If your kid’s current obsession is a tie between tiaras and total mayhem, the Santa Monica Playhouse has your next weekend plan. The beloved musical comedy Alice and the Wonderful Tea Party is back for a summer run, and it’s not your typical storytime fare.
Playing Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. and Sundays at 12:30 p.m. from July 13 through September 28, this reimagined Wonderland adventure invites a grown-up Alice back through the looking glass for—you guessed it—a surprise tea party that goes delightfully off the rails.
Think less prim and proper teacups and more musical madness. The Queen of Hearts is overdramatic (what else is new?), Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee are still bickering, and the tea party has a serious case of hostili-TEA. It’s witty, whimsical, and wildly interactive. Kids will giggle. Adults will snort-laugh. And everyone will leave quoting lines they didn’t expect to enjoy so much.
Directed by Santa Monica stage royalty Chris DeCarlo and Evelyn Rudie, this show is a mash-up of vaudeville, English panto, and full-blown musical theater. In other words: chaos, with choreography. And yes, it’s affordable—$15 for kids, $17.50 for adults, with optional fairy tale character-hosted birthday parties if you want to turn your matinee into a memory.
The show’s costumes—by award-winning designer Ashley Hayes—are bright, bonkers, and beautifully nostalgic. This is the kind of production where the set changes feel like opening a new storybook page every few minutes, keeping even the most squirmy small fry engaged.
Pro tip for locals: it’s just a block east of the Third Street Promenade, so you can park once and make a full downtown Santa Monica day of it. Or take the Metro and turn it into a transit adventure—Alice would approve.
In a summer packed with superhero sequels and sensory overload, Alice and the Wonderful Tea Party is a welcome change of pace: silly, smart, and just the right amount of mad.
Get tickets and more information on the
Santa Monica Playhouse
website.
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Tea, Tarts, and Total Chaos: ‘Alice and the Wonderful Tea Party’ Returns to Santa Monica
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