Wayland High School’s Advanced Theater is not only performing the classic children’s story “Alice in Wonderland” but they helped create it in a collaborative project with playwright and WUHS alum (2008), Jason Flannery.

Performances for Subject: Alice in Wonderland will be at 7 p.m. Friday, March 6, and 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday, March 7, at the Wayland Union Fine Arts Center.  Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens.

Flannery has worked with WHS theater arts teacher  Rebecca Black and students on this project for the past year. Black said she’s not sure this has ever been done before.

After reading the book “Alice in Wonderland,” students were asked what they felt were the most important elements of the original narrative and the core story they wanted to tell. The inspiration, structure, and concept behind this adaptation all came from the students.

Students commented that this has been a very positive experience and has been very different from previous plays. The cast will be a different line-up for each performance with different students playing the same role. They also have more of a say on how to play that role. Through this process students are learning more about acting and theater production.

“We have a lot of creativity,” said senior Benjamin Niemchick. “Instead of being told how to play the character, we can interpret how that role is played.”

Junior Cooper Sidebotham said, “The script has really brought us together as a cast. Instead of competing for certain roles, we can encourage each other and build off of each other to make that role better.”

When asked how his experience has been working with the high school theater students, Flannery said, “It’s been great! The level of enthusiasm and thoughtfulness that the students have brought in on the days in which I’ve worked with the class has been remarkable. The excitement and focus they approach the work with is infectious, and they clearly have a drive to engage in every element of the project.”

Flannery has an impressive theater background since attending Wayland High School. He has an associate in arts from Kellogg Community College (2010), a bachelors of science in Communication/Theatre from Grand Valley State University (2013), and a master of fine arts in Directing from Lindenwood University (2017). He has more than a decade of collegiate and professional theatre experience and he has developed and dedicated his skills in acting, directing and design in more than 60 productions.

While at WUHS, Flannery was in a number of projects both in Don Mackey’s Advanced Theatre Class (Radio TBS, Rumors, Our Town), and in Rebecca Black’s Shakespeare productions (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Got Shakespeare 2006, 07, 08), as well as the Wayland High School Improv Troupe improv.anonymous.

During Flannery’s graduate program, he wrote a number of other scripts, including two adaptations of A Christmas Carol, the black-light version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and a student cabaret. He recently has had an original script, Better than You Can Imagine, selected to perform at Actors’ Theatre’s Living on the Edge 10-minute Play Festival.

More information about Jason Flannery can be found at: jasonjamesflannery.weebly.com