It’s tech week, but it’s different. Instead of meeting in the green room everyone meets in the auditorium. Most scenes are rehearsed twice but by different students. Students memorize two separate character lines and blocking instead of just one. The hair and makeup crew along with the costume crew is working twice as hard to accommodate twice the amount of people. Everything is double which means double the amount of work for Ankeny High School’s (AHS) drama department this fall.

In the spring of 2025, the AHS drama department announced their fall play, “Alice In Wonderland.” However, this play will be like no other they had done before.

For the first time they are doing a double cast to allow more students the opportunity to perform on stage.  

The two casts are the wonderland cast, and the looking glass cast, based off of the two books. The wonderland cast will perform Friday and Saturday night along with Sunday afternoon while the looking glass cast will perform Saturday afternoon. If students receive a bigger role in the wonderland cast they will hold a smaller role in the looking glass cast and vice versa.

“I literally had my mouth agape, Kaden and I looked at each other in horror, And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Like, how is this going to work? How are we going to do this, especially with them being on the same day,’” junior Kirra Ekle, hair and makeup crew head said. “I think it wouldn’t have been as big of a shock or as hard if [the performances] weren’t on the same day.”

Once they announced they would be doing two casts there were a lot of questions. Some asked how it was actually going to work out, while others wondered why they decided to have two casts.

“They don’t want to cut people because Ankeny is no cut, and it’s good to include everyone and give everyone experiences,” senior costume crew head Avery Haubrich said.

Each year the drama department grows with more students auditioning and joining the crew. In order to keep up with the growth of students, the department made sure to include every student who wanted to be involved.

“There’s just so many people auditioning. It sucks to have 50 people audition and cut 30 people, I think that’s what happened two years ago,” senior cast member and wonderland cast mad hatter, Luca Fratella said. “There’s just a lot of people who want to be in the play.”

Allowing everyone to have an opportunity

With two casts there comes a lot of new opportunities for everyone involved. Whether holding two different roles, making twice the amount of costumes, or working with two different people with the same hair and makeup, it has been a learning experience for all. However, new experiences have opened others’ eyes to different sides of the show.

“It’s kind of just nice to see things from both sides. Because, usually, it’s either you’re a main character, or more of a background character. It’s just nice to see the show from two points of view,” Fratella said. 

While most actors hold different roles in the two casts some maintain the same role. This opportunity also gives them something new to work with.

“Personally I’m the same role in both casts, but I think a fun thing about it is being able to act with other people. I’m in the same scenes that I know, but with different people. So I get to see everyone kind of interacting differently,” junior cast member and dormouse in both casts, Natalia Mercer said. 

In both casts, actors get to work with different people in contrasting ways. Playing two different characters also benefits these students by exploring different parts of the show.

“Neither of my characters intersect scenes, so as the mad hatter, I’m only in two scenes, but as a card, I’m in a lot more,” Fratella said. “It’s been nice to be on stage and see it from different angles. But also, because my characters are completely different, they have different motivations. It’s been nice to put myself into two different characters.”

For actors to put themselves in two different characters takes some work. Finding out how each character should act, sound, and be portrayed effects the end goal of the character itself.

“Your method acting is different for each role, and so is going from a card in one cast to Alice in the other,” Mercer said. “It’s a lot different of a scene and personality to bring that to the stage. So it’s practicing a bunch of different styles of acting. It’s opening everyone’s abilities.”

Each role is different from the next, and with a different cast for two performances most actors are playing different characters. This can give them their moment to shine for their family and friends.

“I think doing a double casting also allows people to be in lead roles too, which is something that not a lot of people see. So I think it’s nice for families to see their kids in lead roles,” Fratella said.

With the new cast, rehearsal schedule has changed, now during rehearsal they will run the same scene twice but with the opposite cast. But while one cast is rehearsing it provides hair and makeup crew with another cast to do trials on.

“With double the cast you get to do the same makeup on different types of hair and different faces. There’s more experience, and it’s easier to practice, because if one of them isn’t free, the other one is,” Ekle said.

Growth brings additional work

Working with two different casts can be especially difficult for the students who work on and off stage to get everything ready. Actors memorize all their lines, blocking, and cues, while both the hair and makeup crew and costume crew are doing twice the work than what they used to.

“We genuinely have double the amount of work, because everyone needs double the costumes, which is just added stress,” Haubrich said. “We’re definitely slower than we were last year, and even the year before that, we will have time just because we have to get it done, and we’ll go until we’re done.” 

Hair and makeup crew along with costume crew work individually with everyone on cast. Hair and makeup crew provide cast members with hair and makeup styles along with helping them bring the director’s creative visions to life.

“It’s hard to make two people happy. One is always complaining about one thing and the other one’s always complaining about something else,” junior Kaden Schmitz hair and makeup crew head said. 

All crew heads and members work to help the overall production of a show. However the organization between cast and crew are completely different.

“I think organization has been more difficult. Also working with multiple people and remembering there’s two people, two different sizes, and making sure everyone feels confident in what they’re wearing,” Haubrich said.

A part of organization is timing. Costume crew and hair and makeup both have very limited time to get everything done. Adding two casts reportedly made timing more difficult for both crews.

“It’s a lot harder timing wise because you have to do a trial on double the people. It’s hard to find styles that fit both people where they’re still similar enough without being completely different,” Ekle said.

As the double casting can be difficult for crew it also proposes issues with cast too. Before their rehearsal time was for one cast. Now that same time is split between the two.

“It is just balancing how much time we spend on each one,” said Fratella. “In the past we’ve had the same three hour rehearsals and five hour tech week days. Now we have split that between two casts.”

Through this new experience in the Ankeny drama department there have been ups and downs. However, overall it gives everyone involved new experiences.

“You can see the people that may be in the ensemble during the wonderland cast, really, shining in the looking glass cast, because they have confidence,” Schmitz said. “It has given them the confidence and fun energy to do the show.”