ALICE is Tall, Alice is Small, Alice is ALICE!

And Alice is OPEN! We had a terrific opening weekend with a student matinee on Friday at 10am, followed by an evening performance and two matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday. It was quite a weekend. Congratulations to everyone in the company.

ALICE Company Members Visit SDSU Hidden Mural

 

The company of ALICE was invited to see the Alice mural that was painted in the 1940s in one of the oldest buildings on SDSU's campus that features the characters of Lewis Carroll's books. Until very recently the mural was hidden behind an all-too-familiar industrial shade of eggshell white paint. Through a painstaking process, the conservator was able to remove the white paint and reveal the mural beneath. Because of a water leak, some areas of the mural experienced bubbling (seen as white areas in these photos) but the conservator safely removed those areas and feels confident that they will be able to restore them to their former glory. This mural will be kept in place in a stairwell in Hardy Tower and restored by November of this year. A replica of the mural will be installed on the fourth floor of Love Library to both honor SDSU's history and to highlight the significant collection of children's literature at SDSU.

Dr. Seth Mallios, Chair of Anthropology at SDSU, has been finding and saving pieces of SDSU's history such as this for several years now. He worked with seven different departments and offices on campus to preserve two 1930s era murals that you can see on display in the dome of the Love Library. Dr. Mallios was kind enough to not only allow us to see the mural but to tell us the story of both its painter and the process of how it was discovered and the initial steps of its restoration. When Albert Lewis, the painter of the mural, was told about the uncovering of the mural he reportedly said, "They found my rabbit!" We were also accompanied by the Dean of the Library, Gale Etschmaier. The library has been a strong supporter of these conservation efforts.

 A bit of fun with the Queen of Hearts. "Off with his head!"

Thanks so much to Peggy Ryan for these photos.

SD House Rabbit Society Will Visit Our Wonderland!

Meet some real white rabbits at matinee performances on Saturdays and Sundays during our run. We are delighted to have the House Rabbit Society bringing some of their furriest friends with them to meet the audience after our performances. Don't be late! Meet the rabbits after the show!

Lecture on ALICE's Nonsense on March 4 by Michael Heyman

This post was borrowed from the following: http://sdsuchildlit.blogspot.com/2015/02/michael-heyman-is-visiting-sdsu-come.html

Michael Heyman

Public Lecture

Alice in Wonderland One Hundred Fifty Years Later:
A New Magic Lantern Phantasmämphigory

March 4, 2015

5:00PM- 5:50 (followed by questions and discussion until 6:30PM)

Love Library, SDSU

Leon Williams room (LL 430-431)

The National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, with support from the Instructionally Related Activities fund, the Department of English and Comparative Literature, and the SDSU Library, is happy to announce a lecture by Professor Michael Heyman, noted poet, scholar, and musician. Michael's lecture concerns Lewis Carroll’s Alice and his Alice books—the first of which, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is celebrating its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary this year!

Professor Heyman is a world-renowned scholar and writer of literary nonsense and children’s literature. He has edited The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense (2007), and his poems and stories for children can be found in The Puffin Book of Bedtime Stories (2005),The Moustache Maharishi and other unlikely stories (2007), and This Book Makes No Sense: Nonsense Poems andWorse (2012), which he also edited.

Of his talk, Heyman writes: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland lives one hundred fifty years after its publication not because Alice is a princess in a literary fairy tale, not because of our own flirtation with Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell, and not because Alice has become embedded in our culture as innocent, vixen, or queen of psychedelia; rather, Alice in Wonderland lives because of its uneasy balance of all of these things and more. Its genius lies in what it does more than what itis. And what it does is nonsense. This talk, part magic lantern show and part paean to Lewis Carroll’s nonsense literature, does the unthinkable: it separates analysis from interpretation, it values the cart over the load. It offers the greatness of Alice as a teasing and tempting nonsense process, in its ability, like Humpty Dumpty, always to leave egg on our faces.”

The lecture is open to the public and we encourage students, community members, and faculty to join us!

Filming ALICE in the Garden

Here is a fun photo with our Set Designer, Chad Dellinger, and cast member Belle Adams working on a film that will be featured in our production. The filming took place at the beautiful gardens at the Marston House in Balboa Park. Belle is wearing her costume designed by Emily Smith.

Knighthood and Jousting

         

                                   This post was kindly contributed by cast member Kellen Gold.

The knights in Alice's adventures uphold a long tradition of protection and service to royalty (in this case, the Red King and Queen and then Queen Alice) through the practice of chivalry.  In the Middle Ages, young boys were selected by nobles to be pages and train for knighthood.  The term 'knight' comes from the Old English 'cniht' meaning 'boy' or 'servant,' understood to be linked etymologically with the German 'knecht' meaning 'servant' or 'bondsman'

           Knights as we know them—horse-mounted, armored soldiers—first appeared on the scene in about the eighth and ninth centuries. Jousting was considered one of a medieval knight's many duties.  The first recorded reference to a jousting tournament was in 1066 (coincidentally the same year as the Battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest of England), and within a century they had become extremely popular.

              Used in the High Middle Ages for battle and then as a sport in Late Middle Ages, and popular with English, German and French royalty well into the 16th century.  In battle, jousting with lances furthered the evolution of armor, as knights switched from chain mail armor to full plated, harnessed suits to protect against the lance.

              Jousting tourneys were highly formal events. Months before a competition, nobles would need to acquire a royal permit,  challenge other lords and select their most skilled knights to compete. In some instances, they would hire a jouster who was not committed to any other master (or liege) and was available to fight for the highest bidder. These temporary employees became known as “freelancers".  Sport jousting died out by the 1600s, but made a significant revival in the 1970s.

Alice Mural Rediscovered in Hardy Tower

Albert J. Lewis-Creator of
Alice in Wonderland mural 

San Diego State University has a very intimate relationship with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that has only recently been rediscovered after almost thirty years. In the already  fantastical stairwell of iconic Hardy Tower, a mural depicting characters from Carroll’s famous work have begun to be restored in an effort to rectify their being painted over in the 1980’s.

Stairwell where mural
was painted over

San Diego State alumnus Albert J. Lewis (’49, ’55), a retired San Diego artist and educator has been identified as the creator of the mural by Lewis’s daughter, Mary Jane Lewis-Conlon. The eighty-eight year old artist was disappointed to learn his work had been painted over, but is thrilled that restoration attempts have begun.

As of just weeks ago, the mural has been deemed “stabilized,” having had the covering paint removed. However, as Dr. Seth Mallios, Chair of the department of Anthropology stated, “there is still a second phase of conservation (for this summer) that will include in-painting and restoring it to its original glory.”  Once it is restored, a replica of the mural will be painted in the Children’s Literature section of the Love Library where it will be unveiled in fall 2015 for the 150^th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

On Thursday, February 26^th, members of the Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser cast and crew will have the opportunity to view the mural in the Hardy Tower guided by mural expert Dr. Mallios.

Mural as it looked from its creation in the late 1940's or early 50's until it was painted over in the 80's