Alice in Wonderland event in Napier's Centennial Gardens for Art Deco Festival

The Napier Centennial Garden, the setting for a bit of Alice in Wonderland fantasy later this month. Photo / Supplied

The Napier Centennial Garden will become a playground like never before in its near half-century with a new Alice in Wonderland event during the Art Deco Festival on February 17-21.

It's one of new items on the vast festival programme, with more events now than ever before in the history of the festival which was first held 33 years ago.

The gardens, near Marine Parade and at the bottom of Coote Rd, date back to the Napier Borough centennial in 1974, and are now able to share in the latest adaptations from the even more historic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) from an 1865 novel by English author Lewis Carroll.

The Napier fantasy comes from Real Theatre Company, as a joint production with the Napier Art Deco Festival, with host Alice and her friends pursuing the White Rabbit through Wonderland.

Director David Coddington says people will delight in meeting the Queen in her rose garden or helping Alice escape from her Army of Cards in what he believes is the first "promenade theatre event" in Hawke's Bay.

The company first performed "Alice" in a garden in Auckland and it proved to be the perfect setting for such a fun interactive production, he says.

"Seeing Amy Edwards, who plays the mournful Mock Turtle, in a rowboat in the pond at the Centennial Gardens during Art Deco weekend will be just delightful," he says. "With promenade theatre the audience follows and goes from scene to scene with the characters."

There will actually be four 'Alices', all local school students that take the audience through the magic of the story, Coddington says.

"With similar shows in Auckland, we've had a lot of experience with what works and what doesn't work," he says. "There has to be some kind of action the whole time as children are so used to big scene changes in TV. Kids are a great audience, if they're bored they won't hang around."

Lisa-Jane Easter, who plays Queen (a secret dream she's always had), says the Art Deco Festival over the years has become more and more inclusive of children.

"Seeing them embrace Deco in the way they do is fabulous and having a classic like 'Alice' come to life in their own backyard is very cool," she says.

"I've spent many hours at the Centennial Gardens with children and the garden always provokes imagination and play in our kids. But having a production actually happening right before their eyes that they can be a part of is going to be very special."

Each "tour" of Alice takes about 30 minutes guided through seven magical scenes.

Profits from Alice in Wonderland at the festival will go to children's charity KidsCan and the Art Deco Trust supporting Heritage in Hawke's Bay.

Alice in Wonderland runs February 18-21, with tickets $15 for adults and $5 for children. To see the full programme and to purchase tickets visit www.artdecofestival.co.nz.