Director

110th Anniversary Musical

Ying Wa Girls’ School

Message from the Director

A blue caterpillar smoking a hookah, a cat with a grin that looks like the crescent moon, a mad hatter. Over the years these characters have delighted us. Even if you don’t know Lewis Carroll’s story, you are sure to know that they are characters from his classic tale of a girl’s adventure in Wonderland. Of course, there is this girl called Alice, who has come to embody the very idea of a child’s boundless imagination.

Here in this city, a child’s imagination is invariably measured by whether he or she has enrolled in some creativity workshops that will produce certificates to hopefully give this child an edge over the others in a madly competitive world. Wonderland in this play is a land of opportunities if you only know how to project the right image. It is where a young girl easily loses her direction and her identity, and is known as nothing but ‘The girl’.

Our Alice is just any young girl in this city. Not particularly bright, she sees herself falling into obscurity, drowned by many smarter, prettier others. She has to take up a cause to fight. So this fighter has no pinafore or ribbons, only a bear mask which she uses to fight her way in world that threatens to box her in—a reason why she identifies herself with a polar bear on a thin crust of ice. Her heroic feat is to set up a Save Polar Bear fund. Alice’s adventure in Wonderland will bring her to question her own values. In the end, she will have to decide whether deep down she is a scavenger or a courageous bear.

Although the play bears little resemblance to the original story, I hope some traces of the bizarre characters can be preserved. When writing the script, certain poems kept coming to me and gave shape to the plot. I thought that there must be some poetry in this story. After all, part of the fun about reading the story comes from the nonsense poems. I am very grateful to our composer Mr Li Cheong, who has worked tirelessly to put the poems to some beautiful music. I must thank also my two dedicated partners Miss Wong Siu To and Miss Wong Yung Sze, who have seen me through from the very start.

The production of Alice has been a work of progress undergoing many phases of transformation. At different junctures, we have encountered different problems. Maybe it is like Alice’s growing pains in Wonderland when she feels that she has utterly no control of her own body. Ying Wa, too, has been having growing pains and the years ahead will see major changes in the school’s development as she explores space for transformation. Thank you to all of you who have come to support our 110th anniversary fundraising show.

Carrie Cheung

Message from the

Principal / Director / Music Director / Dance Director