SYNOPSIS

Act 1

Alice is a freshly-out transfeminine person in her early 20s, not yet comfortable or certain in her gender or presentation and frustrated with her lack of community or agency (“Talking to the Cat”). After her transphobic roommate leaves yet another cruel voicemail on her phone, Alice finds a mysterious cassette tape with a mirrored label. When she plays the tape, she finds her mirror warps and allows her to pass through into a colorful, surreal cityscape full of a pride parade of sentient flowers (“Jabberwocky”). She finds herself unable to cross the parade, until two flowers suggest that if what she’s doing isn’t working for her, she should try doing something else. She instead goes with the flow of the parade instead of against it, and finds herself moving easily through it.

There, Alice meets the Red Queen, who welcomes her to the Looking Glass world and explains that it is simply a giant game of chess. Alice excitedly asks if she could be a knight, but the Red Queen explains that, while Alice must start as a pawn, she could even work her way up to becoming a queen herself. Alice is incredulous at this possibility. The Red Queen informs her that they’ll be playing against each other, and, before the game begins, advises her to forget who she thinks she’s supposed to be. Then, suddenly transforming into a cruel and cold villain, she announces that the game has begun.

Alice finds herself in a crowd of flowers and animals, and is told that there will soon begin a Caucus Race, something between a political debate and a mainstream drag competition, presided over by the semi-corporeal Cheshire. The Red and White Queens compete, with the Red Queen presenting an overly bigoted and reactionary, almost fascist, platform, and the White Queen presenting an ineffectual and meaningless platform focussed more on optics and selling her albums than on actual support for the downtrodden (“Caucus Race song”). Alice is unsure how one would vote, and gets conflicting advice from the audience—a dodo suggests one must always vote for “the angrier one,” while a sheep suggests one must always vote for “the indecisive one.” Before anyone can vote, Cheshire declares the White Queen the winner, and the Red Queen swears vengeance on Alice, who flees into the crowd.

Alice next finds herself in the Nameless Forest, a wild, psychedelic dreamland, and begins to forget everything about herself and her identity in the peace and quiet (“Nameless”). There, she meets a Fawn, styled as a Christian, who has similarly forgotten herself. They decide to be friends, and wander the forest together. But, upon finding their way out of the Nameless Forest, the Fawn remembers her conservative upbringing and instilled beliefs, and flees Alice in terror, leaving Alice to gradually remember herself alone.

Next, Alice finds a very young child hiding behind a tree. They introduce themself as Lewis, and explain that they hide in the forest to try on makeup and costume wings, fearing the reaction of their family, who believe that gnats like them can’t turn into butterflies. Alice sits with Lewis and comforts them and teaches them how to apply makeup (“Lewis Song”), and then the two fall asleep together under a tree.

When Alice wakes up, she is in John and James Tweedle’s apartment. She is at first uncomfortable with their open Christianity, remembering the Fawn, but quickly comes to realize they are a gay couple with a history of activism, and they carefully make her comfortable. She asks where Lewis is, but they tell her there were no children anywhere near where they found her. They make her tea, and sing to her about their relationship as a lullaby (“Walrus and Carpenter”). In a dream, it is revealed that Alice went by the name Lewis as a child before she transitioned, and liked to wear butterfly wings. The next morning, James and John provide her with warm clothes and trail mix, and she sets out once more.

Act 2

Alice finds herself backstage at the White Queen’s concert. The White Queen begins to discuss the idea that the directionality of time is a matter of perspective, and then performs a song to an adoring crowd to demonstrate (“White Queen’s Song”). During the song, a flashback shows Hatta being tried and summarily convicted of crimes he has not yet committed in a parody of homophobic and transphobic law. After the song, in the White Queen’s dressing room, Alice reminisces about her childhood, before she was gendered by society, when suddenly the dressing room turns into a shop. The White Queen, now a shopkeeper, sells Alice an egg, which she sets on a wall. To Alice’s amazement, the egg then becomes a strange little man.

Alice approaches the strange little man, realizing him to be Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty proves to be an unpleasant conversationalist, alternately insulting Alice’s name and clothing and bragging about the White King’s promise to fix him if he falls off his wall. Alice questions him about being an egg, and he asks her if she wants to break open, which she is unable to answer. When Alice asks him to help her understand the lyrics of Jabberwocky, which she has been wondering about since she first heard it, his long-winded answer is so thickly laden with Polari, a 19th and 20th century queer argot, that it is incomprehensible. He then imperiously sends her away, and, as she is leaving, falls off his wall and shatters. 

The White King arrives too late and is distressed to learn of Humpty’s fall, but soon Humpty Dumpty reappears fully whole, now a beautiful, feathery woman. She explains that “an egg cracks, and a chick comes out,” berates the White King for not helping her, and declares her intention to fend for herself before making a grand exit.

The White King takes Alice to a drag ball presided over by Haigha, a 1980s New York ballroom emcee, and Hatta, a Weimar-era Berlin cabaret emcee. They introduce Honey Lion and Calypso Unicorn, mothers of their respective houses, and the various members of each house walk a number of categories, culminating in Alice herself participating. She is welcomed by everyone present, and helps them clean up after the ball is over.

Alice, left glowing from this experience, continues her journey, but is suddenly stopped by the Red Knight. He threatens her, insisting that she stay a pawn, and that she could never become a queen. Suddenly, the White Knight, a transmasculine Union soldier, appears to defend her and the rules of chess. He beats the Red Knight in a fistfight, and sends him running. The White Knight introduces himself by the name of Albert, and accompanies Alice the rest of the way to the final square, explaining that people like them have always existed and need to stick up for each other. 

Upon reaching the final square, Cheshire reappears, and tells Alice that she knows exactly which way to go, but is too afraid to admit it. Alice asks who she is, and Chesire tells her to just look in the looking glass. Alice is left alone to wrestle with her identity (“Becoming a Queen”). When she finally comes to terms with being a queen, a crow materializes over her head.

Alice comes upon a pair of public restrooms, a queen’s room and a king’s room. She attempts to enter the queen’s bathroom, but is stopped by a large frog guard, questioning her queenliness. However, with her newfound confidence, she is able to push past him. Unfortunately, within the queen’s bathroom, she comes upon the Red and White Queens. They question whether or not Alice is truly a queen, with the Red Queen especially insulting her appearance and mannerisms as unqueenly. When Alice becomes indignant at this abuse, the White Queen becomes afraid, and the Red Queen calls the guard in, who arrests Alice and throws her in the dungeon.

In the dungeon, Alice discovers Hatta, now a prisoner for the crimes he has not yet committed. Hatta comforts her, telling her that her power comes from her own self-identification, and cannot be taken away by external forces, and that to be alone would be worse than to be different. Alice decides to escape, but Hatta feels it is too late for him. Unwilling to accept her fate, Alice riles the other prisoners into a frenzy. The commotion causes Cheshire to appear, and they pick the lock for Alice, who leads the prisoners to the Queen’s party.

At the party, Alice meets many of the people she has encountered so far, all celebrating together. When she appears, the atmosphere grows tense and confused, with those who had been supportive coming to her defense as those who had been less kind try to stop her. When the Red Queen tells her she needs to be grateful to have come this far, a full scale riot breaks out (“Stonewall”), with everyone fighting each other in the confusion. Suddenly, riot police burst into the theatre space to suppress the riot, and the factions press against each other. Alice slips away in the commotion, finds a brick, and hurls it through the looking glass. The looking glass shatters, and everything vanishes.

Alice steps back through the empty frame of the mirror into her room (“Jabberwocky”). Her phone rings, but, knowing it to be her transphobic roommate, she ignores it, instead fixing her lipstick in a shard of the mirror and leaving her phone behind. Curtain call (“Talking to the Cat”).