The play hasn't started yet, but the reading can begin immediately at the Prince George Public Library.
Each time Theatre North West does a play this season, the library will pair it with a reading list of complementary literary material. The program - new for the 2016-17 set of performances - is called Books Backstage.
"In collaboration with Theatre North West's artistic director... librarians will provide recommendations of fiction, non-fiction, DVDs and other materials that may enrich the audiences' experience of the performances," said a statement issued Monday by library staff.
Since this coming production is Alice In Wonderland - and an adaptation by Brainerd Duffield at that - one could start at the source and get the Lewis Carroll classic novel.
It doesn't stop there, of course, when the subject is one of the most definitive novels of its genre and era.
Here are some of the other suggested creative works the library is recommending, with Alice In Wonderland in mind:
Queen Of Hearts
by Toby Devens
This is not the story of the Wonderland we know. Alice has not fallen down a rabbit hole. This is a Wonderland where beneath each smile lies a secret, each tart comes with a demand, and only prisoners tell the truth.
Alice
by Christina Henry
Alice has been in the mental hospital in Old Town for years. She doesn't remember why. All she can remember is a tea party long ago; long ears and blood.
Until one night she escapes, free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago.
Hatter M. Volume 1 -
Far From Wonder
by Frank Beddor
By order of Queen Genevieve, Hatter Madigan, the Royal bodyguard, flees Wonderland with the princess, Alyss Heart, but when he loses Alyss in an alternate reality he embarks on1 3 year quest to rescue her, and bring her back to the Wonderland realm.
Alice I have Been
by Melanie Benjamin
Octogenarian Alice, who as a child inspired Lewis Carroll's famous Wonderland character, looks back on a life marked by an implacable mother, her halcyon days in Oxford, and the sons who went off to war.
After Alice
by Gregory Maguire
In this brilliant new work of fiction, Gregory Maguire turns his dazzling imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings - and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll's enduring tale.
Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker award-winning novella follows the adventures of inquisitive young Coraline as she explores a strange alternative world that exists behind a locked door in her new home.
Pan's Labyrinth (DVD)
Powerless and lonely in a place of great danger, Ofelia lives out her own dark fable as she confronts monsters both otherworldly and human after she discovers a neglected labyrinth behind the family home.
The on-stage production at TNW runs from Nov. 17 to Dec. 7.
Artistic director Jack Grinhaus said the play is going to be full of surprises, even by Alice standards, and a chance for local audiences to believe as many as six impossible things before the end of the first act, if not breakfast.
"When young Alice follows a talking rabbit down the rabbit hole her world turns upside down as she enters the fantastic Wonderland," he said, setting the scene.
To get into the mad spirit of things, the library has all the aforementioned literary appetizers on their shelves, and on
Oct. 30 at their semi-annual book sale, perhaps even more Alice-esque works might be up for sale from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Bob Harkins branch.
