Rose Theatre Kingston Announces 2017 Christmas Show ALICE IN WINTERLAND

ALICE IN WINTERLAND

Based on the books by Lewis Carroll

Adapted and directed by Ciaran McConville

Composer and Lyricist: Eamonn O'Dwyer

Designer: Tim Bird; Choreographer: Jamie Neale

7 Dec 2017 - 7 Jan 2018

Press night: 15 Dec 7pm

Following the huge success of last year's festive hit The Wind in the Willows, Rose Theatre Kingston's most successful Christmas production to date, the theatre today announces its 2017 Christmas show Alice in Winterland. The play, based on Lewis Carroll's much loved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, is adapted and directed by Ciaran McConville, following his acclaimed productions of The Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, with music and lyrics by Eamonn O'Dwyer, and featuring a professional cast alongside a group of Rose Youth Theatre actors.

Alice has always been brought up to believe in wonder but her life takes an unexpected turn when she is sent to live with her stern auntie... until she is visited by a White Rabbit and propelled on a quest to save Winterland.

Follow Alice to the magically curious world of Winterland, a world of ice and imagination, of mad hatters and cruel queens, strong-minded dodos and friendly knights. A world inhabited by the mysterious Bandersnatch and the terrible Jabberwock, a world that lies in the shuffle of a pack of cards or in the lines across a chess board, where the impossible becomes possible...

This dazzlingly festive new stage production is based on Lewis Carroll's timeless books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Step through the Looking Glass with Alice this Christmas and join her for this glorious adventure.

Ciaran McConville said today, "Lewis Carroll's Wonderland books are genius. They're funny, clever, exciting and completely bonkers. I'm looking forward to the challenge of writing a festive adventure from such a mad melée of brilliant characters. Carroll's work will always resonate because he writes about a child trying to make sense of the world and herself. She doesn't always get it right, and there's often a battle between head and heart, but she always stands up against injustice and she has faith in her own imagination - something we all need to remember at Christmas, I think."

ALICE IN WINTERLAND AUDITIONS

As with 2015 and 2016, the Rose Theatre Kingston invites young actors aged 10-19 to audition to perform in Alice in Winterland as part of Rose Youth Theatre. Working alongside an award-winning creative team and supported by experienced teaching staff, up to fifty young people will learn high level acting skills before performing in alternate shows across the run. The young cast will receive training from a voice coach, movement director, musical director and stage director.

Auditions will take place on Thursday 18, Saturday 20, Sunday 21, Thursday 25, Friday 26 and Saturday 27 May. For further information please visit www.rosetheatrekingston.org/news, or email Director of Learning and Participation Ciaran McConville at CiaranM@rosetheatrekingston.org.

Ciaran McConville has adapted the play and also directs. Since 2010, he has been Director of Learning and Participation at Rose Theatre Kingston. For Rose Theatre Kingston, his directing work includes The Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Crucible. As a writer, McConville's stage-plays include: The Creature (a retelling of Frankenstein) My Kingdom is a Horse!, Erica the Viking, Stones, In the Way of Peace, Scenes from Childhood, Stay With Me, Lay Your Sleeping Head, Our Town: A Kingston Story, Pitching In, Over Me Now There is Only Blue Sky and God, Leipzig 1981, Orpheus & Eurydice, Snowbound, My Father the Angel (both developed at the National Theatre Studio), These Four Walls, Shostakovich, MiracleBoy, The Curse of Death's Glen, Little Crooked House, Touched by Fire, Immortal, The Man Who Dreamed and The Settling Dust. Adaptations for the stage include: Treasure Island, Nineteen Eighty-Four; The Trial, Arabian Nights, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and the hit showHorrible Histories: Ruthless Romans, which toured internationally.

Eamonn O'Dwyer is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and has worked as a composer and musical director in theatres across the UK and internationally. He has worked with the Rose Theatre Kingston before on The Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Our Town: A Kingston Story. Other composing credits include Peter Pan (Chichester Festival Theatre), Fanny & Stella (Theatre Bench/South Hill Park), Spirit of England (new work commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra), A Flea in her Ear (Tabard Theatre), Five Children & It (Tristan Bates Theatre), Stones in his Pockets (Dukes, Lancaster), Portia Coughlan (Old Red Lion), The House of Mirrors & Hearts (Arcola), Around the World in Eighty Days and The Glass Menagerie (Chipping Norton Theatre), Boy in a Dress (Bush Theatre), My Swordhand is Singing (Festival of Stories), Frankenstein (Dorset Corset Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Barakura Festival, Japan) and The Massacre (Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds). He worked as a Musical Director and Sound Designer on The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Greenwich Theatre) and as Musical Supervisor for The Immortal Hour and Merrie England (Finborough Theatre).

The production will once again be supported by Wahid Samady and CNM Estates, who have sponsored the Rose Theatre Kingston Christmas show since 2014.