Watson's Mill seeks students for summer theatre project
Posted Feb 19, 2010 By Charelle Evelyn
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Tweet ThisEMC Entertainment - Watson's Mill is looking for students who want to take their own trip down the rabbit hole.
The Mill is ramping up their Four Corners Youth Interpretation Project for the second year and is looking for youth between the ages of 15 and 18 who are interested in developing an interpretive theatre project to debut during this summer's Dickinson Days.
The Four Corners project was developed as a way to get youth more engaged with the museum. Last year's youth created and performed gossip tours that took visitors through Dickinson Square and along Mill St. while bringing them up to date on the latest gossip of the 1880s.
This year's project will be an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, an idea Cam Trueman said he had long before the announcement of this spring's movie starring Johnny Depp.
"I was ahead of my time," said Trueman, education and interpretation officer at the mill.
Those who have signed up for the project are already working on adapting the story to focus on a young girl likely Moss Kent Dickinson's daughter, Bessie who gets transported from the mid-1800s to 2010.
When the Lewis Carroll novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was written in 1865, the mill was in operation and Bessie would have been about the same age as the book's heroine, said Mr. Trueman.
The goal of the script is to explore how odd and strange the modern world would seem to the visitor, and whether or not society has really progressed.
Like the Gossip Tours, the performance will be written, directed and performed by youth, using the mill and square as an environmental theatre.
"The audience is not a passive watcher," explained Mr. Trueman. "They are part of the performance as the scenes unfold."
Mr. Trueman said he is hoping to try and schedule more performances throughout July and August to provide residents and visitors with some evening entertainment as well.
"I am so impressed with these youth," he said, adding that the group has already developed some interesting ideas to portray the classic characters. "What they're doing is really cool and I get the best part, to sit around watch it all unfold."
The Four Corners project members meet twice a month for two hours in the evening at the carriage shed. Anyone who is interested in joining can call Cam Trueman at Watson's Mill at (613) 692-6455.
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