My Thoughts Have Been Replaced With Musicals

i think overall i would do similar things from mcc because the directing in mcc was exquisite and jessie nelson did a wonderful job, but i would also incorporate some other elements into the show like having an ensemble onstage at all times, having the ensemble integrated into the set like the spring awakening revival does, and i would want everything to feel much more intimate. mcc already does a great job with the intimacy but i really would want to expand on that feeling and make the audience feel as if they’re a member of the bunker listening to this story too.

another thing i would keep is the parallels between bunker visuals and wonderland concepts, like the gas mask flamingos. i would like to expand on this, though, and make the parallels used in the costumes much more noticeable.

the plot structure of alice by heart, in my mind, is alice spencer telling the story of alfred’s death (whether she realizes it or not). i’d have alice begin and end the show reading her book. the music of west of words would begin as soon as alice opens to page one, and the sirens wouldn’t get introduced until after her first verse. this lets us get introduced to alice as a character before we’re introduced to her situation. this also should be the only time alice is alone onstage, and the stage would be bare.

after the siren, the rest of the ensemble would run onstage with furniture and build the bunker in a flurry of bodies and chaos surrounding alice. alfred would run in front of alice before running to his cot, and the rest of this scene would proceed with alice still standing in the middle of all of the chaos around her. her book is still open in her hands. she is our narrator.

my next major point of change would be with down the hole. the bunker kids changing into their wonderland forms would be more clear, and would feature more dramatic onstage quick changes during each of their respective verses or lines. instead of alice twirling into her blue dress, she manipulates the rest of the cast into changing themselves. i don’t think alice would change into her blue dress until alfred sings his “down and down we fall” verse. alfred would playfully remind her to change herself, too. they’re best friends and have played this game countless times and we need to show it onstage. also i think alfred deserves to wear rabbit ears. that’s all.

an alternative decision would be alice starting the show in her blue dress in order to represent how she’s constantly with “[her] head in wonderland.”

i think mcc didn’t do enough with still. a bit of a spoiler for later is that i really want to keep the lobster dance, or at least something similar to it. however, i’d introduce it in still rather than in those long eyes. i’d introduce it as an overarching theme of their relationship. just like wonderland, the lobster dance is something they do quite often; often enough for alfred to know how to do it even when he isn’t fully paying attention. in still, alfred would still try to be evading the discussion and escape alice’s grasp, but she’d try and do their dance together. they don’t finish the dance before the end of the song.

the only major change i would make to chillin the regrets is i’d have the caterpillars lay down more for the scene before. they can get up and do fun choreo with alice afterwards (during the song) but i think she should work more for the attention they give her (during the scene), like alice has to in the original story. they should definitely be more apathetic towards her at first. i’d also like to introduce some sort of dance motif in chillin that alice echoes to alfred in the key is when she tries to get him to smoke. in chillin, i also think it would be cool if there was a smoke machine onstage making the stage as foggy as alice’s head is. if she as our narrator doesn’t know what’s going on, how are we supposed to? i think the smoke can fade for the key is, because we actually need to see that one for the plot, but i think even so there could be some sort of playing with shadows and silhouettes that would be really cool.

i think the bird scene would be really fun with puppetry! the puppets could be made out of items that would only be found in the bunker, like the same fabric the cots are made of, buttons that match the ones on the characters’ clothes, and the gas mask beaks. the birds would just be so much fun as puppets. skipping ahead a bit here, but i also think the duchess in manage your flamingo should have a pig puppet to reference the original a bit more closely.

as mentioned earlier, those long eyes would have a dance motif that would continue throughout the show, and i think while the dance in those long eyes lasted longer than it did in still, it still should be cut off by the sirens and shouldn’t be complete. alice still doesn’t have closure for their relationship by this point, so the dance shouldn’t either.

for most of the show, the cheshire puss should be hooded and perched on an upper platform whenever shes giving alice advice. when alice wont listen to her, she finally snaps and sings some things fall away. she gets on alice’s level and finally reveals her face.

i don’t have many more specific ideas until the end because most of the songs in the middle chunk of the show are just alice running around wonderland and i’m not a choreographer so i’m not really sure what i’d do exactly with these. but i do want to bring up the jabberwocky. i’m obsessed with what mcc does by making alice’s fear of the doctor and the soldiers physical, but i think we could take brillig braellig as an opportunity to bring back the puppets. i think it could be an entirely dark stage except for alice and the jabberwocky. the jabberwocky can be made entirely of white fabric and have images of war and alice’s other fears and traumas projected onto him. the stage can be lit from below so we get some interesting shadows. if we want to incorporate something like mcc did with butridge literally being the jabberwocky, he can be dressed in all white as well and have the puppet follow him around the stage to have more physical interaction with alice. in this scene, i imagine the puppet being pretty big so the ensemble’s place onstage would be helping in puppeteering so the stage would feel emptier than it actually is.

i’m obsessed with the falling rose petals and the coughing before another room in your head in mcc but i think that part could really benefit from some modifications. instead of them being in an empty stage, i think there could be a carpet of white roses beneath them and soap blood could literally come from alfred all over them and all over him. the roses aren’t the only roses in that scene.

in i’ve shrunk enough, i think it would be cool for the characters to go up in a puff of smoke and exit out of a trap door in the stage when alice poofs them out of existence. alice should be the only one poofing everyone away, as she is our narrator. i also think there could be a moment where alfred quickly runs backstage and changes back into his original hospital gown for the final scenes. (in terms of logistics i think the hospital gown could stay beneath his white rabbit costume so he’s able to more quickly change). when he returns onstage, it should be the end of the song. in the vassar reading, at the end of i’ve shrunk enough, alfred says “time’s up” after the final notes of the song. i would want to bring that back. alfred says it as he returns onstage, and the lighting suddenly shifts to two spotlights — one on alice and one on alfred — that merge as the two get closer throughout the next scene.

in afternoon, we bring back the lobster dance. this should be the only time the dance comes to a close. alice isn’t ready for alfred to die, but she’s a hell of a lot more ready than she was during still. she can continue doing the dance by herself after alfred leaves.

after alfred leaves the stage, alice also picks up the book. throughout the show it was probably left downstage in one of the corners of the stage, so here alice picks it back up and finishes it on alfred’s cot. the spotlight follows and doesn’t disperse to reveal the rest of the ensemble until the final notes of the song when alice finally closes the book.