All Things Alice: Interview with Ken Markman

As an amateur scholar and die-hard enthusiast of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland, I have launched a podcast that takes on Alice’s everlasting influence on pop culture. As an author who draws on Lewis Carroll’s iconic masterpiece for my Looking Glass Wars universe, I’m well acquainted with the process of dipping into Wonderland for inspiration.

The journey has brought me into contact with a fantastic community of artists and creators from all walks of life—and this podcast will be the platform where we come together to answer the fascinating question: “What is it about Alice?”

For this episode, it was my great pleasure to have Ken Markman, managing partner and CEO of KKM Global Brand Strategies, join me as my guest! Read on to explore our conversation, and check out the whole series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview.

Frank Beddor
Ken Markman, welcome to the All Things Alice podcast. I’m really appreciative and excited to have you on the show and to talk about your contribution to the vision that became The Looking Glass Wars franchise and brand. You’re the Manager Partner and CEO of KKM Global Brand Strategies and you've worked on some big movies. You worked on Empire Strikes Back and Scarface. You told me a couple of stories about Barbie when you worked at Mattel. You have all sorts of wonderful stories and you used these stories to help me see a vision for The Looking Glass Wars. But I cannot remember how we met or who introduced us.

Ken Markman
I think I may be able to put a breadcrumb on the water for you. You were thinking that you needed to begin to put a corral around this omnibus piece that was sprawling outward and you wanted to be in the licensing business, as a lot of producers and IP owners did at the time. Around that period of time, I had been in very serious conversations with what was then the senior management of WMA. As a result of Edward Scissorhands and several filmmakers at the time who were turning pop culture storytelling into merchandise, the water cooler conversation became “Who's got your toy line? When is your t-shirt coming out?” It was no longer, “What Ferrari do you have?” Nobody cared about that. They wanted to know who had your toy line.

Figurine of Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands from Tim Burton's 1990 film of the same name.

As a result of that, you reached out to a colleague of mine at what was then called LIMA, the Licensing Industries Merchandiser’s Association. You had spoken to a gentleman, I believe his name was Marty Brochstein and you were describing how you needed an entertainment guy, a merchandising guy, a marketing guy, all of that. Marty was very, very kind to have volunteered my name. I was thrilled that he did and I was even more thrilled that you picked up the phone and called. I remember sitting in your tobacco leather chairs in your office.

FB
I love those chairs.

KM
I love those chairs too and I have been wanting to get a set. My brother-in-law has a beautiful pair but he won't release them to me. But we sat there and I was completely mesmerized by the visual stimulus. That's a word that came out of Mattel. The visual stimulus is very often what we as the acquiring company would have to look at and how potentially toy-etic it could be, something you can play with. When I was over at Universal looking at Casper the Ghost, I turned to Mark Taylor, who was the Head of Development at Boy’s Toys at Mattel, and I said, “We got to pick this up. This is great. It's omnipresent. It's in culture. Every kid has a ghost story.” He goes, “Ken, how do you play ‘Ghost’?” I couldn't answer the question.

That was a telling tale of learning for me while at Mattel. Then when you and I talked, we saw all your card soldiers and Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter and the magic mushrooms. It was a cornucopia of visual stimuli. You had spent an inordinate amount of time with the extraordinary artist Doug Chiang. I immediately fell into this immersive embrace of Alice in Wonderland, and in so doing, I think what percolated immediately into our conversation was not, “How do we play Alice?” but, “How could you claim this as your own?” Or was this just going to be another derivative story in a long merchandising tale? It became incumbent upon me to want to reinvent your story so that you, Frank Beddor, the author, could take control of what had been a classic story owned by somebody else and perhaps even other filmmakers.

That story then became the backstory or the real story, that was so compelling. I know when you told it at meetings at William Morris and CAA and others, invariably, somebody would lean over to me and say, “Ken, is that true?” I always responded, “If Frank said so, it has to be true.” So you became the legend, the mouthpiece, and the face of a new brand of a classic tale that had been mythologized and storied through folklore, which are the underpinnings of Joseph Campbell and the arc of the hero, and everything else from which you've learned and have excelled at.

FB
I tried to answer all of the questions you had posed. It's funny for me to think back to 2002 when I met you because my book wasn't published until 2004 in the U.K. and 2006 in the U.S.

KM
Thanks to Barbara Marshall.

Photograph of author Frank Beddor, editor Cally Poplak, and literary agent Barbara Marshall.

FB
Who you introduced me to.

KM
I knew her because I had been working on The Future is Wild with a documentarian from the U.K.

FB
She wasn't a traditional agent. She was a book packager so she she knew all of the publishers. We went in and met all the different publishers and we took the approach that you do in the movie business. You go to the highest possible person and then trickle down. Turns out that in publishing, editors don't like that. Editors want to find the writers and then bring the writers to the publisher, so there was a bias against my book. It wasn't until I went to Egmont, where the publisher had just been given that job and she was previously the lead editor. She said, “You're going to be the last book I edit before I become the publisher.” The combination made it okay for her. Everybody else passed until I worked with Cally Poplak at Egmont and the book became successful.

But I want to go back to the point of our meeting in my office in Hollywood. One of the things I learned from working as a producer was the power of visuals, the visualization of the world. But I couldn't figure out in my mind how the card soldiers could unfold and march and be compact. I just didn't see it. So I asked Doug Chang, who had worked on Star Wars, to do that sketch. (Doug’s Card Soldiers Sketch) That was the first sketch I put on the wall. I loved it so much that I asked him about who he worked with on his movies that did environments. Then I hired Brian Flora, who did the Valley of Mushrooms and the Chessboard Desert. It became a little bit of an obsession for me to visualize the world while I was writing it, as a kind of collaborative effort between artist and author. Then you came into the office, one of the first people who came in who had a business perspective. It was sort of audacious to think, “I need some kind of branding or I want to build a franchise.” I knew I wanted to do that but I didn't have anything ready yet. Your reaction to the world and to what was already created was really inspiring. I thought, “Okay, I might have something here.”

Then you wrote your proposal, which started off with the perspective of branding mythology and pop culture. Then you wrote, “Cultural myth, storytelling, and reoccurring themes bond culture.” I was like, “Okay, what is he talking about?”

Image of sketches by artist Doug Chiang depicting the front and back of a Card Soldier from Frank Beddor's bestselling novel "The Looking Glass Wars".

KM
My wife is still asking me that same question.

FB
Then you said, “The multi-generational social condition is called the Cultural Evolution Theory.” I would like you to explain to our listeners what your job is when it comes to branding stories in culture and trying to catch the zeitgeist and make it your own because basically, that's what you were telling me to do. Give me some examples.

KM
You’re quoting some phraseology, which are the cornerstones of a book I have long tried to write, which I've shared in bits and pieces with you over these many, many, many years. It's called BrandCulture, and it comes from the multiple disciplines of my career, which are marketing, media, communication, corporate identity, design, and licensing. I just happen to be on the cusp of this epoch of culture right now, which we are living in thanks to the movie industry and other media that preceded it, where we're kind of losing words. Once they were the poetic juice of a culture and right now we're living in an experiential culture which is experienced visually. It's no wonder that social media has captured the next generation.

I was often asked by my students at UCLA, “How'd you get into the business?” And I said, “I love design. I love the expression of storytelling. If I could be in a business painting on the largest canvas in the world, putting words and pictures together, and make a living doing it, I would be very grateful, and that's what I did.” So as an English major on one side and a graphic design wannabe on the other, it was natural that logos, iconography, type, faces, messaging, hidden or overt, would become part of what I wanted to express in a brand.

Then along comes a gentleman from Sarah Lawrence College named Joseph Campbell. Many people who may be listening to this have read his books, such as The Hero with a Thousand Faces. If they haven't, they ought to pick it up or Google it and drill through some of his things. There's a wonderful book, The Power of Myth, authored by Bill Moyers of PBS, where he interviews Joseph Campbell and he gets right into the arc of the storytelling and arc of the hero.

These stories that are hardwired into our culture are expressed and handed down, interestingly enough, as memes. Not the memes we think of in the 21st century today, but memes that are passed on from one person to the next, as they were religiously. The Catholic Church was the biggest organization of theater 1,500-2,000 years ago. The equivalent of that theater today is no longer the Orpheum in Manhattan, nor is it Radio City, where it once was maybe in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Now it's the fandom that happens at a football stadium, where the collective catharsis of that experience is handed down. “Do you remember last year? It was fourth and three…” They remember it religiously and it gets passed down and it goes from father to son to grandson, all the way through.

Photograph of a variety of Hot Wheels cars.

We rode that wave through Hot Wheels, interestingly enough. I was at Mattel during the twenty-fifth anniversary and it was just at that time when dads were beginning to have sons. Just like my son-in-law had two sons and my two young grandsons, who are five and three, have now inherited my set of fifty Hot Wheels that I collected. What I'm saying is that memes are stories. Some of them are wildly exaggerated, and some of them are very explicit. Folklore becomes a mythology that gets passed on for hundreds and hundreds of years. Then if it's connected to iconography, whether it's a signature or a voice, a dance, a sound, or a musicianship that then gets placed against twenty-four frames a second, and turns into a motion picture or a theatrical play, this is what we're dealing with today

The experience economy is the expression of story. One of the things we learned through the study of human psychology is that people don't remember facts. If I gibberish to your audience today and say, “Well, you know, seventy-three percent of albinos never reach the age of fifty, it’s going to go right over their head.” If I said to them, “Have you ever seen an albino cat land on their feet after falling off a thirty-foot-high roof?” They'll remember the story. They're not going to remember the fact. So the very beginning of mythology and meme storytelling, which becomes legend and then expressed and changed over time and modernized through technology and media, is the art of storytelling. That's where you began with one of the great stories of all time, Alice in Wonderland.

One of the things I want to amplify about branding is that you begin with the story, and we wanted you to own your story. We wanted to carve it out as unique and separate. This happens whether it's BMW or Nike or Coca-Cola. If you and I were in Atlanta sipping a Coca-Cola in their corporate headquarters, and I said, “Wow, that was a great meeting with the management at Coca-Cola, wasn't it Frank? They got it right away.” If we went back and did a post-mortem and we asked Coca-Cola, they'd say, “Well, was it the meeting that was so good? Was it Frank's presentation? Or was it the Coke that we shared because we enjoy Coke and Coke is life?” That's how ingrained it has become over the last 120 years.

Advertising helps that to a great degree with BMW. “BMW, the ultimate driving machine.” It doesn't get any better than that. There's another axiom that falls into branding, and we talked about this early on, in order to own a brand, you want to be able to own a slice of the consumer's mind. You want to own a word. You want to own a phrase. You want to own a color in their mind. Red, indelibly, boom, Coca-Cola. Nike with the swish. It's simple. It's straightforward. It gets right to you. So when you think about BMW, “the ultimate driving machine,” it couldn't be any better than that. The axiom here is, you want to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. That's what BMW did. It's an automobile. Starbucks, it's coffee, man. But the reality is, they've taken the ordinary and turned it into the extraordinary, and that's what branding is all about. You can take that experience and own it.

A Coca-Cola advertisement featuring a variety of bottles and cans and the slogan "Coca-Cola x You".

FB
You tasked me with that when you simply said I should come up with a different spelling for the name Alyss, so I can own Alice. That was the moment I started thinking about broadening out from the names that Lewis Carroll had created and Disney had made familiar. So I changed the spelling of Alyss and the Mad Hatter became Hatter Madigan. Another thing you did that was also very, very helpful is you were posing this question of, “How do we suspend disbelief in this world, in this reality of a fantasy world?” Because The Looking Glass Wars is set both in Wonderland and Victorian England, that gave me a little bit of balance. I also was mindful of creating a Wonderland where people could suspend their disbelief. That was something you kept saying, “We need to be able to suspend disbelief so we can land and live.” As if Jurassic Park is actually in Hawaii, or Wonderland is just up the Five. If you drive long enough, you'll find yourself in Wonderland,

KM
Exactly. How could you refute the simplicity of the idea that in a grain of amber, there was a mosquito that contained the DNA of a dinosaur? Only Michael Crichton, with his scientific background, could create it. He created the myth and he turned it into a story that became irrefutable. It's so believable that how could you not want to believe it? That's where metaphors and storytelling become this immersive fabric in the consumer's mind. That's how we started our story. There’s enough believability in the past to shape-shift, to use one of your words, shape-shift some of this so that you can take ownership of it and it becomes irrefutable.

FB
You wrote, “A new reality for a new generation, borrowing from the past and making them their own, a form of branded history with its own images indelibly marked in the minds of a new global audience.” So I tried to convey that in a less Professor-ish way

KM
I can't get away from myself.

FB
That whole idea of creating a new reality, telling a story in a different way but taking ownership of it, I found when I started to go out into the marketplace with The Looking Glass Wars, that was happening. People felt grounded in the world and the story because, the premise of Lewis Carroll getting it wrong was easy enough to go, “Let me just turn my perspective on history and what I think I know.” The other thing that was really important was, that you said, “You have to change their perception of what they think Wonderland is right off the bat. You have to have the meta-story, the story behind the story.” So suddenly I had more work to do.

KM
I remember that. It's really true. There are a couple of axioms that have always found their way into my thought process when working on a movie or any branding objective. You do want to suspend disbelief, which is what entertainment and storytelling do. You want to find the universal truth in a message that is not so far out of reach that you can not believe it, it's just beyond my grasp of reality as I know it. By penetrating your world, you're going to show me how I can conclude that reach.

To get back to Coca-Cola for a moment, If you ask Coca-Cola, they want to be, the refreshing drink at the end of your reach. They want their product, their brand, to be at the end of your reach, no matter whether you're at home, the movie theater, or a baseball stadium. A great storyteller and filmmaker does just that. You suspend disbelief. You can almost break through the fourth wall, but by sliding into that world, you will take me magically to a place heretofore I've never been permitted to go. So you become my guide, my sherpa, and through your storytelling, you're telling me how to survive, how to succeed.

Screenshot of the animated children's TV show "The Blanket Show," featuring a band of sheep playing against a wall and surrounded by pillows.

That leads me to the universality of it. I was making a presentation to a number of licensees in Los Angeles and California. I was working on a show when I was at MTM called The Blanket Show. There was this Rastafarian sheep who would sit down and unfold a blanket that looked like a book and he would invite all the animals in the woods to sit around while he told a story. It was basically a practice and a runway for parents to help their little ones get off to sleep. At that time in the industry, you had to have 22 or 28 half-hours to be able to syndicate something so that the repetitive nature of viewership would incline a purchase decision for merchandise. I decided I couldn't do that because Bill Melendez, who famously did the Peanuts animated specials, was our animator. We couldn't afford to do 22 or 28 half-hours with Bill, so we decided to do one, but the one was going to be the reprise and the kickoff every night for The Blanket Show at home. So we started off with the Rastafarian sheep. We're jamming and the kids would be dancing the putting their jammies on. “What are we doing now, boys?” “We're going to go brush our teeth and comb our hair. Then we're going to put the music on and then Mom's going to come in and read the book and then Dad's going to shut off the light.” So my pitch to the licensees was, “Here's the universal truth, would you like to be in a business that happens in every household in the world, every night? That's a big business. Or you could take a risk and hope that Batman 47 is going to be as successful as the first two or three?” No, I'd like to be in the bedtime business.

So the book was born and the night-lights and music were created. We had everyone from Rosemary Clooney up and down the ladder singing nighttime songs and the universal truth was irrefutable. You don't want to be in a business that happens in every household around the world at least once a day? We had 35 licensees signed by the end of our first six months based on one half-hour. It was unheard of in the business, an absolute breakthrough.

The first question I invariably asked you was, “Why do you want to tell this story?” Whether you're talking to Alan J. Pakula or Steven Spielberg, both of whom I had the highest regard for when I worked with them, “What's the story you want to tell?” Then I get into that conversation with them, and I say, “What's the promise and what's the takeaway?” It becomes really simple. The promise may be a little abstract. If you ask Christopher Nolan what his promise was on his many movies, it would probably be a very esoteric and dense response, but nonetheless very curated. I then say, “What's the takeaway?”

I put it down to this, your audience just saw your movie in a theater. As they're leaving the theater, the lights and the smell of popcorn are going to hit them in the head. What is the thing they're going to say to their significant other or the person they just shared that experience with? What is that football fan going to tell his son? What's that boy going to tell his dad he just saw in the Viking game? What's the fandom response? That's the takeaway. That's your job as a filmmaker. What do I want them to say, and how does that correlate with the promise I'm going to give to them, so they can enter the sphere of my chapel, my theater of communication, and over the next hour and a half I can take them on the ride of their life? Whether it's at a theme park, in a church, in a synagogue, in a baseball stadium. Your job becomes, what's the takeaway?

A photograph of the field during the national anthem at Yankee Stadium before Game 3 of the 2024 World Series.

FB
I remember you posing that question and it was very challenging to reduce it to something personal. That was another aspect of our working together, I started thinking about the power of imagination and the power of getting back to your inner child, where you have wonder and curiosity and anything is possible. I thought, “I'm writing this book because of that. Then you asked, “How do you play imagination?” Then it became about good and evil and Joseph Campbell stuff and you're pivoting to, “What kind of mythology am I creating? What myth do I want people to walk away with that's different than good and evil?”

Now in this culture, as I think about what I'm working on, I think about what's real. Is this real or is it not real? That's powerful with Alyss, because people tell her that her backstory is not real, and she loses her belief in her history. The world is so divisive right now. Facts are no longer facts. With respect to Alyss, I thought it was a really powerful idea that people want to understand that this is real and they can hold on to this. It's not going to be pulled away.

KM
That reinforces the etymology of “looking through the looking glass.” At what end of that am I seeing reality? Is it closer to me or further away? Is it giving me the right optics? There's subliminal messaging in that statement that you could run and almost code the brain to be able to say, “I'm looking through this lens. Which media am I experiencing today? What's truth, what's not truth?” If I'm sitting in a football stadium, I'm sitting with 100,000 people who believe in the same thing I do - the “Fandom of the Exalted Play.” We're going to be warriors and win this year's season. This cathartic experience economy is not new. It has lived for over 3,000 years. It's tribal. It's part of our DNA. We're hardwired to it. It's just that it has evolved as technology has evolved and as we have evolved ourselves as we need stories to survive.

FB
When you were asking me, “How do you play imagination?” you went to Barbie and the playability of Barbie and how Barbie evolved. You were talking about the different ways you could manipulate the clothing and then the kinds of Barbies. I remember that it was about the playability and how successful Barbie had been and then it tapered off and they had to reimagine it. Now, with the movie having come out, it must have come full circle.

A screenshot from Greta Gerwig's 2023 film "Barbie," featuring Margot Robbie as the title character sitting at a desk with her face framed by a mirror frame.

KM
Barbie is a portal. She's like a magic wand. They can cut her hair. They can dress her, and once they take off her clothes, they’re impossible to get back on so you have the use-up rate, as we used to call it, in the cosmetics business. Barbie has a usability rate and it wasn’t about how long a girl plays with Barbie. It used to be from the ages of two to eleven, but that has diminished greatly. Eleven-year-old girls are gamers now. They don't play with dolls anymore. The compression of age and the acceleration of adulthood for young kids has grown exponentially. But what has also grown is the number of Barbies. There’s a Barbie astronaut, Barbie policeman, Barbie fireman, Barbie whatever. She's the portal for play. She has costumes, just like the characters in any one of your stories. That all enhances it. Then you have Barbie's house, Barbie's car, and Barbie's friends.

I wanted to give an homage to Hot Wheels for a bit, knowing that you have little babes in your family now. Have you ever noticed a Hot Wheels car just about perfectly fits the width of a little boy's hand?

FB
I did not.

KM
Do you know that General Motors and all the car manufacturers give Mattel a royalty-free agreement? If you want to do Jeep, if you want to do Corvette, royalty-free. Why? Because that's the next generation. “I'm playing with the Ferrari, Dad! Look at me! Look at me!” When your big sister or big brother is telling you what you can play with and what you can't play with, and your mom and dad are telling you what to do. I have no control over anything but I do have control over these big machines that make loud noises. I can control this. It’s the sense of empowerment and wonderment of imagination. That's how toys work.

FB
I wanted to go back to the Jurassic Park story because Michael Crichton came up with that amazing universal premise and then with Steven Spielberg, they took ownership of dinosaurs to the point that nobody is ever going to take dinosaurs back. Do you agree with that?

A screenshot from Steven Spielberg's 1993 film "Jurassic Park," featuring a Tyrannosaurus Rex roaring in the rain.

KM
One hundred percent they own dinosaurs. When I was at Mattel, we were looking at this secret property from Steven. We wanted to encourage Steven to do some color configuration so the dinosaurs could be branded. What that means is, that when Mattel did Mermaid Barbie other companies would go out and do a slightly smaller version of a mermaid and dump it into the Targets of the world and whatever. Meanwhile, we would be selling Barbie for $12 or whatever and they were selling theirs in a bin near the checkout line for four bucks. We were being cannibalized.

So mermaids, dinosaurs, puppies, all generic. But you can own it. And Steven looked like he was by the popularity and the size and the sound of his dinosaurs and the maturation of his technology, which he fused into his filmmaking brilliantly. We wanted a color distinction. I remember being in the meeting, going around with all the engineers, must have been in a boardroom of 25 people, and they convinced me we would not be able to go beyond a generic dinosaur and therefore we were afraid we would be cannibalized and our investment in the toy line would never pay off. Hasbro, smartly so, picked it up and made gazillions of dollars. That all down to the power of Steven Spielberg, the storytelling, the sound, the sensation. The rapture of that story was incredible.

But to your point, you want to own a character. You want to own everything about that and close it off so nobody can cannibalize you up and down the toy line by size, material, or channel of distribution.

FB
As this podcast is called All Things Alice, what do you think the reasons are that Alice in Wonderland has lasted for so long in culture but hasn't been centralized in the way that Jurassic Park centralized dinosaurs?

KM
You can't deny the story is ever present in culture. It's a little like Madeline. She kind of weaves in and out of culture. I think you have made it more accessible across media, which is what's necessary, as opposed to being a classic novel from an English writer steeped in a bygone era. But Alice has captured the imagination of adults and young children. If we can remember going back and saying, “What's real? Is it under my bed? Is it in my closet?” So I think Alice has the potential of wonder, fulfillment, of tripping the light fantastic. Of what is real and what is not? What is make-believe or not? Where does our imagination begin or end? It’s very tribal, watching the flicker of a fire in a cave and acting out the hunt of the day. These are truth serums that flow through our bloodstream. I think that is what has made Alice in Wonderland last for so long. It is a classic tale.

An illustration by Sir John Tenniel of Alice meeting the Flamingo from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

FB
What was your first introduction to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? Did you read the book? Did you see the movie?

KM
It was reading the book, not watching the movie. I had, and have always had, a literary bent, whether it was Charles Dickens or Edgar Allan Poe. I was drawn to that period of dark things and things. I was always drawn to that sort of Nether World. With Alice, I identified with this unknown of possibilities.

FB
What's under the bed?

KM
What's under the bed? There were several toy lines I reviewed that were everything from dust bunnies to “What's under the bed?” You know, this mythology of “Who's in the shadows?” It plays to our deepest fears and grandest imaginations. We're hardwired to it.

FB
This is a part of entertainment and culture that people don't really understand and you've done a really beautiful job of articulating it and the two aspects of your interest in life, literature and art. I can only encourage you, for all of us listening and out in the world, to finish that damn book of yours. Where are you on this book?

KM
I have been talking about it relentlessly and just when I don't think I have anything to say about something that supercharges my jets, a conversation with somebody such as you ignites that fuse. I know there's something. I know storytelling and myth are part of our culture and have made what we have come to know as modern life for the last 3,000 to 5,000 years. I'd like to comment on it, to develop a rationale as to why people react a certain way. I've seen it and I know it to be the truth. That's why Alice is a perennial. She's not going away. It's beautiful and you will own imagination however you wish, to define it by color, by shape, by sound, by musical note, soon to be. Through your literary prowess, you will be able to turn these cards over, like your tarot cards, for the public to be able to penetrate the World of Imagination, as you want people to see it, because they may not recognize it by themselves. You are our Sherpa. You are our wise man at the fire telling us the story of Alyss, and that's the takeaway.

FB
Well, we need your book. We need your book so all the storytellers can have their roadmap and we can leave the breadcrumbs behind for our audience. What was really enlightening about the conversation was the way you contextualized your experiences and contextualize how other artists have taken their ideas and brought them into pop culture, going all the way back to your story about being in a cave and telling the story of the day’s hunt. All of that is really a powerful road map for creators to own in their own stories. It doesn't have to be a franchise. It just needs to be you expressing your truth and that comes through the writing and the process. That's what you helped me to clarify. You asked strong questions, which helped me make strong choices.

KM
Tell me, Frank, if you can give us a pre-teaser. Fragrance is one of the most powerful branding tools in the quiver, because of where the brain senses smell. It's in the center of the brain. It’s very, very powerful. So is music, and you seem to be on the cusp of something rather extraordinary because you could own a sound, just like Mission Impossible. It doesn't have to be an entire orchestra. It could be three notes, whatever.

Are you hoping that your musical will be able to bring a new audience to your franchise and the storytelling of Imagination? I wish I could have front-row seats. I can't wait. I want to be humming the song. Sammy Cahn has one of my favorite quotes. He was once asked, “What is one of the happiest things as a songwriter?” He said, “When I'm walking down Fifth Avenue and somebody is whistling one of my tunes.” I share that with you because you're not too far away, my friend.

A collage of cosplays inspired by author Frank Beddor's "The Looking Glass Wars" universe.

FB
That’s a great quote. My fantasy was that somebody would dress up as one of my characters for Halloween. When I was first writing my book, I didn't realize what a broad and beautiful world cosplay is and when I went to Comic-Con and people showed up in costumes based on my book, not a movie or a TV show, that was a highlight. But to answer your question, it’s timely because today I received a video from my composer, lyricist, and book writer, and they sang a little song to me, saying, “We're starting!” So, the process of The Looking Glass Wars musical has officially begun today.

KM
Bravo. Congratulations.

FB
Fingers crossed. I've been thinking about this for a long time because I was friends with Gregory Maguire and I went to see Wicked in San Francisco in 2003 and thought, “I wonder if I could do that with my book.” So I've been thinking about it for 25 years and here we are.

KM
I was working on Curious George with Universal for a couple of years and the next up on their hit list they wanted me to undertake was Wicked. Then there was a management change and NBC spun off so the rest is history, as is often the case in Hollywood. But I would have loved to have gotten my hands around that.

FB
My understanding is that Wicked was not even on their books. It was a miscellaneous item because originally it was developed as a movie. They couldn't make it as a movie and then they made it as this musical. Now, many, many years later, it’s one of the most successful musicals of all time and apparently, the movie is quite good from reports that I have heard. I'm excited to see it and maybe it'll rub off on folks thinking that The Looking Glass Wars and Alice in Wonderland could be the next.

KM
We don't have to own the genre. We just want to participate.

FB
Thank you so much for hanging out with us on the show today and sharing your wonderful stories and, most importantly, thank you for your contribution to my work that you initiated and so kindly imparted in 2002 and continued on through all these years. It has really helped me to create what I've created to date. So thank you, Ken.

KM
That warms my heart. That has the most meaning. H.L. Mencken, the journalist, was once asked, “Why do you write?” And he said, “I write first, to make a living, and secondly, and more importantly, to win the respect of those I respect.” So your comments are very dear and important to me. Thank you so much.

FB
Thank you so much, Ken. We'll talk soon.

KM
Thank you so much. Cheers.

For the latest updates & news about All Things Alice, please read our blog and subscribe to our podcast!

The Cast of "Wicked" the Movie Talks Inspiration and Approach - Part 3

Wicked debuted to rave reviews at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, with John Cooper calling it an “exhilarating hybrid that continuously surprises and amuses” in the festival’s program. The thriller is a twisted tale of murder and incest with noir sensibilities and biting dark wit. The driving force behind the film is its stellar cast, who deliver complex, compelling, and sometimes shocking performances.

Directed by Michael Steinberg and produced by Frank Beddor, Wicked was Julia Stiles's breakthrough film. The then-16-year-old is electric as Ellie Christianson, a troubled teen who despises her mother and has an unhealthy obsession with her father. Stiles won Best Actress at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, and her performance as Ellie led to her being cast in the teen classic 10 Things I Hate About You.

William R. Moses delivers a nuanced performance as Ellie’s father-turned-lover, Ben, while Chelsea Field is an excellent counterpoint as his doomed wife, Karen. Vanessa Zima exhibits uncommon depth for a child actor as Inger. Newcomer Louise Myrback is captivating as the Christianson’s au pair, Lena. Grammy-winner Linda Hart brings humor and soul as nosy neighbor Mrs. Potter, while screen veteran Michael Parks seems to step out of the ‘40s as the Bogart-esque Detective Boland. Melrose Place baddie Patrick Muldoon is a serial scene-stealer as quirky next-door neighbor Lawson Smith.

We recently digitized a treasure trove of onset interviews in which the cast discusses everything from their characters’ psyches to how they think audiences will respond to the incendiary subject matter.

This is Part 3 of a three-part series that will be a fascinating look at an actor’s process, how they handled the challenging material and the fulfilling experience of working on Wicked. Read Parts 1 and 2.

*Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Patrick Muldoon - Lawson Smith

On His Character
Lawson Smith is an ex-football player. He has a knee injury and can't play football anymore. His wife leaves him and takes his son with her, and he happens to be having an affair with the next-door neighbor, Karen Christianson. Then Karen is murdered, and Lawson is definitely a suspect in the murder, as are many of the people here in Casa Del Norte.

What Attracted Him to Wicked
It’s a throwback to Hitchcock but funny. It’s a very unique script. There’s a lot of cutting-edge stuff in it. Ellie and Lawson are the two outcasts in the film. She really doesn't like me too much, but we get to know each other better when I happen to be playing a nice game of night golf, which tells you a little bit about how strange my character is. It’s scary. It’s a dark comedy. It's really weird. And it's kinda bitchin’.

Working with the Cast
Most of my scenes are with Julia, and she's incredible. What's so odd about her is that she's so mature for being 15 years old. She's much more mature than I am, and she's much more mature than my character. This works great in the script because her character really owns my character. So she's been fabulous to work with.

Chelsea Field and I had one scene together, and it was a blast. She was really helpful to me. Bill (William R. Moses) and I had have one big scene where we got to do a lot of improvisation and we both really went for it. We didn't rehearse much on purpose, and everything came out great. Michael Parks is my favorite. He's the veteran of the bunch. He plays the straight-and-narrow cop, and, of course, we're all suspects. I enjoyed working with him, and I learned a lot.

Working with Michael Steinberg
Michael Steinberg is a fabulous director. He’s a pleasure to work with and keeps a happy set. He knows exactly what he wants, but he's also open to suggestions. It’s a real creative place to come to work, and he makes it that way.

Wicked Compared to Melrose Place
It's totally different. You could say Melrose Place is a dark comedy, too. But it's two different kinds of things. The characters I play are totally different.

How Audiences Will Respond to Wicked
The audience will know right away that it's a comedy. That gives you license to get away with stuff. That’s the part of the movie that's so edgy. When I read the script, I was like, “Wow, man.” I saw how it could work, but the way Michael has done it, he's really nailed it. It's better than I even imagined.

Vanessa Zima - Inger Christianson

On Her Character
Inger had a period of change when her mother died, and her whole earth was shattered. Inger is a weird girl who is very into her own world. She's a pretty cool person. Inger is a tag-along to Ellie and wants to be her. There's a lot of tension between her mother and father. Inger gets a lot of attention from her mother, but her father doesn't pay that much attention to her. She wants both of her parents to love her the same and not have favorites. She likes Lena, the nanny, a lot. Lena is Inger’s second favorite to her mother.

Coming From a Family of Actresses
My other two sisters are actresses, too. My older sister, Madeline, has been in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Mr. Nanny, and The Nanny. She's been in almost every “nanny” thing. All three of us did a student film together. That was fun. We got to kiss a boy and bury our dad. My younger sister, Yvonne, is a recurrent on ER and she was in The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. She’s also been in Heat, ‘Til There Was You with my other sister, and Bed of Roses.

Her Audition
My sister and I both read for the part. I went into the audition first, and I thought I did really great. Then my sister went in, and I heard these belly laughs. I was like, “Oh, man, she got it because they didn't laugh at all for me. She took another role from me!” When she came out and told me the story she told them, I could’ve killed her because it was a really embarrassing story. But then, a couple of weeks later, I got the part. I rubbed it in her face, and then she felt bad. But now we’re even.

Working with the Cast
William’s really nice. He's always playing practical jokes on everybody. He's really a fun guy. Julia's very intelligent and really fun. She's a lot older than me, but she's like a real sister to me. She's really cool. It's a family off the set and a family on the set, too.

Working with Director Michael Steinberg
That's been great. He's really fun. He takes a lot of angles, and he has to have them perfect, but otherwise, it's great.

The Transformation Her Character Undergoes Through the Film
I start off dressing really cutesy, and then when my mother dies, I become this funky girl with mismatched socks and clothes.

How Audiences Will Respond to Wicked
Shocked. I think they will like it. It's a very artistic film. It's gonna be great.

https://youtu.be/AP898CQgipI

Chelsea Field - Karen Christianson

On Her Character
Karen is like every American mother trying to parent an unruly teenager. I was interested in this script in the first place because I think it’s everybody's story. Both daughters go a little further than the average teenager or average 10-year-old. They act out what a lot of kids don't act out, thank goodness. But all of the characters are based in a lot of truth. Karen is going through the frustration of walking the line between being a good mother and wanting to strangle her teenager. It can be really painful for both a 14-year-old and a mom of a 14-year-old.

Working with Michael Steinberg
It’s been really great. He's one of the most artistic directors I've ever worked with. He really goes for what is there in the moment and what all the actors are bringing to it with our different tones; he really embraces all of that. It’s great to be in that environment.

Working with Julia Stiles
She's great. Julia's a lot of fun to work with. Even in our first rehearsal, I could tell the sparks were there. She looked at me, and I looked at her, and I thought, “Okay, the war is on.” She's really a lot of fun. I love her. She's a very professional, very talented actress.

Karen and Ben’s Relationship
Ben and Karen are on different pages. Karen's over it. They’re together physically, but she's moved on mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. She's given it as many chances as she can. She's hit her breaking point.

Karen and Ellie’s Relationship
Karen and Ellie can’t get along for the same reason most teenage girls can't get along with their moms. It's part of their growing and establishing a separate identity. A lot of mothers misinterpret that adolescent time for a girl. I can remember being that age and just fighting horribly with my mom. One minute saying, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.” Then, the next minute, “I love you. I love you. I'm sorry.” My poor mother. I don't know why Ellie takes it one step further than everybody else; you'd have to ask Julia. But from my perspective, she's just being a typical teenager.

The Prevalence of the Electra Complex
I think it's much more common in our society than we acknowledge or give any attention to. I believe a lot of girls have that. I had a really strong relationship with my father and a sort of love affair in some ways.

The Importance of Comedy in Wicked
Wicked’s a little bent. It has to have a little bit of the lighter edge, the comedic relief because the issues it’s dealing with are so close to home. I don't think a lot of people are going to be able to deal with it without that little bit of goofiness.

How Audiences Will Respond to Wicked
To me, it's a crapshoot. I have no idea. It's beautifully shot, and the production design is amazing. However, the material may be more than what people are comfortable with because it hits on many issues that are very uncomfortable for many people.

Even people who have not actually lived through something like this have somehow experienced those feelings. Just having those feelings can be shameful or hurtful. Part of the problem in our society is that we're not paying attention to the fact that those kinds of feelings come up in people, and it's the act of acting on them or not acting on them that should be addressed.

A still image from the 1998 thriller "Wicked" featuring Julie Stiles looking under a bed with her name and the film's title overlaid on the image in pale pink.

Watch Wicked on the following streaming platforms: Amazon, YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, Plex, and Tubi.

All Things Alice: Interview with Mary Pat Matheson of the Atlanta Botanical Garden

For this episode, it was my great pleasure to have the President and CEO of the Atlanta Botanical Garden Mary Pat Matheson join me as my guest! Read on to explore our conversation, and check out the whole series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview.

Frank Beddor
I’d like to welcome Mary Pat Matheson to the All Things Alice podcast. She is the President and CEO of the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Mary Pat, so nice to meet you.

Mary Pat Matheson
Nice to meet you too, Frank

FB
I understand we both spent some time in Utah.

MPM
Yeah, I lived there for 30 years. What took you to Utah?

FB
I was on the U.S. Ski Team and I lived there for about five years. I had a condo in Salt Lake City and I drove up to Park City and Snowbird.

MPM
You can't live in Utah and not ski. It’s a long winter. We were in Park City for about 11 years before we moved to Atlanta.

FB
Wow. I bet that was a big adjustment.

MPM
It was changing climate, culture, geography, flora, fauna, you name it. It was a big change, but I was I was ready. I'd been at Red Butte Garden and Arboretum in Salt Lake for 20 years and my husband and I talked about it and decided it would be a good thing for my career. Atlanta has turned out to be such a great city. We really love the city and the diversity. My husband is retired now and we have a farm in Athens, Georgia, where the University of Georgia is, so he gets to stay there all the time and I go back and forth. We need that outdoors. We don't get the mountains and the snow in Atlanta.

FB
That's a nice combination. I sort of stopped skiing when I moved to Los Angeles but then I had kids and I had to teach the kids to ski so I fell back in love with it. I drive up to Mammoth a lot. I really miss the mountain life. Sun Valley was one of my favorite places. Park City has exploded.

A photograph of Main Street in Park City, Utah during winter with a forested mountain in the background.

MPM
It's nuts. We kept our house for three years after we moved here and then we decided it was too hard to deal with the rental and we sold it. Now we look back and go, “Well, that was a dumb idea.” But I don't know if I would be happy there anymore. Most of our friends who stayed in Park City have left. It's just exploded. Park City Mountain Resort was owned by a family for all those years and then somebody forgot to renew their lease with the U.S. Forest Service and Vail Resorts and signed up for the lease immediately. So the family lost the resort and it's now owned by a huge conglomerate. It’s just not the same as it once was. And I do think after 11 years, eight or nine months of winter gets old.

FB
My friends who lived there all had to move down to Salt Lake City because they couldn't afford to live there anymore. It’s like with a lot of the ski resorts where all the big money from out of town comes in and then all the locals don't have anywhere to live and have to commute 45 minutes or an hour. It's nothing like it was when I was there, which was in the 80s and 90s.

MPM
You were there in the heyday. Even better snow then, too.

FB
It was amazing back then. I also was there at the start of the Sundance Film Festival, before it became such a big market. It was very, very charming.

MPM
Before it was Sundance it was the U.S. Film Festival and they sold it to Robert Redford five years after it began. But a friend of ours, Lori Smith, ran the independent part, which is what took off, of course. It's not even a shadow of its former self. We loved it when it was like it was when you were there.

FB
I'm always interested in folks who are exploring Alice in Wonderland in all the different mediums. When I first started writing my book, The Looking Glass Wars and I started looking into how deep Alice runs in pop culture, I was amazed. When I came to Alice in Wonderland gardens it surprised me. It seemed like an outlier. Yet, here I am talking with you about this big exhibit you have in Atlanta and the New York Botanical Garden is doing its own Alice exhibit.

Your exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Garden is called Alice’s Wonderland Returns. When was the first incarnation?

MPM
That is a very good question. This is the second iteration of it with some new work, the Singing Flowers. I believe it was on display in 2019 and into 2020. We've done work with Mosaiculture, out of Canada, going back to 2013 when we did another imaginary world show with giant cobras and then we did one with a big dragon. Alice is the newer one.

A topiary sculpture depicting the White Rabbit sitting in an umbrella from "Alice in Wonderland" in the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

What we found when we did it in 2019 and 2020 is Alice has a cult following. Whether you're a little tiny kid or an 80-year-old woman, you have a story about Alice in Wonderland. You have a special place in your heart for Alice. It touches almost all dimensions of life. I was out in the garden during the first show and I saw this woman. She was about 50 years old and had a little dress on, and she was holding the map. I said, “Can I help you?” And she said, “Well, I think I've seen the entire show, but I'm looking at the map because I flew here from Denver to see the Alice in Wonderland show and I don't want to leave in case I miss anything.” Then she said, “See, I wore my Alice dress, and she twirled around, and her dress had Alice in Wonderland all over.” It was hilarious. She hadn't missed anything. I walked her through the whole show but that's the way this show touches people in a way no other show we've ever done has touched people.

FB
People like dressing up and doing cosplay with Alice. Do you encourage and invite that?

MPM
Every Thursday night from May to the end of September is “Cocktails in Wonderland”. We encourage people on Thursday night to dress up so that's really worked with the cosplay people. Even people who don't know much about cosplay still dress their kids in Alice in Wonderland stuff.

FB
Is there a signature drink?

Mary Pat Matheson

It’s the “Queen's Gambit,” a spiced apple Margarita.

FB
That sounds lovely and delicious. Might have to try that.

I saw the photograph of the singing flowers, and I'm a big fan. I've used the singing flowers in a number of story elements in my work. So tell me about coming up with which kind of flowers you're using in this installation.

MPM
We work with a creative partner in Montreal. The art form you’ve seen images of is called Mosaiculture. Horticulture and mosaic together. Some of the older instances include manor houses in 19th century Europe would have a clock on a hill all planted with plants. That’s where this concept of mosaic and plants came together. In the late 1990s, the City of Montreal wanted to do something really special that was very green for the millennium, for two the year, 2000 and they came up with the idea of creating a nonprofit.

Lise Cormier became the head of this new nonprofit, Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal, which worked with the province and the City of Montreal to create a major international competition. Cities around the world picked symbols of their cities or heritage or mythology from their countries and created big, beautiful images out of this topiary work. Most of them were made in Montreal but the concepts were created in different parts of the world. The show started in the summer of 2000 and I think they had 3 million guests. It was huge. Now they do shows in Canada every couple of years. I had already told them I wanted to be the first garden to showcase their work when they were ready to do something in the United States.

Lise is the creative, inspirational person behind it all. She has a phenomenal team but she is the artist who takes the Alice story and turns it into these figures. When we told her we wanted to do Alice in Wonderland, Lise dove into the movie. She dove into the book. She studied, studied, studied, and she came up with the Singing Flowers, which flowers to use, and even what music to play based on what she got out of the book. I talked to her three days ago and we are going to do the show again next year, because it is so popular, and the Singing Flowers have some references in the book to an understory of blue flowers. So she's encouraging us to look at a blue tapestry under the Singing Flowers next year. That's the kind of detail Lise gets into. She's just so talented. Then we turn her concepts and the frames over to our horticulturists, and she has horticulturists who give us a plant list. What will grow in Montreal versus Atlanta is very different, of course, so we evaluate the plants beforehand so we know what will work here. Our horticulturalists have done this enough that they know what varieties of wet plants will do better here than they will in Montreal and vice versa. So we pick plants that will be as close to what they recommend so that the pieces look the way they're sketched out when we’re designing the show.

A topiary sculpture depicting the card soldiers and chessboard from "Alice in Wonderland" in the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

FB
I really encourage listeners to check out the website and take a look at some of the photographs because these oversized books are so gorgeous. The Cheshire Cat installation is one of my favorites. The chessboard and the card soldiers are another spectacular exhibit. But tell me how a visitor would experience the Alice in Wonderland story walking through the exhibit. What story elements do you emphasize?

MPM
We have interpretive signs that talk about some of the pieces and a lot of people want to know what the plants are. But then we have a cell tour, so you can hear from horticulturalists talk about the pieces. But we do a very light interpretation because we don't feel like it's our job to interpret the book because everyone has different perspectives on what it means and what it meant to you as a child. We want you to bring your imagination. Often people go home and reread the book after they've seen the show.

FB
That’s pretty inspiring. I bet a lot of English teachers are happy with you. You have the original text but you brought up the Disney movie. Are you talking about the Tim Burton version or the animated version? What parts of either of those are in the exhibit?

MPM
The book is really the inspiration for most of the show. But we all have been touched by those two movies. Everyone's seen them. The good news is a lot of guests are still reading the book to their children. It's timeless and that's really great. Not everything in this world we live in, especially with books, is timeless.

It's a trio. It's the two movies you mentioned, Tim Burton and Disney, as well as the book itself, and then just all the iterations of it. We've got a really creative visitor center manager and he and his team have done this really beautiful fan of playing cards over the Alice in Wonderland table in our gift shop. It's just filled with all this stuff like the Red Queen and the White Rabbit and, of course, the Cheshire Cat. There's so much you can buy that's Alice-driven too. It's a real opportunity for retail. But I just think it's the trio that really has made this so inspiring to other people. But it's the book that inspired the creation of our show.

FB
Why do you think Alice keeps reemerging as an important cultural touchstone for people after all these years? What are the ingredients that make this story last?

MPM
That's a really hard question. I think there is a part of the book that touched people as children without a doubt. The book is pretty idiosyncratic.

FB
Extremely. A lot of interpretations. You can think of it as a whimsical story or you can think of it as a horror story.

A topiary sculpture depicting the Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland" in the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

MPM
It’s like we're terrified and infatuated with snakes because they're interesting, but they are scary. Alice is not a snake, but Alice is interesting because it is beautiful, mystical, and charming. Who doesn't want to shrink and meet the White Rabbit, right? But do you ever get out and do you ever return to your life? Then there's the whole layer of, “Was Alice really about drugs?”

FB
That came out of the 60s and 70s, for sure.

MPM
I do not doubt that some people come here because they're interested in that.

FB
Are there magic mushrooms in this garden?

MPM
All your listeners should not come here looking for mushrooms. People do eat a few before they arrive, I wouldn't be surprised. That part of it comes back when you're in your 20s or 30s. It's a generational thing. When you're a child, it's all beautiful imagery and you don't understand it, but you're enthralled. Then when you're older you’re thinking about it and you're not really sure what the meaning is. It's got a lot of depth to it, and that's part of the interest.

FB
It always surprises me how much Alice is in culture. People forget when they say something like, “We've stepped into a looking glass, or we're down a rabbit hole now and there's no logic, and facts are not facts.” Alice keeps coming up in every conversation and people just don't realize this has all come from this original story.

MPM
Wasn't it Jefferson Airplane, “Go ask Alice, When she's 10 feet tall”?

FB
I love that song.

MPM
You can't help but love that song. It’d be hard to figure out another book that has had that kind of an impact on us as humans. What about Wizard of Oz?

FB
Have you ever thought about doing The Wizard of Oz? That seems like a possibility.

MPM
I'll tell you the dream of ours. This is not a promise to your listeners, because we have a lot of work to do, but we would love to partner and do Where the Wild Things Are. The Maurice Sendak book is so important, so fanciful, so uplifting. He cared about literacy and children, which we care a lot about, we do a lot of reading programs in the garden. But also because Where the Wild Things Are would be such a good way to interpret the work that we do in Plant Conservation and Biodiversity. We have 35 scientists working in our Center for Plant Conservation doing work all over the southeastern United States, in the Caribbean, and worldwide to try to save magnolias in parts of the world like Asia and South America. But telling that story to guests is hard. Biodiversity and why we should care about plants is a hard concept for people to understand, because plants are everywhere, right? They're not going to be everywhere. They're disappearing and, as they go, so go the insects and the birds and the animals. If we could do Where the Wild Things Are, you'd have another story that has multiple stories to go with it, but that one hits squarely in the mission zone. That's our fantasy right now. We'd like to do that one day.

An illustration of Max and a Wild Thing from Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's boo "Where the Wild Things Are".

FB
That's a really strong choice. We'll put our collective energy towards that happening because people don't realize how many plants we're losing every year just as they don't realize the number of animal species we're losing. Obviously, those things go hand in hand.

MPM
When we were little our parents would drive to Florida or California for vacation, every three or four hours we'd stop for gas, and my dad would get out and clean the windshield because of the bugs. When was the last time anybody had to clean bugs off a windshield? Where did the bugs go? If the bugs are gone, what are the birds eating? Well, let's see, 9 billion birds have disappeared. A lot all those things are pollinators for plants. So there go the plants. That's the simplest way to understand that web of life and the importance of biodiversity.

FB
It’s really important and it's great that you're doing this for children because it's their generation that's going to suffer. They're the young folks who need to really stand up for climate change and the difficulties we're facing. We just had a heat wave here and all these plants shriveled up so quickly. I hadn't seen that before in a matter of a couple of days. There are so many places on the planet where we're losing all of this diversity.

MPM
Your sequoias are totally endangered. All those little plants, like little orchids in the rainforest that we're losing, it’s a big loss. And you're right, the kids are going to have to inherit the mess we leave behind.

FB
The important thing is, people can't take all that on, so you need to entertain and show them the beauty of what’s at stake. That's why I want to encourage people to go to the exhibit. If it's not this year, then go next year. There's so much creativity infused in this thing, the fairy tale aspect within the context of looking at these iconic characters and seeing the plants that make up the stylistic choices. It’s mind-blowing you can do this combination of the mosaic and the plants and create so much beauty. Then when you're looking at that beauty, someone's listening and you're talking about where these plants are disappearing. People can hear that because they're having it coming in. When I do school events and talk about my books, I spend so much time getting the kids on my side and I do not talk about writing and the difficulties of writing until the very end. So the teachers are happy with me but they're already on my side. So they can hear you, and that sounds like what you're doing.

MPM
That's so true. Years ago, we did some branding work and, as a part of that, we wanted to analyze whether we could lead with the environmental message. What we learned is that people care about that message but they don't come for that. They come for social experiences with family, friends, and loved ones. But once they're here, they want to understand more. They don't want to have it drilled into their head but they would like to learn more. That's what we can do with the magic of this show.

We have the largest orchid center in the United States. There are orchids from a quarter of an inch big to eight feet big that are just spectacular with these incredible flowers and unique mechanisms for pollination. They're just as wonderful as the Mosaiculture Alice show. So we get you here for the bigger exhibit but then the experience is much deeper than that.

A photograph of pink orchids from the Orchid Atrium at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

When we talked a minute ago about what to do about all these challenges and biodiversity, I always like to lead people with this idea. I know you probably don't have a lot of lawns in California, right? But we certainly do here. But for people who have lawns, planting pollinator gardens and not spraying herbicides and pesticides, you can still have a lawn with a little bit of messy weeds in it if you mow it often and really encourage wildlife to come back and insects to thrive. That's something anybody who rents or owns a home can do that can make a big difference in the world we live in today. I want people to think about what they can do without feeling like we're just beating our heads against the wall and can't make a difference. We can in our own small way.

FB
It's really true. Last year, I got married in my backyard so I ended up planting and I put in a little water feature. To your point, I'm shocked by the number of butterflies and dragonflies showing up. Insects are all over the place and now the neighborhood raccoons, skunks, and deer are coming. I can really feel what you're talking about. It happened within a very short time, 12 months, but it has a lot to do with those instincts.

Being president and CEO of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, what are some of the things you do day in and day out that excite you? What are the challenges of running this organization?

MPM
Number one, I love nature and I love plants so I get to run an organization that's driven by that. If I'm having a hard day or there's an issue, I can walk in the garden. Yesterday I went to see the Alice show and went to look at the orchids. You can't come back to your office feeling bad after you've done that. You just can't. The same is true for everybody else who's listening. If you can't walk through a botanical garden when you're having a hard day, just go for a walk in the park. Go for a walk in the woods. It lowers blood pressure, stress, and anxiety, and we know our children are suffering from that at huge levels.

When gardens were started hundreds of years ago, some were started for wealthy manor houses in Europe. In fact, in the 1700s and 1800s, the really wealthy and royalty in England and other places would send orchid thieves to South America. That was where the orchid rape happened, and they stole them out of the out of the rainforest. If they took a million orchids on a ship back to England, they would be lucky if 100 survived. Terrariums were finally built so they could keep the orchids alive. So some gardens started with wealth. Some started as medicinal gardens, particularly monasteries that needed medicinal plants to help people heal. Then a lot of gardens started with universities as science collections, all of which are good, and many of those are still here today.

A topiary sculpture depicting a dragon at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

But today, public gardens exist for lots of reasons, not just a narrow few. Forty-five years ago the big gardens would have lots of guests, but not all gardens have that. But because the world we're in today is disconnected from nature, and the globalization of our populations, we have more people coming to botanic gardens now than at any time in history. So this is our century. The bad news is that it means the environmental issues have gotten so severe that people do want to come for other reasons. But the good news is we're the havens for our community. That was proven in 2020 during Covid. People flocked here. We were the only cultural destination in Atlanta, along with the zoo, that was open. We had to limit numbers through the front door but we were the place where people came to preserve their sanity and feel safe. So I love that this is a time when gardens are thriving and more important than ever.

I also love to raise money and build so we're in a $150 million capital campaign. We want to build another eight acres of gardens that will be connected to the ones we have now. But the real catalyst for this is that the new front door for these gardens is going to be on the Atlanta Beltline, which is a 22-mile connected loop around the city for walking, biking, and scooters that will be done in 2030. It's changing the way we move through our community. We are going to be the cultural destination on the Beltline. So my comparison is, that it's like the Whitney Museum in the High Line Park. We're going to be the Whitney on the Beltline. We're going to have one garden and two front doors. One for people arriving with cars and one for people on foot or biking. That is great in terms of looking at sustainability and how we get our guests here. We're very excited about that. I think we're right at about $120 million raised and we'll break ground next year.

FB
How do you go about raising that kind of money?

MPM
I love to raise money and I love America and its philanthropy. We are unique in the world in that our tax system was set up a long time ago to benefit people who wanted to support nonprofits and, as a result, we have some of the most successful nonprofits in the world. You look at Atlanta, where there is really no public funding, very little from the city and the count, and none from the state to speak of whereas other big cities like St. Louis, San Francisco, and New York, have public money for nonprofits and cultural institutions. We don't here but we have a vigorous, wonderful cultural community of museums and the garden and the Center for Puppetry Arts, which has the most famous puppets in the world.

All of that is because of the generosity of this community and America's culture of philanthropy. So we have big foundations, generous individuals, and very generous corporations that support the work that we're doing. That's number one. Number two is to raise the kind of money that we're doing right now. It takes a bold vision. Everyone in this city knows how important the Atlanta Beltline is to changing the city. The first two miles that opened, eight or nine years ago, there was immediately $4-5 billion worth of development along it with apartments, condos, and restaurants. Our section will be the green section because it goes through Piedmont Park and then to the garden through a quiet part of the city and it connects neighborhoods.

I think you have to have a bold vision that makes sense for the community. That it's more than the nonprofit. It's about, how you make Atlanta a better place to be for the people who visit here or live here. Then you have to deliver on the promise and those are really the key things in fundraising, at least in the cultural community. I think it's much harder in social services.

The BeltLine, to their credit, is doing a lot of work on affordable housing to make sure that it's not all these really expensive apartments and condos. I think private equity owns about 40% of the real estate in Atlanta and that's really driven up housing prices here and in every city in the United States. But the Belt is doing a really good job as is the city. We have a mayor who's all about affordable housing to try and turn that around. That's not our focus or our mission but we want to make sure because you have to pay admission to come into the garden or you can be a member. You could buy a dual membership for $120 and come in for free year-round. But we're also going to do free programming outside the enclosed area in a courtyard garden that we're building, where we can do Tai Chi, or we can talk about pollinator gardens. We can let people take an herb garden home to their little apartments. We want to do things that are about equity as well.

FB
Here in Los Angeles, we have the Huntington Gardens.

A photograph of the Cactus Garden at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.

MPM

I love the Huntington. When I first saw the Cactus Garden as a young horticulturist, I think I cried. I was just so moved by it.

FB
To your point, certainly, during the pandemic, it was a safe place to socialize but I've also noticed that even on weekdays, when I would expect it to be quiet, I show up and the parking lot’s completely full. It’s such a spectacular garden but it's also just a place to get away and have a walk. I was recently reading the biography of Steve Jobs and he talks a lot about going on walks with friends or co-workers to talk through problems and to get away from it. That's the amazing thing about going on a walk and then if you're in nature, things come into your mind that you just don't expect because you're looking one way, you're thinking about something else, and then you see an animal, a plant, or a cactus. You're like, “Wait, where did all this come from?”

MPM
When I go there, I never go inside. I just stay in the garden the entire time. It's so well maintained and so beautiful and so diverse but it's interesting when you were talking about taking a walk. I hope your listeners all know how walking out in nature can help you solve problems and de-stress, and we need to get our kids to do that more often, or just go play. But we forget that human beings are animals. We're an elevated animal and so being in nature, where we are hearing animals and smelling things, that's what we're supposed to do. That's what our bodies are craving. We've just forgotten that in our busy lives.

FB
If you combine that with Alice in Wonderland, you're combining nature and what it was like to have a childhood imagination and wonder, which is one of the things you were talking about earlier. So you’re bringing those things together, the wonder of story, the wonder of character, the wonder of whimsy and fantasy. Bringing it back to the Alice’s Wonderland Returns exhibit, can you bring us back to your exhibit and highlight some of the areas visitors really admire and talk to you about the feedback you're getting so we can have our little walk through our Alice in Wonderland on this podcast?

MPM
When you walk into the garden from the visitor center, immediately, there are two books and they are 18 feet tall. These are huge and they're made out of steel with fabric and soil and then they're completely planted. The letters are the only things that are metal. Everything else is a plant that makes the binding of the book and the front of the book, and that starts you off. Everyone wants their picture taken in front of that because when you go home with your photos and show them to your family, you begin with the story, which is Alice in Wonderland.

Then you go into the show and you walk over where our restaurant, Longleaf, is, and when people are walking somebody inevitably will look up to the left, and on top of a stone wall when you're coming around a curve, is the Cheshire Cat. He's just up there looking down on you like he should be. It’s usually a child who finds it because they're always looking. Moms are talking, dads are talking, friends are talking, and then they all stop and they all have to have their pictures of it. Then you come to a water feature, which is at the end of a grand alley of crape myrtles, and in this water feature is Alice herself, and Alice is spinning because she's going down the rabbit hole.

A topiary sculpture depicting Alice falling down the rabbit hole from "Alice in Wonderland" in the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

FB
Oh, that's spectacular. And you have some teacups right near her as well, right?

MPM
There are two reasons for that. One is the reality of the book, you have to spin to go down the rabbit hole. The other is more practical. It's a 360-degree fountain. The reason is, that she's planted. There are trees here and sunshine on the other side. The plants all enjoy the sunshine in the shade. Otherwise, on one side of her, the all plants would get long and lanky in the shade and the sun is nice and tight and beautiful. So we had to turn her for photosynthesis. It's both the science and the art.

Everyone stands and looks at her because the teacups are there and she's got cards on her and then she's falling down the rabbit hole. It's just so funny. I saw a Chinese couple there this spring when we had just put it in and they were so excited. Then you go over to the Red Queen, who is probably 20 feet tall and pretty intimidating as she's supposed to be. But what is she doing? Croquet. Remember what the croquet ball is? It’s the hedgehog.

FB
That's very clever. That's fun.

MPM
The hoop is one of the card soldiers. They have to bend to the Red Queen’s will so they have to bend over so they create a hoop for the hedgehog. Now you're just laughing. You're absolutely delighted. You're seeing details you never expected to see in the show. Of course, every moment is a photo op for family, friends, or whoever you're with. Then you go around another corner and you can hear music, or sometimes it's quiet, and the music doesn't come on until you trigger it, because it's triggered by movement. That's where the Singing Flowers are. They're 15 feet tall, and they're 12 of them, all along a linear pathway. They're singing this wonderful song to you like little cherubs and you're more mystified than anything. “Where did the music come from? What are these things?” It’s so delightful.

Then you end up in the Skyline Garden, which is wonderful because you've got this really beautiful urban view of Atlanta. You're above a huge water feature in a courtyard and looking down is the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit is about 25 feet tall and he is sitting in an umbrella, and he’s all white with a pink nose and whiskers. He's got his top hat on and there's a clock on him because he's always keeping time for when she has to leave. He is just awesome. I should note we keep the White Rabbit for the holiday light show so he gets lit up during the holidays. He is just a charming part of our holiday light show, which, last year, ABC News declared the best light show in America. We won the Light Fight competition. It's a fabulous light show.

We have a canopy walk in our woodland and it's 45 feet off the ground with a 120 or 140-foot deciduous tree forest, we hang 1,500 light strands from nets in the trees, and they're all choreographed to music. It's fabulous. Then next to the White Rabbit on the lawn is the chess set you talked about and they're all the playing cards and the horses and the knights of the chess set. There's a great photo op in front of it and we have so many wonderful photos of families and children and friends together. People spend a lot of time there because there are so many pieces on the chess set. The lawn is a checkerboard lawn. It's a delightful show with the whimsy, the humor, and the delight from the book. And whenever you blow scale up like that, it's so surprising to people. They love it.

A topiary sculpture depicting the Queen of Hearts playing croquet from "Alice in Wonderland" in the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

FB
I imagine these kids coming through. They're looking up and their necks are arching back, looking all around them at all these huge exhibits and characters. It's pretty remarkable.

MPM
I love it. Some of them come so many times. They lead people around because they know it so well.

FB
Having this conversation with you and you describing the exhibit was so compelling. It is very clear to me why you're the president and the CEO, and why you've raised $120 million of the $150 million. I want to get on a plane and come see that right now based on the way that you described it and the love, creativity, and care that is communicated through you in terms of the work that you're doing in this incredible exhibit. I really appreciate the time and your sharing your passion for Alice in Wonderland and this beautiful garden you oversee.

MPM
It's my pleasure, Frank. Come anytime you want. We'd love to have you.

FB
So, let me just ask you a question, if you were to describe your husband as a character from Alice in Wonderland?

MPM
He can be really funny or kind of introverted when he wants and he's very creative sometimes. Right now, he works in the garden with the speaker tied to his waist to listen to the Braves games. Maybe he's the Mad Hatter.

FB
He'd have to be for being such a Renaissance person.

Thank you again. It was a terrific conversation. Thank you.

MPM
I enjoyed it so much, Frank. Thank you.

For the latest updates & news about All Things Alice, please read our blog and subscribe to our podcast!

Wonderland: Curious Nature - An Alyssian at the New York Botanical Garden

Alyssian Reporter-at-Large and Defender of Imagination Lynne Henderson recently took a trip to Wonderland via the Bronx. Here is her full report on the New York Botanical Garden's magical Wonderland: Curious Nature. For more information on this enchanting exhibit, check out my interview with NYBG VP of Exhibitions and Programming Joanna Groarke on the All Things Alice podcast or visit their website.

A photograph taken by Lynne Henderson of a White Rabbit topiary sculpture at the New York Botanical Garden's "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibit.

“Alive, but not talkative, quelle dommage…”

Running through October 27, Wonderland: Curious Nature at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is an exhibit you can glide through one “golden afternoon” or evening and easily imagine yourself in Wonderland. Spread throughout NYBG’s 250 acres; the immersive displays guide you through a cornucopia of Victorian flora with an Alician twist. While on a recent “staycation,” I took the Metro North commuter railroad 20 minutes from Manhattan to the NYBG and wandered through this gorgeous expanse of rich greenery and colorful flowers. The dirt and noise of the city seemed a world away as I lost myself in the quiet and beauty. I almost forgot I was in a city and not the countryside.

I certainly got my steps in for the year as I wandered the grounds. White Rabbit footsteps and meter-high color cutouts and ground decals of the Tenniel engravings usher you to displays that delight the mind as well as the eye. A lovely topiary garden has giant floral playing cards and caterpillars. In the center are giant mushrooms from FoldHaus that light up in different colors at night. Nearby is the Victorian-style Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, with a display inspired by the verdancy of the Oxford Botanic Garden, which Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell probably lost themselves in on many a day. To the Victorians, flowers were not only valued for their beauty but used as a coded language to convey messages to friends, lovers, and even enemies! More Tenniel cutouts are hidden among the plants to surprise and delight (I even saw the White Rabbit scurrying towards his hole!).

A photograph taken by Lynne Henderson of an archway decorated with cutouts of John Tenniel illustrations of Alice and flamingos from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" at the New York Botanical Garden's "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibit.

The LuEsther T. Mertz Library near the Garden’s entrance has a wonderful collection of Alice in Wonderland memorabilia that shows the impact and influence Alice had on her society as well as ours. The Victorian Era was one of great changes and exploration in the United Kingdom, especially in science, and much of the collection explores the medicinal and recreational properties of plants common to Brits in the 19th century. Various editions of Carroll’s stories and art, traditional and surreal, showcase how Alice inspired and continues to inspire imaginations (the Heart Crystal still lives!).

Of course, no foray into Wonderland would be complete without food and drink. The Garden’s food venues offer a delicious range of treats from al fresco food trucks to a full afternoon sit-down tea (if you’re lucky, you may be joined by the Hatter or White Rabbit). The obligatory gift shop has various editions and interpretations of Carroll’s stories as well as magnets, T-shirts, and other collectibles such as invitations and cocktail menus. I bought a set of “flash cards” with ideas for an Alice-inspired celebration.

A photograph taken by Lynne Henderson of an advertisement for the New York Botanical Garden's "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibit featuring John Tenniel illustrations of Alice, the March Hare, and the Mad Hatter from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".

Even though Fall is here, the days are still warm enough to comfortably enjoy wandering the grounds and losing yourself in the quiet and serenity of nature for a few hours. If you live in or plan to visit New York between now and the end of October, come up to the Bronx and enjoy the magic of Wonderland in our world-famous garden.

In Queendom Speramus! Long Live Alyss!

Hope Renewed: Princess Alyss Embraces Her Destiny - Part 4

Back in 2007, we collaborated with noted Alyssian historian Agnes MacKenzie to publish Princess Alyss of Wonderland, a stunning collection of letters, journal writings, and art from Her Royal Imaginer, Princess Alyss Heart. These breathtaking documents chronicled the incredible childhood of Wonderland’s exiled heir apparent and future hero of The Looking Glass Wars.

Part One spanned Alyss’ flight from Wonderland and how she survived her first days on the rough streets of London. In Part Two, Alyss recounts the horrors of the notorious Charing Cross Orphanage and her disappointment at being adopted by the unimaginative Liddells. Part Three follows Alyss' pain and indignation when she is betrayed by her good friend, Lewis Carroll.

When we last saw Alyss, she was slipping into despair over the gross falsehoods contained in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” She thought Lewis Carroll believed her when she told him about Wonderland, Redd, and Hatter. But he had just twisted her words and now she had to admit that “Alice” had won.

Yet Alyss wouldn’t be down for long. A surprising message from home soon arrived and helped remind Alyss of who she was meant to be…

(*As always, I am indebted to the tireless and exhaustive research of the eminent Wonderland historian Agnes MacKenzie. Her dedication has helped keep the true story of Queen Alyss alive!)

Diary Entry - October 19, 1865
Since the BETRAYAL, I have been in the darkest of moods, unable to smile or even enjoy a delicious toffee twist. Wanting to be alone and as far away as possible from any mention of “Alice,” I decided to walk to a meadow where I often go to think about Wonderland when a ray of brilliant, almost crystal, sunshine cut across the meadow and all of the flowers lifted their faces skyward and began to sing. It was the most wondrous sound I had ever heard. Unbelievable, perhaps, to anyone from this world but for me. I was immediately aware of the presence of Wonderland.

An illustration of red and purple singing flowers with Princess Alyss in the background, by artist Catia Chien, based on "The Looking Glass Wars" series by Frank Beddor.

Diary Entry - October 19, 1865 (continued)
I now realize that flowers are the link to Wonderland and that they are the purest receivers of Imagination. Everything and everyone else I have encountered has been rather lacking in spirit, form, and IMAGINATION compared to what exists in Wonderland. In this world, animals are treated as if they have no mind of their own and respond by being inarticulate while in Wonderland so-called animals hold public office and play instruments. And the buildings here are so SQUARE and SOLID. Who could bear to live in a box all of their life? Boxes are for transporting items, not a place to live, laugh and dream! My mind continued to race as I recalled the creatures and streets and shops of Wonderland. I became so dizzy with color and space and Imagination that I immediately began painting and by teatime had covered every inch of my bedroom walls with art.

Diary Entry - October 27, 1865
I was in my room today when suddenly and very clearly I heard Bibwit Harte’s voice call out to me, “Princess! You must check your pockets!” What could it possibly mean? Thinking hard all day I went to each of my pinafores and coats and dutifully checked every pocket. Nothing but one stale peppermint twist which I immediately ate. Hmmm? It was very puzzling. And then I knew! My birthday gown from Wonderland! I went to where it was stored in the closet trunk and pulled it out. I checked every pocket. NOTHING!!!

But wait…

Letter from Princess Alyss to Royal Tutor Bibwit Harte
Most Honorable and Learned Bibwit Harte,

Of course, it would be you, the knower of all of Wonderland's secrets past, present, and future, who would find a way to contact me. Unfortunately, I possess no such knowledge so I am forced to use the British Post. Dear, dear Bibwit Harte you have no idea how thrilled I was to hear your voice and receive your message. But it wasn’t until I remembered the secret pocket sewn inside the right wristband of my Birthday gown for keeping treasures that must never be lost that I made my discovery. I unbuttoned the tiny pocket and immediately felt the cool, clear roundness of the Imagination Sphere! I remembered how you would leave the sphere on my pillow whenever you wished to summon me for Imagination Training. Now that I have found the sphere I will begin training immediately. Expect updates.

Your most promising student,

HRI Alyss

An illustration of Princess Alyss and Royal Tutor Bibwit Harte floating over Wonderland in a translucent blue bubble by artist Catia Chien, based on "The Looking Glass Wars" series by Frank Beddor.

Diary Entry - November 22, 1865
After training all day with the Imagination Sphere, I fell asleep and immediately began to dream of traveling with Bibwit over Wonderland in an enormous illuminated bubble. As we floated to all seven corners of the land, Bibwit told me the Secret of Finding Your Imagination. I have tried to record them exactly as he told me because I am certain this information is vital for everyone.

The Secrets of Finding Your Imagination

What you see behind you is as important as what you see in front.

Do cartwheels twice a day while humming your favorite song.

Laugh very loud if you cannot remember something.

Walk backward if you are in a hurry.

Never hurry to something unpleasant.

Eat something delicious before bed.

Look out the window immediately upon waking and say hello to the twin suns.

Bid the Thurmite moon goodnight before sleeping.

Remember to dream.

Dream to remember.

Tickle your imagination when stuck.

Agnes MacKenzie
Dear reader, you see before you one of the most valuable documents ever given to our world. It is with the utmost sincerity that I encourage each and every one of you to practice the secrets revealed here and be prepared to experience an imagination that has no bounds.

Letter from Princess Alyss to Royal Tutor Bibwit Harte
Most Honorable and Learned Bibwit Harte,

I have been faithfully training with the Imagination Sphere three times a day and am very happy to inform you that my Imagination is becoming very powerful. The skies are bluer and the sun brighter and people smile much more now. When I see with my Imagination I see things that are hidden and I am able to assist others with their searches. For instance, Lorina lost her favorite doll and by simply imagining where she could possibly have left it I was immediately able to find it. And most importantly, I breathe in the air and imagine that it fills me so much that I can float above the trees and see all the best puddles. I will continue training each day and hopefully will find the puddle that will return me to Wonderland in time for my next birthday. I have also learned many new ways of imagining that are useful here in this world. Painting and drawing are very much like imagining in Wonderland, only here I use a brush with colored paints or a piece of lead to make what I need to see or feel or remember. My imaginings must stay on the page here in this world but they feel no less real to me than what I once imagined in Wonderland.

Your forever grateful pupil,

HRI Alyss

Diary Entry - January 1, 1866
When mother ordered Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan to take me away from Wonderland I begged her to let me stay. Her last words to me were “No matter what happens, I will always be near you, sweetheart. On the other side of the looking glass. And never forget who you are, do you understand?” Since arriving in this world I have spent much of my life staring into looking glasses and hoping to see my mother but it wasn't until my powers of Imagination began to increase that I finally understood what she had meant. I must first IMAGINE that I see her. Trembling and nervous, I approached the looking glass and imagined my mother smiling back at me, within moments a message appeared!

An illustration of Queen Genevieve and Princess Alyss holding hands with a green background by artist Catia Chien, based on "The Looking Glass Wars" series by Frank Beddor.

Aces, Spades, Diamonds and Hearts

Lost their princess off the charts

Your Majesty's subjects await your return

So the light of imagination can continue to burn.

Someday, sweet daughter, you'll find your way home,

Hurtling out of this mundane realm,

Even though I cannot tell you how far,

A way can be found if you remember who you are,

Regal destiny is yours to win

Take Heart and always remember to….Imagine.

Agnes MacKenzie
Fascinating! What Alyss describes is an advanced form of 'mirror scrying' or receiving messages from other realms by images that form in your mirror. Known to every culture, 'magic mirrors' were used throughout history to enable one to see the present, the past, and the future. But the mind boggles at the concept of having a personal message written in such a lyrical manner suddenly appear in a looking glass. Some may question the authenticity of the message, but if not Queen Genevieve, who else would have sent this message of hope to a long-lost daughter? I wonder what messages await me in my own looking glass should my Imagination ever grow strong enough to see them.

A letter written by Princess Alyss to her mother, Queen Genevieve, on pink and yellow paper featuring a red heart and white flower, produced for the book "Princess Alyss of Wonderland".

Diary Entry - Undated
Today upon waking I realized that I no longer cared about Lewis Carroll's book or what others believe to be true and that all that matters is what I believe. As soon as this thought flashed through my mind I felt incredibly confident and decided to go puddle hunting. Towards late afternoon, I saw IT, shimmering in the center of Queen's Lane, a puddle where no puddle should be! I am certain that, this is the puddle that will take me home to Wonderland. I will always remember my mother’s words: “You will be the strongest Queen yet. Your Imagination will be the crowning achievement of the Land.”

Go back and read Parts One, Two, and Three of Alyss' Letters to discover how the Princess of Wonderland adjusted to her rude awakening on Earth.

All Things Alice: Interview with Dr. April James, Creator of The ALICE Way

For this episode, it was my great pleasure to have wellness educator and opera singer Dr. April James join me as my guest! Read on to explore our conversation, and check out the whole series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview.

Frank Beddor
Dr. April James, it's so nice to have you on the show.

Dr. April James
Thank you. It’s so nice to be on the show.

FB
Your approach to Alice in Wonderland and wellness is really interesting. The way you use Alice and the five steps is very clever. I’m excited to get into that.

AJ
Thank you. I use them as they come to me.

FB
I want to start with a question about your introduction to Alice in Wonderland. Your website states it was Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which is very unusual that his film would be the introduction, given how long Alice has been in pop culture. Most of the time, people either read the book when their parents introduced them or they saw the Disney animated movie. Before you saw Tim Burton's movie, what did you know of Wonderland?

AJ
I didn't know a whole lot. I might have seen the animated Disney film when I was a kid. I'm sure it was on television and it might have flitted by my consciousness. But I never read the books as a kid. The only bit of Lewis Carroll I really knew before seeing the Tim Burton film was the poem “Jabberwocky.” I took a Victorian literature class in undergrad, at Queens College, and we had to read that for an assignment. I loved that poem because I was into medieval stuff. I had taken Arthurian literature classes, and I was really big on knights in shining armor. The mock Old English style in which “Jabberwocky” is written really appealed to me and I just loved that. But I didn't really know anything else about Lewis Carroll or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland until after that Tim Burton film.

Still image from Tim Burton's 2010 film "Alice in Wonderland," featuring Johnny Depp as Tarrant Hightopp/Mad Hatter and Mia Wasikowska as Alice Kingsleigh.

FB
Tell me about the experience of seeing the Tim Burton movie and relating that to “Jabberwocky” and its author. What was your reaction to the movie and where did you go from there?

AJ
I almost didn't see the film. I was at a really difficult point in my life. I returned to New York after getting my doctorate up at Harvard. I moved back in with my mother because that's what you do when you can't afford to do anything in New York. I came to call it a “Decade of Awfulness.” I was trying to build an opera career, some kind of creative career, but my mother kept having health issues and we kept having family friction because I have an older brother who was creating havoc at a distance with her. By the time March 2010 came around, I was borderline depressed and nothing was really working. But I was a member of the Actors Work Program, which is part of the entertainment industry unions, and I'd met someone who was a member of SAG. She had passes to the then newly opened Alice in Wonderland and she invited me. I thought, “Well, I don't really know anything about Lewis Carroll. I don't really care about Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.” I hemmed and hawed but eventually, I decided to go. I’d not seen a 3D film and I figured it'd be worth the price of admission.

It just totally blew me away. The moment the music came up and the lights came up on the screen, I felt something reawaken in me. I'm a singer and a classical musician and the music caught my ear. There was some mystery and some magic and wonder and innocence in there. Then the visuals started to reach me and as Alice was going through her story, I kept finding resonances with my own life. Adults telling you what to do, “We think you should do this. Everyone should do that.” “What, I don't get an opinion here?” Then what really got me was the Mad Tea Party scene where Alice comes out of this clearing and there's a table with the Dormouse and the March Hare. Hatter’s at the end of the table asleep in his chair. As he awakens, he sees Alice coming out of the clearing and his face fills with delight. The moment his face filled the screen, I heard, inside my head, this British-accented voice go, “That's me.” I asked, “Me who?” No response. I just went back to watching the film and by the end, I came out of that theater and I felt this buzzing inside of me. Something reawakened in me. That's when I started being obsessed with Hatter, Lewis Carroll, and all things Alice.

FB
Had other films evoked such a strong reaction in you previously?

AJ
Not as strong as that. I had seen films that I just loved. When I was a teenager, I was really into the Beatles and I saw A Hard Day's Night. I'd sing the songs at the top of my lungs. Something like that.

FB
Alice in Wonderland resonated with you to the point where you have a career built around wellness. You said you went back and started thinking about the Mad Hatter and all things Alice and Lewis Carroll. Where did the journey take you after the movie? Did you read the book? Did you see a documentary? What happened?

Illustration by Henry Holiday depicting the Butcher and the Beaver on the deck of a ship, from Lewis Carroll's 1876 nonsense poem "The Hunting of the Snark".

AJ
I read all the books. I read both of the Alice books and “Hunting of the Snark” and Sylvie and Bruno. I read biography after biography about Lewis Carroll and the more I learned about him, the more I fell in love with him. Especially reading the collections of his letters, I felt like I was encountering a long-lost uncle. That's how I felt and still feel about Lewis Caroll. He gets me. He gets children. He gets people. If we're in a foul mood, he knows how to pull us out of it.

FB
There are two camps when interpreting Lewis Carroll's books. There's the interpretation that it’s whimsical, very nonsensical, and magical. I suspect you subscribe to that interpretation because of the work you do. However, on the other side of it, people really look at Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as dark and twisted. The terror of being out of control in your body, growing and shrinking, and things like that. Were you able to see both sides of it reading the text? Did you have a really strong first impression of where Lewis Carroll was coming from?

AJ
My impression has always been that he's coming from the whimsical, nonsensical side. The good side, the magical side of everything. He was very interested in imagination and he was very spiritual and connected to God. This love of life permeates his best works. Joy and love are positive emotions that connect us to the good that's in the universe. The good that lies at the heart of all of us.

FB
I agree with you. The first word you used was imagination and that's what struck me about the text. As an adult, writing for adults and for kids, I always thought it was about keeping that childhood wonder and imagination going and how we lose it as an adult. In a lot of ways, Lewis Carroll was a very rigid man who taught mathematics, yet he was flipping to the other side with his writing. One part of your wellness program is about getting back to that youthful, imaginative joy that you always lived as a kid.

AJ
Exactly. One of the sayings I like is, “It's never too late to have a happy childhood.”

FB
Excellent. I love that.

AJ
Some people didn't necessarily have the happiest childhood, right? I had a good childhood but I had a rather responsible kind of childhood, too. “You're going to go to school and you're going to learn, and you're going to do this and this and this.” College was never a question. I was going to college. But I always wanted people to play with. My brother is way older than I am so he wasn’t around when I was a kid and there weren't any other kids my age in my neighborhood. So I really had to use my imagination a lot growing up. Creating worlds of wonder for myself. As we get older, for some reason, society tells us not to be playful, or we get this idea that can't be playful and do good work, which is absolutely not the case. I had to relearn that.

FB
Kudos to your parents because education is really important. You went to Harvard, which is exceptional as well. Tell me what your household was like in terms of the educational part of it versus the playful part of it. You said that when you were on your own, you were imaginative. Was there a crossover, or did you carve that out yourself and your parents were by the book?

AJ
My parents were both teachers. My mother was a special education teacher, and my father was an attendance teacher, which is like a truant officer, but you work for the Board of Education. So they were both really responsible and interested in learning. My mother comes from a family of teachers. Her mother was a teacher and her sisters were also teachers or librarians. It's a very educated family. I was always expected to go to school and do well, and it wasn't hard for me to do that. I liked learning. I loved reading. As a kid, I was in the library all the time, pulling out whatever interested me. I remember reading The Chronicles of Narnia series when I was a child.

A photograph of wellness educator and opera singer Dr. April James holding a microphone and wearing a gold top hat.

Harvard was actually the first time I started to believe in myself and my ability to do anything. I'm a singer by inclination more than training. I've always loved music. I had these two tracks going in my life. There was the liberal arts education track, but I loved music, and I wanted to study music. However, I was discouraged from doing music as a major during my first bachelor's degree at Queen's College. I understood that, so I studied communications, and I went into TV and publishing. I hated it. I didn't like the field. After a couple of years of job to job to job, I was laid off right before Thanksgiving, and I said, “You know what? I'm going to go and study what I wanted to study before. I'm going to go back to Queens College and study music, and we'll see how it works out. That’s how I ended up at Harvard.”

FB
Good for you.

Do you think that was a smart thing for your mom to say to you, versus saying, “Follow your passion”? I find that to be really difficult. I have two teenage kids, one who just went off to college and knows what he wants to do. He doesn't want to be in entertainment, he wants to be more in business. But my daughter, she's going all over the place.

My father was a real entrepreneur, a risk taker, and he was like, “Yes, go do it.” I started off on the ski team and it seemed like a ridiculous idea that I would ever make money or that I would be good at it. And I would have to not go to college, where I was going to go to college part-time, and my mom said, “Absolutely not.” My dad, however, said, “Absolutely do it.” I wonder how you feel about your mom’s advice and, if you were giving that advice to yourself, what would you say?

AJ
It’s taken me a long time to get over my mother's advice. I realize that she was right in a way and she was wrong in a way. My father, even though he was an attendance teacher when I was growing up, was laid off from the city in the 70s. He was also an entrepreneur and he started his own driving school after a time. So I have both this toeing-the-line thing and the entrepreneurial thing going. Now, I understand and I actually appreciate my mother's take on the arts career-wise. I wish she'd been a little more nuanced in what she had said.

After I got out of Harvard, I tried to have an arts career. My research was on women composers and operas composed by women. I started my own opera company and it was so difficult. Even if my mother had been in perfect health and we'd had perfect stuff going on in the family situation, it still would’ve been so difficult. I just said, “You know, what? I don't want to be a full-time artist.” I got to that point.

But I understand what my mother was saying. What she was saying was it's very difficult to make it in the arts. You can, but it's not as clear a path as getting a nine-to-five job somewhere or getting a teaching degree and then teaching. I understand where she was coming from.

FB
It’s not just talent. Talent can only get you so far. If you’re an actor, you have to be so driven that what you're saying to yourself is, “I don't care if I do community theater, I am going to act. I am not thinking about being a movie star. I just need to be on the stage. It's how I live and breathe.” If you don't look at it that way, then you're not going to make it. You're doing it because you can't do anything else.

AJ
That's exactly it. I love singing. I sing all the time. I wake up in the morning, and I'm singing. During the day, I'm singing. I'm singing Bach. I'm singing Handel. I’m singing Mozart. All this gorgeous music that I love. I don't have to be out in front of people to do it. I came to that realization. I do need to be with other people. There's a pianist I'm working with now. I sing in choirs. I've done some recordings, but I don't have to be in an operatic role on stage.

FB
You found your way in terms of combining a lot of different interests. You have your website and your wellness program, the ALICE Way, which is how I originally found you. I love the way you describe helping adults rediscover their natural joy and playfulness so they can better navigate life's ups and downs. Alice in Wonderland is so deeply rooted in culture and brings lots of joy and amusement to people, and you've attached these five steps. Could you tell us the five steps, how you came to them, and why it's been effective for people?

AJ
Alice is not just the name of the heroine of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. For me, she also gives her name to the acronym for the five steps. They’re equations. “A” equals “Awe plus Authenticity.” “L” is “Love plus Levity.” “I” is “Inspiration plus Impossibility.” “C” is “Courage plus Clarity.” “E” is “Exercise plus Expressivity.”

FB
Beautiful. There's a double meaning for everything. Then you sign up for your program and you work your way through the acronym. People want awe in their life and they want to be authentic. To be authentic, you have to know yourself. And to know yourself is one of the themes of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Do you tie the story and Alice as the protagonist into the exercises?

AJ
That's exactly what I do. I have an online video course and I also do this in person. I'll talk about the video course as that's most accessible to people. I divide it up into chapters plus an intro and a conclusion. In the chapter on “A” for “Awe and Authenticity,” for example, I do a video where I introduce the topic by reading something from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that relates to awe. Then I tell a story from my life that connects to the same concept of awe. Then there's an exercise, a separate video, on how you can experience awe in your life. Most of the videos are under 10 minutes. I also have a 42-page playbook to accompany the course so people can do written exercises along with each chapter of the ALICE Way.

FB
Is there any crossover between the text that you're referencing and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland? Was there anything in his movie that you carried over for your program because you liked it? Or do you stick with the original, Lewis Carroll text?

AJ
I keep with the original. The original is the reason why the Tim Burton film is so effective. So let's reference the original work. I really want to encourage people to engage with Lewis Carroll and engage with his work. The ALICE Way is not just about me. I want adults to rediscover joy and I want to have other people to play with. But it's also about appreciating this man who was just such an incredibly loving soul and left us such engaging, enriching, and magical works that can still affect us.

FB
That are still important 150-plus years later.

AJ
It’s amazing. How many times in a week do you hear the phrase “down the rabbit hole”?

FB
I bet you have heard it a lot more since you saw the movie. Before, you probably didn't even know it was connected to Alice in Wonderland.

AJ
Exactly. I don't think I ever knew it was connected.

FB
You use the word joy. Joy is having a moment in society and culture right now. Why do you think that is?

AJ
Joy is one of the most underrated emotional states.

FB
It's true. It's one of those things you forget as an adult. Speaking for myself, I'm usually waiting for some something really outstanding to happen, like having this interview, which will create great joy for me. As opposed to finding joy in the little things when you're just going about your day, like a really amazing cup of coffee. I think we should be enhancing joy in life. There's imagination and there's wonder and there's awe, and a lot of the things you talked about, but living with joy is a nice state if you can get to it.

AJ
Sometimes people think it's unapproachable or unattainable, but it's not it. I maintain that joy is our natural state. That's something Charles Dodgson understood. His cultivation of these child friendships and his love of telling stories grows out of a recognition that children come in joyful. We come in joyful. Dodgson was the eldest male child in a family of 11, so he got to experience that with his brothers and sisters. He was like the family entertainer. He would make up things for his siblings. I think that's where his love of the theater came from. He was able to access imagination and joy and saw other people who could also do that regularly.

There's something divine about joy and I think Charles Dodgson understood that joy and love come from the Divine Well. That's where we come from. That's the source we go back to. So let's keep that in our lives because that is the actual fuel for our lives. Good energy is the real fuel that keeps us healthy and that's why we need to cultivate these good emotions, speak good words, take in good thoughts, and do good deeds. That's what keeps us healthy as individuals and as a society.

FB
You certainly seem to be living the ALICE Way. At the same time as Alice and Lewis Carroll, there's a secondary character that has somehow found her way into you, is that correct?

AJ
Madison Hatta, Sonneteer.

FB
Can you tell us a little bit about her and her birth?

AJ
This is what I mentioned earlier, the voice that came to me during the Tim Burton film. It was about a year later and I was obsessed with finding images from the film to use as wallpaper on my Mac. I came across one that had a picture of the Hatter and a poem on the side, which was written in a Hatter-ish voice. So I'm looking at it and then that British-accented voice piped up inside my head again and said, “I could do better. It's not even a proper form. It needs to be a sonnet.” I hadn't written one of those since I had a Creative Writing class at Queens College years previous. But I had been working with angelic energies a couple of years previous to that so I recognized this as a directive from a spirit.

So I got out pieces of paper and a pen and I started writing. Then I started laughing because 15 minutes later, we had:

"If I were not mad, what on Earth would I be?

It is an unlikely prospect I'm sure you'll agree.

Those voices that whisper when no one is near

Their meaning is all too entirely clear.

I love out-of-turn.

I sing in the rain.

To me, this is custom,

To others, insane.

My past is a mystery shrouded in dreams concealed by blue starlight and moonlit by streams. My present meanders up on common roads.

And as for my future, who knows what it holds?

My friends, they're a mixture of whimsy and wise who come round the bend to drink tea in disguise.

In a world where one plus one equals three,

If I were not mad, who would I be?"

Came right out of my pen. That's how I wrote it. Then the name Madison Hatta, Sonneteer came right out of the pen afterwards.

FB
That was really brilliant. I can see the connection with Lewis Carroll and how strong it is in terms of the brilliance of that poem and how relatable it is to his work and to your own creativity. Thank you so much for sharing that. Have you published that somewhere or where would somebody find that?

AJ
That is in a little chapbook called Madison Hatta’s Book of Unreasonable Rhymes. That was published by Moonstone Press in Philadelphia back in 2015. They may still have some copies available. The ALICE Way is a course but I also plan to have it as my second book. I published my opening essay from that book, “Down the Rabbit Hole,” on the Gulf Coast Writers Association website. It won third place in the Non-Fiction category of their 2024 Writing Contest.

FB
Amazing. How cool.

Your first book was The Tenth Muse. Tell us about your first writing experience and what the book is about.

AJ
The Tenth Muse: How Maria Antonia Advanced the Pastoral Opera. A pastoral opera is shepherds and shepherdesses in love. That's the simplest explanation of it.

Maria Antonio was a noblewoman who lived in the middle of the 18th century. She was well known at the time because she was a composer, poet, and singer, as well as a patron of the arts who wanted to turn the German Electorate of Saxony into the fine arts capital of Europe. She composed two operas. She wrote the music and the lyrics, and she sang as the lead. This is extraordinary for anyone of any time to do, but particularly at that time and for her to be a Princess. People wrote poems to celebrate her life. They named their kids after her. In fact, one of the people named after her was the Queen of France, who everyone has probably heard of, her cousin, Marie Antoinette.

FB
Wow, that sounds like it could make a good movie. She seems like such a fascinating character and so ahead of her time.

Is there anything else you would like to talk about regarding your ALICE Way program? I really hope people will check it out. It's been so much fun talking to you about Alice in Wonderland. I really appreciate your taking the Mad Hatter and turning him into Madison Hatta. I named my reimagining of the Mad Hatter, Hatter Madigan. We both need that “mad” somewhere in the name. Yours was divine. She came to you. I think mine came up from below.

AJ
I call Madison the guardian angel of my sense of humor. She came at a time when I was starting to lose my sense of humor. I think we all need that reminder.

FB
Thank you for offering this wellness program and for the incredible amount of optimism you shared. Most importantly, I'd like to end on the joy that you communicated and the joy it's been having you on the show. We wish you the best of luck and thank you for taking the time to chat with us.

AJ
Thank you for having me on your show, Frank. It's been wonderful chatting with you.

For the latest updates & news about All Things Alice, please read our blog and subscribe to our podcast!

The Cast of "Wicked" the Movie Talks Inspiration and Approach - Part 2

Wicked debuted at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews, with John Cooper calling it an “exhilarating hybrid that continuously surprises and amuses” in the festival’s program. The thriller is a twisted tale of murder and incest with noir sensibilities and biting dark wit. The driving force behind the film is its stellar cast, who deliver complex, compelling, and sometimes shocking performances.

Directed by Michael Steinberg and produced by Frank Beddor, Wicked served as the breakthrough for Julia Stiles. The then-16-year-old is electric as Ellie Christianson, a troubled teen who despises her mother and has an unhealthy obsession with her father. Stiles won Best Actress at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, and her performance as Ellie led to her being cast in the teen classic 10 Things I Hate About You.

This is Part 2 of a three-part series that will be a fascinating look at an actor’s process, how they handled the challenging material and the fulfilling experience of working on Wicked. Read Part 2 here.

*Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Julia Stiles - Ellie Christianson

Working with the Cast
Everyone is just really great. I'm enjoying this so much that I feel guilty. It makes me sad to think about it being over. Billy (William R. Moses) is really nice. I thought maybe I’d feel weird doing some of the scenes with him, but he's just made it so easy for me. I think he might be more nervous sometimes.

Patrick is great. I’m not one to get very starstruck, but he's really cute. When he came to the set to meet Michael and Frank, Vanessa and I were checking him out a little. But he’s really funny. He cracks me up.

Vanessa is a 35-year-old in a nine-year-old’s body. She's really sweet and has some head on her shoulders.

Chelsea Field is perfect for Karen and a fantastic actress. She's really good and very nice to work with.

Linda Hart is hilarious and a good singer.

Working with Director Michael Steinberg
Saying he's a genius is an understatement. He's so nice and so brilliant. He really looks out for my interest and always asks me for input. I really appreciate that. I’d love to work with him again, and I'm not saying that to kiss ass.

Getting Involved in Acting
I had always wanted to be an actress. When I was five years old, my parents would let me stay up and watch The Honeymooners on Channel 11. I would stand in front of the TV and mimic whatever Alice Kramden did. I thought she was so cool, and she always stood up to Ralph. There was one time I was watching an episode, and the stage actually came apart in the corner, and you saw people trying to put it back together. I thought, “Wow, that's fake. That's so cool.” And I wanted to do that.

I did a lot of theater with a company called Ridge Theater in New York. It's very avant-garde, unique, and cool. They did stuff at La MaMa. It was a great learning experience.

New York versus Los Angeles
I could get used to it, but Los Angeles is so different. It’s very segregated, and a freeway separates everything. New York has so much culture, and I'm sure L.A. does, too. I just haven't had any time to go look around.

You always get into really interesting conversations with New Yorkers on the street and in the delis. I have always had really interesting philosophical conversations with people in Washington Square Park.

How Audiences Will Respond to Wicked
It will be hard to ignore it, and it'll appeal to them.

William R. Moses - Ben Christianson

Working with the Cast
Julia Stiles is 15 going on 45. She's the most adult teenager I've ever met in my life. She's an incredible human being, incredibly brilliant, incredibly smart, and an incredibly wonderful actress. It’s a strange dichotomy working with somebody who, on a creative and professional level, you treat exactly as your equal, and on another level, she is 15. We sometimes forget because she's so mature and incredibly bright. She has an insight into life that goes well beyond how old she is. She's an amazing young actress and will be a huge star.

Chelsea Field plays Ben’s adversarial wife, Karen. She is amazing. I've known Chelsea for a while. She's a very solid actress, a very strong person, and very certain of herself.

Vanessa Zima plays my younger daughter, Inger. Vanessa is nine years old and scary good. She's a lot of fun as an actress. It’s fun to have this fresh face on set who’s always happy to be there. I tease her constantly, as I do with Julia, too. My pet project is to make their lives miserable while I'm here on the set.

Michael Parks plays Detective Boland. Michael's amazing. It's an education every time I've done scenes with him. It's been truly exciting in the most dynamic way. Working with Michael requires enormous concentration. He’s very free as an actor, very innovative, and very improvisational. He keeps you on your toes. Every millisecond is different and alive. He has one of the most exciting film techniques I've ever seen.

Linda Hart plays the neighbor, Mrs. Potter. Linda is a joy. She’s a tremendous talent and very funny.

Patrick Muldoon and I had a couple of scenes together, and the characters don't like each other very much, so it was interesting working with that kind of dynamic. It was fascinating to work with him, and very creative. The scenes we did were, by nature, disjointed, so it was one of those experiences where you go, “Whoa, that was weird.” But he's great, and young ladies seem to find him quite attractive.

Ben and Ellie’s Relationship
Ben feels tremendously close to Ellie. They have a very special relationship. Ben has a great need to be loved by women in general, a particular need to be loved by his daughter, and to be thought of as the hero. His need to be seen as the hero and to be loved creates dysfunction in that relationship.

Ben and Inger’s Relationship
Inger is the second in line and less affected by the dissolution of Karen and Ben's marriage. She's left more alone, which is probably healthier. But she becomes entwined in the family's dysfunction and then entwined in the dysfunction between Ben and Ellie, which is an offshoot of what happened with Karen.

As a Suspect in Karen’s Murder
There are reasons to believe Ben might be happier without Karen around. The audience will think because of Ben’s great love for his children and Karen’s willingness to take them away, he might be willing to do something dire. He's a man who lives under tremendous pressure and can be quite erratic at times.

Playing Ben
Every actor is different, but with Ben, it was from the inside out, creating the belief in the circumstances that would generate this amount of guilt in a human being. As an actor, he's interesting to play because he has a great deal of emotionality. He's so riddled with guilt, anxiety, and rage. He presented an image of himself; the image was what he believed he was, but who he was in the interior spaces was different. In terms of playing a character within the structure of a murder mystery, you play the character from his emotional reality. Then, through the structure of the script, he's so guilt-ridden about the dissolution of his marriage and because his wife died. He probably didn't really want her to live. He's never really been a father before, although he thinks he's been a great father, but he never really has.

How Audiences Will Respond to Wicked
I don’t know. When I first met with Michael and Frank Beddor, the producer, I said, “I understand there are elements of comedy in here. But I'm a father myself, and I don't quite understand how this becomes what it becomes.” I don't want to give too much away, but the process of creating and living in that reality has been the most mind-bending experience I've ever had as an actor. For those people who are roller coaster aficionados, this will push them to at least a 96% of maximum, I'm sure.

Louise Myrback - Lena Anderson

On Her Character
Lena is Swedish. She comes to America to study art and needs extra cash, and her friend, Mrs. Potter, is friends with the Christiansons. So, she ends up working for Ben and Karen and falls in love with Ben. He's established, has money, is good-looking, and is funny. It’s easy for her to fall for him. Lena is a powerful person, and she knows what she wants. She wants to stay in the U.S. so, unconsciously, the green card is a reason why she gets married to Ben, which she probably wouldn't have done otherwise.

Her Audition
When I came in for the role, it was originally written as a French au pair. Many of my relatives live in France, and my sister was engaged to a French man, so we speak a lot of French. I thought, “I can play French too.” But I'm very blonde and I look very Swedish, and I guess they liked me anyway.

Working with the Cast
Everybody's been great to work with. I'm so fortunate. Bill (William R. Moses) is just an amazing person. He's a brilliant actor. Vanessa and I have so much fun together off-camera, which is why we have such a good relationship on camera. Michael Parks is a great guy. I love the cast. It's going to be so sad when the movie is over.

Working with Director Michael Steinberg
It's been great. I've never done a feature before. I've done a lot of theater. But I feel the same way as with the cast. I'm so fortunate. It’s very easy to understand what he wants. He’s a good communicator. You feel safe.

Relationship with the Christianson Children
Lena is great with Inger. She's a great girl, and they have a lot of fun. Ellie is more difficult. Obviously, she doesn't want me there, and I feel that, and I want Ben. I can see myself in Ellie. There’s not a huge age difference between us. We have our arguments, and I don't like her because she wants to be the head of the family, and that’s what I want. In a way, I want to be like a mother to the girls. I want them to love me because if they do, Ben is going to feel good about that and everything is going to be much easier.

Relationship with Karen
I can see that her relationship with Ben isn't very good. I can sense that Karen isn't really in love with him anymore. I don't hate her. I just feel that they're not good together, and therefore, I think it's better if they divorce. I've never really made Karen one of my friends because she's not interested in that either. She treats me very businesslike.

Lena as a Suspect in Karen’s Murder
I might be a suspect because I want Ben, but he's unavailable. Some people do anything to get what they want. I had a lot of things to gain by getting rid of Karen. I want to stay in this country, and if I don't marry Ben, nobody's going to sponsor me. I'm better off without her, and she’s not a very nice person. Once, she kicked me out of the house, and Mrs. Potter and Ben and Inger had to force her to take me back.

Acting in Her First Feature Film
At the start of shooting, I was more careful. That's good because the cameras catch everything. But I always question myself and think, “Would she have reacted in a different way?” It’s scary to do that because you do it once, and you're not going to come back to the scene again. It's stupid to do what I'm doing sometimes, but I think that makes you work with your inner life and your character and work on your craft as an actor. For that reason, it's important you do that.

How Audiences Will Respond to Wicked
I think they're gonna think it's a funny movie. It's fun. It's scary. Hopefully, they can recognize themselves in some of the parts. Some people who are in the same situation as Karen and Ben may think it over a little bit more.

Watch Wicked on the following streaming platforms: Amazon, YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, Plex, and Tubi.

All Things Alice: Interview with Joanna Groarke of The New York Botanical Garden

For this episode, it was my great pleasure to have Vice President for Exhibitions and Programming for the New York Botanical Garden Joanna Groarke join me as my guest! Read on to explore our conversation and check out the whole series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview.

Frank Beddor
I’m thrilled to have Joanna Groarke on All Things Alice. She’s the Vice President for Exhibitions and Programming for the New York Botanical Garden, which has a fantastic Alice in Wonderland exhibit, Wonderland: Curious Nature, open until October 27. I'm very excited to talk about all the facets of the exhibition. Thanks for coming on, Joanna.

Joanna Groarke
Absolutely. I'm happy to be here.

FB
How did you come to work for the New York Botanical Garden?

JG
I’ve been at the Garden for about 13 years and I've been in my current role for over two years. I've worked in exhibitions and interpretation, which is the development of all of the educational media you see when you visit including signage, audio tours, video guides, and mobile apps, since I started here 13 years ago.

FB
That seems like such a dynamic job because of the diversity of tasks you have and all the different people you get to interface with, especially with this exhibit. You have a lot of cosplayers and musicians. There are the culinary aspects of it. There's the artwork, there are the books, and the library aspect of it.

How was Wonderland: Curious Nature conceived? Where do you start when you're putting together something this massive?

A photograph of a collection of brightly colored flowers and trees with a fake tree trunk in the middle under a glass ceiling as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

JG
It is a real undertaking. It’s a labor of love every time we create an exhibition, in particular, our summer exhibitions like Wonderland: Curious Nature. These are often original shows we're creating in-house with the help of many, many people, both inside and outside the Garden. We always say good ideas come from everywhere, so sometimes it's a concept that is very closely related to something that's happening in science or horticulture here at the Garden. Sometimes it's something one of us reads late at night when we go down the rabbit hole on some topic and it sparks an idea we then discuss together. In the case of Wonderland, I think for most of the time I have been at the Garden, Wonderland has come up periodically as a topic that's really ripe for exploration through the medium of horticulture because of the connections to science and botany and what was happening scientifically at the time the book was written. Also, so much of the narrative is animated by the setting of gardens and nature. Very early in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice looks through a keyhole and sees what she calls the most beautiful garden she's ever seen. One of the things she's trying to do throughout the story is to get into that garden and explore it. That speaks to our hearts also. Our exhibitions are very multifaceted, as you mentioned, but at our core, we're all plant people so we're driven by that interest and our wonder and excitement about plants.

FB
What were some of the plants or flowers that were in the book? You mentioned the exploration of Victorian gardens and some of the vegetation that was in the novel. Was that the starting point?

JG
The plants and the garden settings that are described in the book are part of what first drew us in. One of the things we do with any exhibition like this is, very early on, we develop a plant list. We develop a checklist of objects and historical objects. If we're using the collections of our library, we have the LuEsther T. Mertz Library here at the Garden, which is the world's richest resource in all things horticultural and plant science. We draw upon those collections quite a bit for our exhibitions. We also have the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, where we have 8 million dried plant specimens that have been collected over hundreds of years by scientists, and we have many examples of those herbarium specimens on display for this show.

A photograph of a pool featuring water lilies in the foreground and the Victorian-era New York Botanical Garden conservatory in the background.

The Garden was founded as a seat of scientific inquiry into the world of plants. Those two resources I mentioned are incredibly vital to the work we do to showcase that research. We were also founded to be a place where beautiful horticulture was celebrated. So my team in exhibitions and programming works closely with horticulture to develop these voluminous plant lists. One of the things we do is mine the text of the book and the images that have been created, both to illustrate the book and then in all of the many film adaptations. So we're noticing which flowers are talking to Alice in the Garden of Live Flowers. We're noticing what plants are mentioned. For example, on page one or page two, I think, Alice is making a daisy chain. We’re making notes all along as we read because that is a great resource for us to know what plants were grown at that time and would have been easily referenced by the author, and then also to start to build what the world of Wonderland, which is what we're trying to do through horticulture.

FB
What's great is that Alice is so deeply seated in culture, you're not just using Lewis Carroll's version, you're using all these various versions. You mentioned looking through the keyhole and that’s from the Disney movie and is not in the original text. I love that you're pulling all of pop culture into this exhibit.

When you enter the exhibit, you are met by an oversized White Rabbit, which has an orangish, reddish, yellowish vest of some sort. I was wondering what flowers those were because it's such a stunning first image. Can you tell us what flowers you’re using and how you keep those flowers alive from season to season?

A photograph of a large topiary flower sculpture of the White Rabbit from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

JG
The first rule is that I'm not allowed to touch the flowers. I am not a talented plant person when it comes to caring for plants, but I love them very dearly, obviously, so I work with my colleagues in horticulture.

Our giant White Rabbit is about 12 feet tall and situated in our visitor center. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice’s first sign of Wonderland is when she sees the White Rabbit in his little waistcoat. We wanted to capture that moment when you are arriving and you realize almost immediately you're about to have a magical, whimsical experience at the Garden. We worked with our friends at Mosaiculture, which is a company based in Montreal. They produce these beautiful living sculptures that are based on the ancient art of mosaiculture, which involves creating these beautiful wire armatures that plants are then plugged into. The plants that are most prominently featured on the White Rabbit are a special variety of Sedum that has a little bit of a white tinge to the foliage so it makes him have his little white fur. Then Alternanthera, which is used to create the waistcoat. It has a very sophisticated irrigation system so we can make sure he's looking his best every day when you arrive.

FB
The irrigation system must be a work of art in and of itself.

What about the library? You have the books displayed and the emphasis is on the enduring popularity of Alice in Wonderland. Have you come to a conclusion as to why Alice has lasted for over 150 years in your estimation?

JG
What spoke to me and what spoke to us as we were organizing the exhibition was the way in which Alice feels like this universal heroine. She is a stand-in for the reader, which is not unusual, but was unusual at the time, in particular, for children to see in literature. A heroine who was actively exploring the world around her. Yes, she was subject to the whims and events that adults, sometimes human adults and sometimes animal adults, put into motion. But she also has an impact on the course of the narrative and that wasn’t very common in children's literature at the time. That sense of empowerment and exploration of the world around you is one that really speaks to us and we thought would speak to our visitors. It deeply connects to the way we hope visitors of all ages will experience the Garden. We have a lot of programming for kids in our Children's Garden and our Edible Academy.

A photograph of an instructor leading a group of children in green shirts watering plant boxes as part of the New York Botanical Garden's Edible Academy program.

FB
What’s your Edible Academy? Where do I sign up?

JG
It's pretty great. It's one of my favorite spots at the Garden. We have two gardens that are really for children, although, of course, children explore the entirety of our 250 acres here in the Bronx. The Edible Academy is on the site of what has been our family garden for generations, and in 2018 we reopened it as the Edible Academy.

We have classrooms, a greenhouse, and vegetable gardens throughout this space, and thousands of school kids come every year and plant the seeds, tend to them, and weed the beds. Then they learn how to cook with the produce they produce. We have schools that come repeatedly and they see the beds through the full growing season and then get to cook with the produce and bring the produce and recipes home. We have kids who come in every week for drop-in programming with their grown-ups and they get to have a similar experience over the course of the season. Then we do one-off visits where the kids get to participate in the growth, tending, and harvest.

My own daughter has participated in the programs and the camps we hold there in the summertime. It’s a pretty special place. We encourage literally digging in and getting your hands dirty. So someone like Alice feels like she really resonates as a protagonist, who is herself getting involved right away in the events of Wonderland.

FB
When were you introduced to Alice and in what medium were you introduced? Then what was your reaction to that first introduction? There’s the family-friendly, whimsical interpretation and then for other people, it's more nightmarish and a little bit scary.

A still image featuring Alice and the Singing Flowers from the 1951 Disney animated film "Alice in Wonderland."

JG
I was a very bookish child. So bookish that when people my age reference things on television, I don't always understand the reference. But interestingly, for Wonderland, I was first introduced to it through the Disney film. But I would have pretty quickly picked up the book after seeing the film. Even in the Disney film, I was struck that it is a little scary. These giant flowers are being mean to her and the Red Queen is pretty scary and I think that is sort of inescapable. Our show is definitely meant to be enjoyed by visitors of all ages, but I think kids are a little bit drawn to frightening stories or the darker side of stories. As a kid, I remember feeling that was part of the story and feeling ambivalent about it. But one of the things that really resonants as I think about the books and the films, as we've been working on this show for the last few years, was how Alice, quite overtly, expresses her frustration with the world of adults and the world of rules that's around her.

It's very relatable. It’s also pretty revolutionary because she is very clearly well-schooled in etiquette and how to behave. The idea that kids both chafe against rules but also are aware of them and understand the structure that exists and they sometimes rely on it, is, in a lot of ways, at the heart of what I as a kid, and probably a lot of kids, find both exciting and a little scary about the story.

FB
Also how illogical adults can be at times with their rules and how they're putting you in this box. I found that to be very relatable as well. When I started working on my Alice projects, it was like if you buy an Audi and then suddenly you see all the Audi's out there. Same with Alice. Suddenly, I noticed “down the rabbit hole” was used in politics and music. Every single day I read somebody saying, “Down the rabbit hole.” So two years ago, when you and everybody on your team started this, did the Alice references and how deeply seated it is in pop culture start to bubble up? For instance, I didn't realize how many people were doing cosplay, whether it was the traditional Mad Hatter or Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter. It's everywhere. Did you guys have a similar insight when you were starting to build this out?

A photograph of a bed of white and red flowers arranged to create a red heart, on the lawn as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

JG
In organizing exhibitions like this, we're thinking about all the ways in which our visitors find meaning around the topic. We talk a lot as a team in exhibitions and then as a broader team here at the Garden that is responsible for the visitor experience. We talk about making sure there are points of entry that allow everyone to have the experience they want to have because that will make what they are seeing resonate more. It'll make them more excited about the plants they see. The cultural expectations and the cultural imagination that exists around Alice are things we definitely talked about and have continued to talk about throughout the run of the show.

We had a feeling we would have a lot of people coming dressed as Alice and other characters, and that was in part because we had seen that with other shows where you might not expect it. Nearly 10 years ago now, we had a show that was focused on Frida Kahlo and her garden in Mexico City, and how the plants she grew there were impactful in her larger artistic practice. We had a lot of Frida look-alikes coming to the show, people who would dress up like Frida and her husband, Diego Rivera. We ended up organizing Frida look-alike contests as a night activity for some of our Frida Alfresco nights.

When we had our exhibition of Yayoi Kusama, the contemporary artist, in 2021, we had lots of people dressed up as Kusama. We had a lot of baby Kusamas in particular, actually. So we knew this was something folks liked to do when there was a show that really appealed to them. We had a feeling that that would happen with Wonderland: Curious Nature. We have some opportunities for people to come and dress up. When people buy a family package ticket to the exhibition at the Garden, they can actually buy headpieces so each member of their party can dress as Alice or the Queen or the White Rabbit. We found that those were snapped up really fast. We had never done anything like that before so we weren't entirely sure how it would do, but it was really popular.

Every time you work on an exhibition, you go in with a plan of what the show will be, and then as you start to have visitors, you make little tweaks and adjustments. We wanted to have opportunities for all of our visitors to meet some of the characters so my team organized that each month we have a different character or characters who are on-site on the weekends. Visitors can take photos with them and talk to them. Right now, we're in the midst of our Mad Hatter month, so we have the Mad Hatter here every weekend. We found that visitors really wanted a photo op as part of that, so we had to think a little bit about how we tweaked that experience. Then, as we were approaching the end of the school year here in New York City, we organized a “Mad for Summer” weekend where we encouraged families to celebrate the start of summer here at the Garden. We had never done that before but it was so much fun. Kids got in for free if they were dressed up in any costume or Alice-inspired garb. We had this weekend of so many fun activities, lots of photo ops, and interactive moments with the characters.

A photograph of an actor holding a violin and dressed as the Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

FB
Why don't you give us a little rundown of those entry points? You have things for kids but you also have cocktail hours for adults. There's also food and I've read about a lot of different music. You had a Pride night with Malik Miyake-Mugler. Maybe you can talk about the diversity of the show and some of those entry points you keyed in on early to give people access and variety,

JG
When people hear about an exhibition focused on Alice in Wonderland, they automatically ask what there is for kids and families. But Wonderland has persisted for 150-plus years. It's never been out of print. It's been published in over 170 languages. We knew it was an enduring story for a reason and if a story endures like that, it's not only being consumed by kids. So it was important to us to make sure we had a lot of different ways for people to experience the exhibit. We have an exhibition in the library where you can see some of the original publications. You can also learn about what was happening in terms of science and botany in the 19th century in Britain and around the world. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published just a few years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, which completely transformed not only science but modern society, in a lot of ways, with the ideas it was putting forth. So, in that environment, a book like Wonderland comes out.

It's also coming out in an environment where there's an increasing acknowledgment of childhood as a different stage of development. Children are not just miniature adults but are considered to have a different way of learning and a different way of seeing the world. That was something we were really interested in because kids know that they're not adults, obviously, and adults know that kids are not adults. But we knew that adults in particular would find that story interesting. The idea that Wonderland is shaped by a lot more than just the desire to create something that entertains children, which is true of a lot of what kids consume. Even today, every show your kid watches has little Easter eggs for adults. The same is true when you're reading stories with your kids. So that was something we wanted to make sure we did.

A photograph of a miniature landscape featuring flowers, pebbles, mushrooms, and a rabbit hole by artist Patrick Jacobs as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

But also we wanted to speak to the long-term cultural resonance of the story and the ways in which it's been interpreted through the lens of pop culture, through the lens of psychedelics, and through the lens of different artists. One of the things we have is a display of different herbarium specimens of different psychoactive plants and information about how studies of the mind, cognition, and psychology were becoming more and more prevalent during the Victorian era all over the world. The documentation of everything from coffee to cannabis to opium was not just in the scientific realm. The way different writers, doctors, and psychiatrists were starting to write about the effects of different substances on the mind was really interesting to us because that's a modern-day association with the Wonderland stories. While there's no actual evidence Lewis Carroll was partaking in any of these substances, most likely he was not, that association is really interesting and fruitful and has led to a lot of different cultural expressions, from music to the way some of the films and other adaptations have entered the world. That was something we wanted to talk about, especially because most of those substances come from plants and fungi. That's where we have something to add to the conversation because we have the expertise here at the Garden.

We also wanted to invite contemporary artists. We have photographs by Abelardo Morell, where he created these incredible dioramas using illustrations from different editions of the story and then photographed them. We have work by Patrick Jacobs, an artist based here in New York, who creates these beautiful miniature worlds you peer into and it's like peeking into the rabbit hole. The three he made for our exhibition are called Portals for Alice and he was quite overtly inspired by the story.

As we were looking into the contemporary art world, we worked closely with our guest curator, Jennifer Gross to develop our list of artworks we have on view, we became really interested in the work of this group called the FoldHaus Art Collective. They're based internationally and here in the U.S. They've done a number of installations at Burning Man and they created this work called Shrumen Lumen, which is two 15-foot tall kinetic mushroom sculptures. While you're standing outside of our conservatory looking at them, you'll notice that one of them moves and they actually appear to be breathing. They inflate and deflate, and at night they light up with different strobing LEDs in different colors.

A photograph of two of the Shrumen Lumen lighted origami mushroom structures by FoldHaus as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

FB
Mushrooms are very popular in culture right now and there was an amazing article in National Geographic about all of the varieties of mushrooms. Do you guys explore fungi and the importance of fungi in the natural world?

JG
Mushrooms are definitely having a moment and we are very excited by that. Mushrooms are fungi, so they are not plants, but we do study them here at the Botanical Garden as they are so critical to plant life and environmental health. We have great collections of different specimens we were able to bring out and show visitors. We have organized a Magic Mushroom Weekend, which is taking place September 14 and 15. We’ll have different ways to experience mushrooms, from seeing how they are used in cuisine to how they are used to make dyes and art. There are innovative companies that are using mycelium to create packaging and building materials. Of course, psychoactive mushrooms are also increasingly being studied for their potential to treat all different sorts of conditions. While we will not be offering samples, we are eager for our visitors to learn as much as possible about the many ways in which mushrooms are used and appreciated.

FB
So there's not a rabbit hole you can fall down and try a couple of magic mushrooms?

JG
We do have a constructed rabbit hole, and we would encourage you to fall down it or pass through it in our conservatory, but we will not be facilitating that journey with anything you can consume.

FB
Do you have some Alice in Wonderland Easter eggs in the exhibit that you would encourage visitors to search for?

A photograph of a pool filled with water lilies featuring a cutout image of Alice Liddell in a rowboat as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

JG
We have different depictions of the characters from the story seeded throughout the grounds and the conservatory. When you first enter our conservatory, you're in a Victorian-era glass house. Ours is among the latest built Victorian-era glass houses in the country, completed in 1902. When you enter one of the first things you see is a a pool of giant water lilies, Victoria amazonica, which were named for Queen Victoria and were a prized specimen plant during the period in which Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was written. The Oxford Botanic Garden, which would have been where the real Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll would have seen these plants, was our inspiration for that first entry into the wonders of the plant world and how they figure in the story. Alice is there in a boat among the water lilies, a nod to the boat ride famously associated with the origin of the story.

Then visitors pass through a doorway into one of our exhibition houses and they pass our homage to the Oxford Botanic Garden Flower Border. They actually do pass through what looks like a rabbit hole in the roots of a tree. Then they enter our version of Wonderland, where we have all kinds of wonders of the plant world, from giant tree ferns to carnivorous plants. Sensitive plant is one of my favorites. It's a Mimosa that if you touch the plant, it will curl up its leaves. Not everybody associates plants with having those kinds of abilities.

In our plant Wonderland you can also spot the Cheshire Cat in a tree or the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. We wanted to give our visitors the experience of the wonders of the plant world while also giving them an opportunity to engage with those characters throughout the exhibition.

FB
It sounds like there's a lot for adults because there's the scientific part of it, the educational part, and the historical part of it. Then for the kids, they're going to see this magical rabbit and these big card soldiers. There's so much for them to do. It sounds like it's been really successful in terms of the number of people who have come. Are you guys all very happy with how it's turned out?

JG
It's been it's been wonderful. It's been so exciting to see visitors during the day and also at night. We threw Wonderland parties in June and May when the show first opened and they're coming back in September. They’re nights when visitors can come and dress to the nines as whatever character they like or not and it’s basically a Wonderland dance party. We have DJs and some of the characters on hand. You can dance with Alice and the Queen of Hearts. Those are fabulous and fun. We love to create an experience where someone can come on a mission to see the plants of Wonderland or they can come just to have a good time. That's been incredibly successful and rewarding to see.

Two photographs of performers as Alice and the Red Queen as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

FB
People who love Alice love all things Alice in my experience. No matter what aspect of culture it is, if it has to do with Alice, they're all in. I first met these people at Comic-Cons. They’d walk by my booth and see Wonderland and they would come right over and talk about their book and art collections.

What's been the biggest challenge in pulling something like this off?

JG
Anytime you have an exhibition in a garden, there are certain challenges. One of the big things that my team is always doing is working with artists and supporting them to showcase their work outdoors, which many artists are accustomed to but many are also not. Being mindful of, as you said, the myriad ways that visitors will be expecting to see Alice, and trying to deliver as many of those as possible is a really fun challenge. But it is a challenge because in the 150-plus years since the story first appeared, there have been so many opportunities to imprint on someone's mind what Alice means and what Wonderland is about. That's why working as a team with outside advisors, our guest curator, and everyone from food service to security to visitor services to make sure that the experience we're offering feels as robust as possible is critical.

We have special tea parties that have been held as part of our weekend events but you can also come have a tea party with your family and friends in our cafe. That has been really popular and really special. As we introduce these things, we're planning really carefully. We had a friends and family launch where some of the staff attended one of the tea parties and got to sample the food, give feedback, and think about what that experience was like before the visitors ever stepped foot on the ground. It's all about the planning and the cross-departmental partnerships are really fun and really rewarding.

FB
You have four seasons there in New York. How do the exhibit and the plants change and how do you manage the change from spring to summer and now going into the fall?

A photograph of different species of white and violet, blue, orange, and purple flowers as part of the "Wonderland: Curious Nature" exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden.

JG
A botanical garden is a dynamic environment. Last night we had torrential rain so we're constantly in touch with each other about what that means for for the garden grounds. We have people here 24 hours a day to keep the Garden safe and to keep the Garden operating. When there's a storm, we're in touch all day and all night. The summer exhibition is really a multi-season exhibition. It opens in mid-May and it runs through the end of October, so you’re really experiencing spring, summer, and fall. The horticulture team at the Garden is incredibly talented and the work they do is fascinating. What they're doing is developing what we call a plant palette, a range of plants that will be on view. They're developing, in many cases, three plant palettes, because what you see in the spring is different from what you’ll see now. In the spring for this exhibition, when you first entered the conservatory, you saw these incredibly beautiful foxgloves and Delphiniums and plants that were very English garden spring in their appearance and style. It was heartbreakingly beautiful.

There were these poppies that were just gorgeous but a few days later, the poppies had wilted because that's what poppies do, and then something else was put in their place. Our staff is here every day, watering and tending to the plants. We're changing plants constantly. We bring things back into the production greenhouse when they've finished their flowering period and either put them into the collections to be used for display purposes when they flower again, or, in other cases, they’re annuals so we're composting them and they come back out around in a different way as mulch and fuel the future plants we showcase. It's an incredible process to see the team caring for these plants every single day, and then on Mondays, when we're closed, that's when the big changeouts take place. It's pretty incredible to see what they can do.

FB
I love your job I like the environment that you live in. I like the people and the excitement of so much changing, day in and day out, just like nature. I really appreciate you taking the time.

I have one last question for you. If you were a character from Alice in Wonderland, who would you be and why?

JG
This was really hard. I knew that this was coming, so I thought about it, which was good because I was struggling. This probably comes from that bookishness I alluded to, and also the work I do now, which is all about making visible what this place is and how it works.

A still image of the grinning, purple striped Cheshire Cat from the 1951 Disney animated movie, "Alice in Wonderland."

It's probably going to be the Cheshire Cat. The Cheshire Cat has one of the best lines, “We're all mad here.” But also, the Cheshire Cat acts as a guide and helps Alice to make sense of the world around her, and not in a parental way, like a helicopter parent. He pops in, literally, and offers words of wisdom, sometimes slightly confusing words of wisdom, and then disappears and lets Alice figure it out for herself. While we don't want to pop in and then disappear on our visitors, part of the job of organizing an exhibition like this is to create just enough of an environment that is controlled by what we plan and how we lay out the space and what we tell you in the signage, but then to let you have your own experience. So that resonates.

FB
Excellent answer. That bookishness has served you very, very well. Thank you for a very compelling interview. It was great to meet you, and I encourage everybody who's listening, if you have a chance to get to New York before this closes, definitely check it out. Thank you so much. Joanna. Really appreciate it.

JG
Thank you. So nice to meet you.

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How "Wicked" the Movie Went From Script to Screen with Writer Eric Weiss

What was going through Stephen King’s head when he came up with It? What was Lars von Trier thinking on the set of…any of his movies? The minds that create bold, polarizing, potentially disturbing stories are just as fascinating to audiences as the tales themselves. The way a storyteller takes inspiration from their life and spins it in a new way, sometimes taking the kernel of a story to an extreme end, is a mysterious, beautiful process.

Wicked screenwriter Eric Weiss delved deep into the idea of family-centric horror, Hitchcockian suspense, and Jungian psychoanalysis to craft the script for this audacious thriller. The film follows Ellie, a troubled teen whose lustful obsession with her father spells doom for her mother. A native of Framingham, Massachusetts (40 miles from the witchy environs of Salem), Weiss attended Grinnell College for undergrad before receiving his M.F.A. from the internationally acclaimed American Film Institute.

Still image featuring Luke Wilson and Alicia Witt lying on a bed from the 1998 dark comedy "Bongwater".

Primarily trading in dark comedy, Weiss penned the script for Bongwater, a substance-soaked odyssey starring Alicia Witt as a Portland woman who moves to New York with a heroin addict (Jamie Kennedy) after becoming frustrated with her weed-dealing boyfriend’s (Luke Wilson) lack of ambition. The film premiered at the 1998 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and features an endless list of “before they were famous” faces in the supporting cast, including Jack Black, Brittany Murphy, Andy Dick, and Scott Caan.

Weiss also co-wrote the adaptation of Robert O’Connor’s satire Buffalo Soldiers, which stars Joaquin Phoenix and Ed Harris and follows a group of American soldiers in West Germany on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The film premiered at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for five awards at the British Independent Film Awards, including Best Screenplay and Best British Independent Film.

For Wicked, Weiss utilized his expertise in dark comedy but chose to focus on the dark when crafting the core of his story. In this recently digitized exclusive onset interview, Weiss discusses the inspiration for Wicked and the emotional toll of writing the disturbing script.

*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Click Here to Watch the Interview on YouTube

The Genesis of Wicked

I originally wanted to write a story set in a gated housing community, like a Winesburg, Ohio kind of thing. The story with Ellie was one of the stories I thought of and I started to focus on that and came up with the idea of doing family life as a horror film.

I'm a fan of Polanski’s films like Repulsion and Knife in the Water. I'm fascinated by how he takes everyday things and shows them with the intensity you feel in real life. A lot of times in films, that intensity comes from the supernatural or goblins or something like that. But usually in real life, that intensity comes when you almost hit a car on the freeway and your heart starts pounding 120 times a minute.

Black and white still image of Catherine Deneuve walking down a hallway with hands sticking out of the walls in the foreground from Roman Polanski's 1965 psychological horror thriller film "Repulsion".

Originally, the script was more Hitchcockian. It was more of a horror movie with some comedy. Then Michael Steinberg read the script and his contribution was to make it more of a murder mystery. In the original, you knew who did it. Michael looked at the script and said, “There's all these other people that have motives, let's make it into a murder mystery. Let's take advantage of that. So when we rewrote it, we made Detective Boland more of a major character and we deepened the other characters as well.

The themes of infidelity and matricide came from exploring different sides of family life, which is very intense. The highs are very high. The lows are very low. This movie, I guess, is one of the lows. The script came out of the desire to show family life in a different way, as a horror film. It doesn't mean this is what I think of family life, but it’s a different viewpoint.

Still image of Julia Stiles, William R. Moses, and Vanessa Zima at a dinner table from the 1998 thriller film "Wicked".

How Audiences Will Respond to Wicked

I think it's going to be one of those films you either really like or you really hate. I don't think there are going to be riots in the streets but it's gonna be one of those things where you either get it or you don't. It’s not a Chevy Chase movie where when you're at home at Christmas and everybody has to decide on a movie and you end up seeing the Chevy Chase movie.

The Experience of Writing Wicked

It took a lot out of me but when I was writing Wicked I knew it was good so it was affecting my real life in very positive ways. But when you're writing something like this it's very hard to do anything else.

Watch Wicked on the following streaming platforms: Amazon, YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, Plex, and Tubi.

Lewis Carroll, Traitor to a Princess: Princess Alyss' Never-Before-Seen Letters - Part 3

When we last left Princess Alyss she was in trouble again, having been caught trying to break into Buckingham Palace to rescue her mother from Queen Victoria. As Alyss’ angry foster father took her back to Oxford, Alyss doubted if she would ever return to Wonderland.

But hope was not dead. It returned in the form of a shy teacher who would change Alyss’ life forever…

(*As always, I am indebted to the tireless and exhaustive research of the eminent Wonderland historian Agnes MacKenzie. Her dedication has helped keep the true story of Queen Alyss alive!)

Diary Entry - April 1, 1862

I mark the date April 1, 1862, with a white stone, for it is when I first met Mr. Charles Dodgson! (In Wonderland it is custom to always mark days of great imagination with a white stone.) His name was a blur of sound until I heard 'Dodg-son' and I thought of my best friend Dodge. I looked up and saw the kindest face I had seen since leaving Wonderland, Charles Dodgson. I liked him immediately, but it wasn't until Lorina introduced me very grandly as Princess Alyss Heart (mocking me, of course) that I knew he was to be my best friend in this world, for the man bowed quite seriously, took my hand and whispered, “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Princess Alyss Heart.”

Sepia-toned photograph of Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," by Oscar Gustave Rejlander in 1863.

Diary Entry - April 10, 1872

Today, Mr. Dodgson invited Lorina, Edith, and I to his studio for our first photographic portrait. What we all enjoyed most about the portrait setting was being able to try on the costumes that Mr. Dodgson had collected. I told him that I had not seen such imaginative costumes since I had left Wonderland. He became very interested and said he would like to hear more about this land called Wonderland.

Agnes MacKenzie

Charles Dodgson's aptitude in the nascent art of photography made him a popular portraitist of children for Oxford's better families. Choosing their costumes for the various portraits was always left to the girls and might I suggest that the photograph of Alyss in the white dress appears to be her tribute to her time spent with Quigley and the others as a street urchin.

Black-and-white photograph of six-year-old Alice Liddell, the purported inspiration for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," taken by Lewis Carroll in 1858.

A letter written by Charles Dodgson to Princess Alyss on pale blue parchment with a "C.D.S." monogram, for the book "Princess Alyss of Wonderland".

The front of a pale blue envelope addressed to "Princess Alyss Heart" with a stamp in the top right corner, produced for the book "Princess Alyss of Wonderland".

Diary Entry - July 2, 1862

I closed my eyes so I could see back to Wonderland and began to remember. I wanted to tell him about the Inventor's Parade and the giant mushrooms that were as tall as ten of London's greatest trees set end to end and the caterpillars who knew everything but only told you what they knew you needed to know but instead, the words that came out were the story of my last day in Wonderland and the Cat and Redd entering the palace and her ear-shattering cries of “Off with their heads!!! At this point, I opened my eyes and saw poor Mr. Dodgson absolutely pale with fright. He asked, “What my dear is so wonderful about Wonderland???” I smiled and told him there was much, much more to tell…

Watercolor painting with ink by artist Catia Chen depicting Lewis Carroll and Princess Alyss on the bank of the River Thames with the specter of Queen Redd looming over them. Based on the novel "The Looking Glass Wars" by Frank Beddor.

Agnes MacKenzie

I cannot help but be moved by the beauty of the friendship shared by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Alyss Heart. As devastating a betrayal as the eventual outcome may have been, for a period of time, two kindred spirits found each other in the same world and proceeded to have a riotous good time. Charles Dodgson was a young mathematics don at Christ Church when he first met the daughters of Dean Liddell, and, as history has voluminously recorded, he was particularly in awe of the daughter supposedly named 'Alice.'

A recipe for Tarty Tarts, a desert pastry created by Frank Beddor in "The Looking Glass Wars" novel series.

Diary Entry - July 30, 1862

I believe Mr. Dodgson is finally coming to understand what is so wonderful about Wonderland. We seem to talk about nothing else, though it is easy for both of us to get off the subject whenever the topic of sweets comes up.

Letter from Princess Alyss to Charles Dodgson - 1862

Dear Mr. Dodgson,

You must remember to write about the Inventor's Parades that are held in Wonderland to honor the imaginations of Wonderland's most inventive inventors. All of Wonderland gathers to watch the parade while the Queen decides what is ready to be sent on as inspiration to other worlds. The Queen’s Trampoline was invented as a gift for my mother so she could jump high enough to reach her favorite cloud. I have drawn some of my favorite inventions which all had to do with travel and I was hoping that maybe you could pass these on to whoever is in charge of London's traveling conveyances. Perhaps if they were more imaginative with regard to this vital service I would be home by now.

Your Friend,
Princess Alyss Heart

Various sketches of magical contraptions by artist Catia Chen for the book "Princess Alyss of Wonderland," a part of Frank Beddor's "Looking Glass Wars" universe. — Princess Alyss' sketches of Wonderland inventions, including (from left to right) the dragonfly windjumper, crystal miner, furry parashooter, Queen's Trampoline, jollyjellywings, marching drums, lampshade roller coaster, and umbrella pogo.

A pink Valentine's Day card from Charles Dodgson to Princess Alyss Heart, produced for the book "Princess Alyss of Wonderland".

Agnes MacKenzie

On the back of the valentine from Charles Dodgson, Alyss had written the cryptic message, “This is the day that I began REMEMBERING…” And thus began her own literary effort to assist Lewis Carroll in saving herself and Wonderland. It is sad to think that a venture begun with such high spirits and hope would in less than 2 years meet a wrenching conclusion!

In November of 1864, Charles Dodgson proudly and dare I venture, a bit shyly, presented 'Miss Alice Liddell' with his handwritten manuscript of ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND. This historic manuscript contained 37 illustrations drawn by the versatile and prolific Mr. Dodgson. As you shall soon discover, Alyss's reaction was not quite what the poor man had anticipated!

A page from the novel "Alice's Adventures Underground" with a Lewis Carroll illustration of an upside-down Alice, featuring notes written by Princess Alyss Heart, produced for the book "Princess Alyss of Wonderland".

Diary Entry - November 27, 1864

And at long last, the promised book was delivered. What can I say?

HE GOT IT ALL WRONG!!!!

He even spelled my name wrong! What makes me want to scream, “Off with his head AND both arms!” is the fact that he actually seems to believe HE told ME this nonsensical children's story when the truth is (and he knows it!) that I told him.

Letter from Princess Alyss to Charles Dodgson after reading his manuscript - 1864

To the Very Cruel Mr. Dodgson,

How could you betray me with this pack of lies? If I were not so furious with you I would certainly be sobbing at the loss of what I believed to be my one true friend in this grey world. Be warned, for the sake of Wonderland and everyone I love, I cannot allow this book of lies to go unchallenged. And who is this 'Lewis Carroll' that you are now calling yourself? Are you ashamed to put your own name on this book? I should hope so! As if a royal princess would ever travel through a rabbit hole! Thanks to your efforts my reality has now become this world's fantasy.

Your Un-Friend,
Princess Alyss Heart

P.S.
Now you shall never be invited to Heart Palace for tarty tarts! And no, strawberry jam tastes NOTHING like the oh-so-delicious squigberry jam. Your loss!

Agnes MacKenzie

The first published edition of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” appeared early in July 1865 and featured illustrator John Tenniel's iconic artwork. Alyss now had to adjust to the fact that the betrayal was no longer an unpublished manuscript but an actual book that would soon find its' way into the hands and hearts of the literate public.

Diary Entry - August 17, 1865

Oh that horrid ALICE! Now she has stolen my life forever!!!!! I must do something to stop this disaster. Lewis Carroll is not the only one who can hold a pen.

Letter from Princess Alyss to Alexander MacMillan, Co-Founder of MacMillan Publishers, publisher of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - 1865

To the Attention of Mr. Alexander MacMillan,

HALT!!! In the name of Imagination and Truth, I am sending this decree to inform you of a dire betrayal by the author masquerading as Lewis Carroll. The book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is nothing but a pack of lies! It is imperative that this book be labeled UTTER FICTION and the true story be told so that those searching for me can find me and return me to Wonderland to rule as Queen.

Her Royal Imaginer, Princess Alyss Heart

Illustration by artist Catia Chen of a depressed Princess Alyss Heart sitting on a bed in a small room, produced for the book "Princess Alyss of Wonderland".

Agnes MacKenzie

Despite Alyss' attempt to halt the publication of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” the book continued to spread from country to country and would soon be found in the hands of both children and adults around the world. The fantasy of this world was threatening to overcome the reality of Wonderland and Alyss was feeling the pressure.

Diary Entry - September 22, 1865

Since the publication of THAT BOOK, I have been pushed into an actual rabbit hole, chased by a pack of boys wearing fake rabbit ears shouting, “I'm late! I'm late!” and taunted by the local bully girl (a redhead, of course!) who stands outside our gate and screams, “Off with Alice's head!” whenever I show my face. Complete strangers approach me and express disappointment that my “beautiful blonde hair” has turned such a “dull brunette”! Dull??? When everyone insists on saying up is down, it is very difficult to continue pointing out that they are wrong. It seems that “Alice” has won after all…

*Stay tuned for Part Four, in which Alyss starts the journey of recovering her imagination with the help of an old friend...