Things will get “curiouser and curiouser” this week as KU Theatre for Young People stages Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.”

A memory play set in the early 1920s, the show opens as an elderly Alice Tiddell, the real Alice in Carroll’s books, reflects on the telling of the original story.

The adaptation by Rosemary Nursey-Bray remains faithful to Carroll’s story about childhood fears of growing up, and retains the Victorian charm and merriment by keeping the author’s quirky scenes intact, says Dennis Christilles, who’s directing the show.

One sleepy afternoon, Alice, playing chess by herself, sees a real Red Queen through the looking glass. Stepping through the mirror, she meets the kings and queens of her chess set and discovers the whole world is marked out as a chessboard, across which she must travel as a pawn.

“She meets talking flowers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, sees Humpty Dumpty fall from his wall, meets again the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, and witnesses the furious battle between the Lion and the Unicorn fighting for the crown,” says Christilles, associate professor of theater and film. “Finally, a gentle White Knight rescues her from the cruel Red Knight, so she herself can become a Queen.”

School performances begin Monday, with public performances at 9:45 a.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sept. 23, at the Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall.

Tickets are $10 for the public, $9 for seniors and $5 for students. For tickets or more information, call 864-3982 or visit www.kutheatre.com.