Riley Thompson isn’t going to be late next weekend for a very important date at the Metropolitan Theatre.
“Nope,” she said Sunday, as she patted the plaster cast currently encasing her foot. “This thing’s coming off just in time for the show.”
Riley, 13, is dancing several roles in the Morgantown Dance Studio’s upcoming production of “Alice in Wonderland,” which hits the boards of the Met next Saturday and Sunday.
Visit www.morgantowndan ce.org for ticket prices and show times.
The show, which is choreographed by the studio, will blend ballet, jazz and other dance elements in the rhyth-mic re-retelling of the Lewis Carroll classic.
It will be the 19th production for Riley, who had the curiouser and curiouser notion that something wasn’t quite right with her foot a few weeks back after she hurt it in rehearsal.
“I was doing a turn when I came down on it funny,” she said. “I danced on it for three weeks after that.”
There was no dancing Sunday at Wesley United Methodist — just a tea party that would have made Alice and the Mad Hatter proud.
Both were there, in fact, in the form Evelyn Beard, who is dancing the lead role, and Layla Lee, who came in out costume for her Mad Hatter portrayal.
WVU multidisciplinary studies students Gretchen Ray, Kylie Sarrett, John Holcomb and Keeley Wildman planned and hosted the tea for a class project.
As a nonprofit, the studio partners with the university, explained Riley’s mom, Sherry Thompson, who does marketing and promotions for the studio as a volunteer.
The tea, she said, was about raising the profile of the studio’s dance troupe and school that has alumni dancing on stages from New York City to Boston to Italy.
“They do a lot,” she said. “And we’ve got 86 dancers in this show.”
Including brothers Logan and Camdyn Holbert, who never let the arts win out over sibling rivalry.
So, who’s the better dancer?
“Are you kiddin’ me?” Camdyn said.
And who’s the better athlete?
“Well, he’s gonna say he is,” Logan ventured. “But we both know the real answer.”
Layla-as-The Mad Hatter shook her head and grinned. Such rabbit holes, she said, are best left unexplored.
