Alice in Wonderland Heidi Doyle has been in the Wonderland of Theater for many years now and is happy to be back again working with Hillcat Community Theatre on their world premiere of Alice In Wonderland by Steve Schuch. Her past productions in the role of director for Hillcat include their first non-summer production, Nunsense, Seussical and The Sound of Music. Heidi came to theatre as an audience member first. She remembers seeing plays with her Mother while growing up in Vermont and being fascinated with the story telling of theatre. While studying to be a librarian she got involved with a youth company that allowed her to direct and ever since she has combined her librarian skills with directing whenever possible. Soon after being hired by The Hillsboro-Deering School District as their elementary librarian (a position she still holds) she got involved with the high school drama program and has spent the last six years directing or helping with their productions to add to the experiences she had in Vermont. Actors and actresses who have worked with Heidi over the years all speak glowingly of how she treats everyone (experienced or not, young or old, star or walk on) as if they are part of her theatrical family—a family whose goal is to put on the show with as much fun and goodwill as possible. Perhaps this sense of family is helped along by the fact that her own daughter, Brianna Welch, is either on stage or backstage for every New Hampshire production she has worked on. (In Alice In Wonderland Bri plays the White Rabbit—one of Heidi’s favorite characters.) Another hat worn by this mad hatter of a director is board of advisor’s member for the Hillcat Community Theatre. Two years ago while the company had stopped producing and its future seemed unclear Heidi started a year long e-mail correspondence with a theatre producer from Henniker, Tom Dunn, that led to the revival of the Hillcat Theatre and the establishment of a new board of advisors. While discussing options for musicals to do this summer at the fall board meeting Heidi brought up Alice In Wonderland. This led to a discussion of who could write the music for the show and local composer, Steve Schuch’s name came up. It has been a dream of Heidi’s to work on Alice and with Steve (she has done residencies with him at the school but this is her first original production) and she is now less than one week from opening this world premiere. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday, August 12 to 14 at 7 pm and Sunday, August 15th at 2 pm. Cost is $3 for students and seniors and $5 for adults. Tickets can be reserved by e-mailing: dunn.t@comcast.net or purchased at Generations Gift and Floral Shop. Heidi’s passion for Alice has been growing over the years and she hopes, “My 5th graders from HDES enjoy this production as much as they enjoyed the story I read to them in my alter ego form of HDES Librarian!”
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Hillcat Community Theatre is presenting a new musical version of Jackie and the Beanstalk at Hillsboro-Deering Middle School Friday, July 2nd at 6 pm. This presentation is the culmination of the first ever one week theatre camp sponsored be the venerable community musical theatre group. Supported by a grant from the Duncan-Jenkins Trust the camp has focused on musical theatre skills with 12 area young people ages 6 to 13. For more information call 428-3544.Hillcat Summer Theatre is an educational theatre effort of SAU 34, offering students, community members, teachers and staff the opportunity to participate in a fully developed musical production over summer vacation. It is an intensive, month+ long process, culminating in four shows in the second week of August. |
