Alice, through the performers’ eyes

The school production of Alice by Laura Wade was overall an exciting play to produce and in our opinion one of the best school productions to date.

This year’s excellent choice of show gave the cast an opportunity to really expand their creativity and showmanship by creating so many weird and wonderful characters to set the scene of wonderland. Every school production has such an amazing and supporting group behind it and the cast becomes like a family for the duration of the show through everything we always have such an amazing time.

Our personal experience has supplied us with so many skills not just in acting but also in building our confidence. Alice brought out a slightly crazier side to this year’s cast, it was fun to see cast members who might have been doing this a long time embrace the madness of it all and just go all out to create a truly mental wonderland on the stage. Our (highly bias) opinion of this year’s show was that it was a marvellous and intriguing endeavour which delighted not only the audience but the cast too.

As people on the inside, we know just how much time and effort each and every cast member puts into getting every little detail perfect and we believe the entire cast and Mr Stimson himself did their complete and utter best to bring together a truly amazing show. All that goes into the show for props, sets and costumes means that from the get go everything is all-hands-on-deck to get everything ready and in place before opening night.

All the time we get to spend together on each show never seems like enough and leads to a few tears when closing night is over. The only comfort is that most of us will get to do it all over again the next year, unfortunately there will always be a few cast members who won’t be joining us in the next production as it was their last year at this school. This year we said goodbye to some amazing actors: Alex Kennedy, Eleanor Reynolds, Ellie Clapham, Robyn Heys and William Alderson and we wish them all the best in their dramatic futures.

No lie, the actual Alice performances were very nerve-wracking for all the cast and none of us could have kept our sanity if it was not for each other. It was remarkable to see all the other actors come out of their shells on the stage and really own their parts like it was the last performance they were ever going to do in their lives.There is also nothing better than watching the audience from backstage – seeing their reactions to every joke and heart-breaking moment in Alice.

Thanks to all the support and hard work from friends, family and fellow actors, Alice was one of the best performances Northallerton School and Sixth Form College and Mr Stimson has created yet.

Grace Kennedy and Emily Peaurt