middle School preparing for his 18th production with the Children's Theater. "I want to learn to do this stuff.”
Upstairs, Alice in Wonderland costumer Pinkie Hoffman worked with some cast members on costumes, including 22 pairs of pants needed for the cast. Before getting down to work, she talked about the history of costumes, snaring their interest when she talked about men's costumes.
"They sewed a couple of different kinds of buttons and a snap,” said Hoffman of the work. "We learned how to lay out a pattern and what the notches mean and how to lay it straight on the material.”
Debuting formally next fall, the On the Scene curriculum will expand training from the typical singing, acting and dancing into the crucial but less visible backstage tasks: set design, costume construction, sound, lights and props. Eventually, the multi-level On the Scene program will include classes in writing, directing and choreography.
The offerings this spring, tucked into the intense four-afternoons-a-week rehearsal schedule leading up to Alice in Wonderland, were a sneak preview for next fall.
The bottom line for this expansion is ambitious.
"Our goal is to make it so that next year's main stage production is entirely student produced,” said Luis Araquistain, director of the Traverse City Children's Theater. "We want to instill that there is more to theater than just performing on stage.”
"What we're doing now is sort of a pilot to what we want to do in the fall, how we want to structure our lesson plans, what works and what doesn't work with different age groups,” he added, noting that On the Scene class offerings and schedule will be announced in the organization's fall newsletter.
The new direction actually harks back to the roots of the Traverse City Children's Theater, which in its founding days in the early 1990s included theater arts instruction. As emphasis increasingly shifted over the years to performing, Araquistain said he had begun mulling over ideas for reintroducing theater craft.
Then last fall, the student representative on the Children's Theater board, Abbey Alexander, a junior at West High School, was immersed in her school's production of Antigone. She told Araquistain that the students there, under the guidance of teacher Kristie Bach, had a hand in all facets of the production.
Something clicked for Araquistain, who felt that expanding the Children's Theater offerings was the next logical step of growth.
"The more I learned about how they were doing it, the more excited I got,” recalled Araquistain. "I thought we should find a way to make this available to more than just the lucky few who get to go to West Senior High.”
The Traverse City Children's Theater will present Alice in Wonderland on Friday, June 15, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, June 16 at 2 and 7 p.m. Tickets are $4 for kids, $8 for teens and adults. For more information on the children's theater, call 947-2210 or see their web site at www.tcctheater.org.