Bethel The­atre Pre­sents “Al­ice in Won­der­land” 

MISHAWAKA- The Bethel Uni­ver­sity The­atre De­part­ment is prepar­ing to pre­sent Dis­ney’s “Al­ice in Won­der­land.” Shows for the gen­eral pub­lic are on Nov. 10 and 11 at 7:30 p.m. and No­vem­ber 12 at 1:00 p.m. The de­part­ment is also putting on a show for schools in the area at 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 10. All show­ings will take place in the Ever­est-Rohrer Au­di­to­rium. 

The ticket prices are $15 for adults, $13 for stu­dents and se­niors, $10 for chil­dren ages 12 and un­der and $8 for Bethel Uni­ver­sity stu­dents and staff. 

Di­rec­tor of Act­ing and Ad­junct Pro­fes­sor of The­atre Deb Swer­man is di­rect­ing the show. 

“Our goal is to give the au­di­ence a fan­ci­ful night­mare,” Swer­man said. 

Swer­man also re­marked on how well-cast the show is and how ex­cited she is to see this cast per­form. She said that ac­tors are dou­bling in their roles, mean­ing they are play­ing mul­ti­ple parts. 

“I’m ex­cited to see the whole cast,” Swer­man said. “I’m not look­ing for­ward to one ac­tor in par­tic­u­lar, but rather the whole en­sem­ble and how they come to­gether and play off one an­other.” 

Kate Nofziger, a sopho­more dou­ble-ma­jor­ing in Stu­dio Arts and Lib­eral Arts, with fo­cuses in the­atre, mu­sic and psy­chol­ogy, is play­ing the lead­ing role of Al­ice.  

“I’m ex­cited to play Al­ice be­cause she is cu­ri­ous,” Nofziger said. “She is con­tin­u­ing this story and jour­ney with other char­ac­ters. I think it’s fas­ci­nat­ing to see how she in­ter­re­acts with them.” 

Swe­man and Nofziger are both thrilled for the play’s per­for­mances and for the Bethel com­mu­nity to see what they all have been work­ing tire­lessly on. 

They both com­mented on how every ac­tor is tak­ing the time to put their own per­sonal spin on each char­ac­ter. They are ex­cited to see what the fi­nal prod­ucts of the scenes will be as the ac­tors dig into the char­ac­ters and add new flares. 

Swer­man em­pha­sized that this pro­duc­tion is a team ef­fort that in­volves the ded­i­ca­tion and co­op­er­a­tion of sev­eral in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing those work­ing be­hind the scenes. 

“There are a lot of other peo­ple here who are help­ing out,” Swer­man said. “Like Karen Pager, our chore­o­g­ra­pher, and Rob Rhein, who is un­der­scor­ing the whole show. Jon Sabo, who is back this year with the de­part­ment, is de­sign­ing our sets, and Don Hunter is build­ing the tech­nol­ogy parts of the set. Ethan Babler is our stage man­ager, so noth­ing hap­pens on stage with­out him giv­ing it a go, and Claire Prins is de­sign­ing all of our cos­tumes.” 

Swer­man and Nofziger urge stu­dents and the Bethel com­mu­nity to come to the show and en­joy this stage adap­ta­tion of a child­hood clas­sic.