Staging Alice in 2015:
150th Anniversary Adaptations of Alice in Wonderland
Keywords:
adaptation, Adventures in Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, convergence culture, immersive theatre, musical theatre, wonder.land, youth theatreAbstract
This article examines theatrical adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories staged to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). It sets these works within the context of a history of theatre inspired by Carroll’s work, before turning to examine two 2015 works in greater detail: wonder.land written by Moira Buffini and directed by Rufus Norris and Adventures in Wonderland written by Oliver Lansley and directed by Emma Earle. The article situates these productions in the context of immersive theatre. It uses the concept of convergence culture to theorise the place of these adaptations in a network of cultural productions that seek to incite interaction and collaboration between performers and audience members.
