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Cast begins making 'Wonderland' a reality
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Published: October 14, 2009
TAMPA - Rehearsals for "Wonderland," the $3 million original musical based on the "Alice in Wonderland" stories, begin in earnest today at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
"It's wonderful to be a part of something that is being created from the ground up for the first time," says Janet Dacal, a thin, red-haired singer and Broadway actress who plays a modern-day Alice.
On Monday, Dacal and 24 fellow cast members gathered with the production crew and the staff of the Performing Arts Center for the first time to map out plans for the most ambitious project in the history of TBPAC: the creation of a musical play that could eventually open on Broadway.
The play is the first in the center's Broadway Genesis Project. Plans are for the center to produce one play a year with the goal of taking it on the road and eventually getting to Broadway.
"Wonderland" composer and Broadway veteran Frank Wildhorn says the first day is exciting because "artists from throughout the world are in one room for the first time."
"It's like a first date," he says. You've got to see if there is chemistry, and you have to see what's going to happen. And we hope we did a good job of casting. It's also the day when the actors and the designers, who have been working in other plays, start to focus on this one."
Dacal, a Los Angeles native who has lived in Miami for a decade, comes to "Wonderland" from the Broadway musical "In the Heights." She was featured as Carla in the musical set in the Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York.
Dacal, whose parents came from Cuba, says she was offered a role in the national tour of "In the Heights," which opens at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center on Oct. 27.
"But I would rather do this," she says. "I am looking forward to creating Alice and making her lots of fun."
Wildhorn says Dacal is on the verge of stardom. "Given the right role, she will be a star, and this is the role," he says. "She's a wonderful singer, but she's also a great comedian."
The production, directed by Gregory Boyd, is set to premiere at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center with previews beginning Nov. 24. The official opening is Dec. 5, and it will run through Jan. 3.
This updated spin on Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" finds the great-great-granddaughter of Carroll as a harried mother and children's book author who follows a rabbit on a fantastic journey of self discovery.
To see video and song clips from "Wonderland," go to www.wonder landthemusical.org.
Reporter Walt Belcher can be reached at (813) 259-7654.
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