AliceGraceAnon

A curious girl who falls down a rabbit hole. The lead singer of an iconic ’60s rock band. The poor, nameless star of a classic druggie diary. Three oddly connected heroines inhabit three separate worlds, playing out their stories exactly as expected. But when those worlds suddenly collide – really, they collide — they all start to wonder… who’s really controlling my destiny?

Corthron’s imaginary meeting of these three characters is inspired by the ways they historically intertwine. It was Grace Slick’s obsession with the works of Lewis Carroll (and the drug imagery she found therein) which inspired Jefferson Airplane’s hallucinatory 1967 hit White Rabbit, which in turn inspired the title of the best-selling 1971 teenage memoir Go Ask Alice – published as the real diary of an anonymous girl, but later revealed to be a work of fiction, a “cautionary tale” by a do-gooding writer named Beatrice Sparks.

The production is designed to feel like a ’60s-era “happening,” an event which used familiar materials in new ways to make participants question their approach to experience. The concept will extend throughout the ample Irondale space — including the balcony, where audiences will enter the theater through an interactive installation, which explores the backstory of the three protagonists. There, text from their stories mingles with art-school style constructions; and soundscapes and live video create the sense that everyone is a voyeur.