Anyone going to see Wonderland this week?- Page 12

[philly03]

Posted: 4/11/11 at 9:20pm

Janet seems strained to me to at this point, she should take a day off.

The only understudy to go on was Morgan James who performed two performances in the drastically different Tampa try-out in January! I'm dying to see her - what a voice!

[Testing1232]

Posted: 4/11/11 at 9:29pm

Saw James at Birdland-- her voice is AMAZING !!!

[Anakela]

Posted: 4/11/11 at 9:55pm

The only understudy to go on was Morgan James who performed two performances in the drastically different Tampa try-out in January!

Mary Mossberg went on once in Houston.
If we're counting Houston?
(Only counting Alice u/s, not Mallauri!Chloe, etc.)
*shrug*
Yeah, I got nothing...

Oh, wait, I do have something. Here, have an interview with Janet:

Wonderland’s Janet Dacal on Making the Leap Through the Looking Glass to Leading Lady

[philly03]

Posted: 4/11/11 at 11:34pm

Actually you're right... there's only two people with experience in front of an audience with their roles (who are still with the show!) - James as Alice, and Malluri Esquibel who performed the role of Chloe in Tampa 2009, which is an extremely different version.

Hopefully Esquibel went to some singing lessons, or perhaps I'm not giving her enough credit as they probably coached her to sound like a small child.

[sweetTb'way]

Posted: 4/12/11 at 12:04am

I actually don't think or expect any of the leads will be calling out this week. This is the week all of the reviewers come and see the show. I highly doubt people will miss.

[TheLadyoftheWood]

Posted: 4/12/11 at 12:16pm

Does anyone else think the belt Janet is wearing looks hideous with that outfit?

[Anakela]

Posted: 4/12/11 at 2:13pm

Nevermind- asked and answered on the Wonderland Facebook page - there will now be a lotto *and* student rush.

Beginning today, April 12, Broadway’s WONDERLAND – A New Alice. A New Musical announces a lottery ticket policy. A limited number of $30 tickets (includes a $2 facility fee) will be available at the box office only, on the day of the performance. Names are to be submitted beginning 2 hours before the performance and will be drawn 1.5 hours prior to the performance. Tickets subject to availability and a limit of 2 tickets can be purchased per person. WONDERLAND – A New Alice. A New Musical is now in previews and will open April 17 at the Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway (46th Street & Broadway).

WONDERLAND announces lottery ticket policy Updated On: 4/12/11 at 02:13 PM

[[e-mail]]

Posted: 4/12/11 at 7:17pm

I'm so excited about the lottery news!!!

And for some more good news...this week Darren Ritchie will be a guest on Sirius XM Live on Broadway! Here is all the info:

Wednesday at noon in Times Square, join us for interviews & performances with Broadway's brightest stars -- this week meet one of Broadway's new leading men, Darren Ritchie from the new Frank Wildhorn musical "Wonderland", plus we get a special visit from High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale!

Don't miss another great show at The Broadway Concierge & Ticket Center, located inside the Times Square Info Center on 7th Avenue between 46th/47th Streets. FREE and NO Tickets required!

Be sure to tune in to hear the show every week on SIRIUS 77/XM 75:
Fridays 7 PM ET/Sundays 11 PM ET/Tuesdays 7 AM ET/Wednesdays Noon

[Dennis-in-ct]

Posted: 4/13/11 at 12:05am

Does anyone know where the seats are for the lottery?

[Anakela]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 12:11am

According to the box office neither rush nor lotto have assigned seats, they're both whatever they're giving out that day.

(Although fwiw everyone I know who has done rush has received side orch. But those were all before lotto started. Don't know anyone who has done lotto yet. The end.)

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 12:15am

Just watched the preview and it definitely sparked my interest. I will be seeing this in the summer.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 12:26am

So the version of "Home" that's in the video preview is not the version that was recorded for the cast album, correct?

[Testing1232]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 1:11am

Just back--- great show tonight ! Crowd was really into it, and the cast sounded great. They tweaked another few lines here and there since last week, but basically, the show has been "frozen".

[fingerlakessinger]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 1:16am

Just watched the preview...I'm not gonna lie...I very much wanna see this show now! The last song (is it "Finding NEverland?) is beautiful, along with the song that the two girls sing together (Home?) ugh I wanna see this.

Updated On: 4/14/11 at 01:16 AM

[Testing1232]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 1:25am

Last song is "Finding Wonderland", and Janet nails it !

Other song is "Home" (Chloe and Alice)
Updated On: 4/14/11 at 01:25 AM

[philly03]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 2:51am

CATS: Not too positive about the Amazon song list as there have been rumors of some of the cast going back into the recording studio, as well as I believe "Worst Day" was actually recording (atleast the orchestra track). Perhaps they re-recorded it as since the first preview it's been that way.

I'm guessing if the tracklist on the recording is as is, Chloe sings the opening Worst Day and Alice sings the reprise!

[Anakela]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 11:20am

Just back--- great show tonight ! Crowd was really into it, and the cast sounded great. They tweaked another few lines here and there since last week, but basically, the show has been "frozen".

yes, but most importantly: was Allstate still there?


So many cast recording questions:
- is Worst Day of My Life going to be on it or not?
- Who is doing Home? Alice only? Did they re-record it to be both Alice and Chloe?
- Did they re-record to include things like the new Alice verse in Through the Looking Glass (would love it for Janet's "pay"), the Ya Got Trouble bit in Hail the Queen, the new voices in Down the Rabbit Hole, etc.
- Any bonus tracks besides Heroes? (That's my way of asking if Love Begins was recorded/will be on there :))
- ...I feel like there are more.

[princessem721]

Posted: 4/14/11 at 11:36am

i saw the show again last night, and while i know they've been making many-a-changes, i didn't notice anything that was drastically different. it just seemed tighter than before. (please don't mistake that with the show being tight.) they added another funny boy band number in the second act, and i was bouncing along to the music for much of the show. (i may or may not have had a few glasses of vino before heading to the theater...) however, this show feels incredibly dated. like somewhere from 1997-2001. the music is just SO 90s, and i know that's wildhorn's style, but it doesn't feel musically fresh.

janet decal just doesn't have that IT factor, and so when she is supposed to be carrying the show, she doesn't.

the choreography is fun, and the design is the same as it was. i still very firmly believe that the costumes were ripped from the discarded wicked stock, except for the queen of hearts costumes. those are amazing.

if the show knew how campy it was and stopped taking itself so seriously, they could have some fun with it!

[trentsketch]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 12:31am

I just got back from Wonderland tonight. I think Act I is the most adorable family show I've ever seen on Broadway. It's cute, it's funny, and its the closest I've seen any play come to capturing the magic of the book. Then Act II happens and flushes it all down the toilet. I don't want to say the second act ruins Wonderland, but it sure comes close to destroying everything good about the first act. I can totally see two of the three featured ladies--Mason, Shindle, Sonenclar--getting Tony nominations (I'm leaning Mason/Sonenclar cause they have the better-developed characters) and I think Dacal can sneak in, too, for leading actress. Costumes are a lock, and maybe even orchestrations for capturing and connecting so many genres into a cohesive score.

There's a real simple solution to fix the show here but they'd never go for it: make the whole thing one act. You won't be able to sell merch during the twenty minute intermission (really? 20 minutes?), but you will have a much better show. My vision, filled with spoilers, below.

SPOILERS

Show runs as is through the Queen's entrance.

Cut the Queen's entrance theme in half. At this point, have the Mad Hatter pull out the contract to allow her (not to execute in Looking Glass World) to arrest traitors to Wonderland at her own discretion for execution in Wonderland. Then go into Off With Their Heads (shortened). When Alice talks her way out of execution, send the group of heroes on their quest for the elevator, leaving The Mad Hatter and The March Hare onstage. They plot to kidnap Chloe. Cue Chloe kidnapping sequence. Go back to Wonderland. Go into Through the Looking Glass. When Alice discovers how to find the Looking Glass, reinsert The Mad Hatter's taunting verse where Chloe is with her through the looking glass. This inspires Alice to go after her daughter alone. It is her journey to discover who she is, after all. Special effects explosion into...

Alice decoding Theatrical herself. This brings her to the dancing Alice figure, who leads her to The Victorian Gentlemen. He does the wordplay and introduction before bringing Alice to Chloe as her younger self. Alice realizes why she was sent to Wonderland. Cue Once More I Can See. The Victorian Gentlemen lets her write her way to the real Chloe (maybe a little of I Am My Own Invention with new lyrics, but driven by Alice, not The Victorian Gentleman). The Mad Hatter is waiting with the writ from the Queen allowing her to bring traitors to Wonderland for execution. They all go back to Wonderland. The Queen is about to declare the execution when The White Knight exposes The Mad Hatter's scheme. Seems the Mad Hatter has slated the arrest and execution of The Queen for betraying Wonderland with her impulsive executions.

The Mad Hatter taunts Alice into realizing they are reflections of each other. New lyrics for Finding Wonderland as duet between Alice/The Mad Hatter before The Mad Hatter goes all crazy again. Alice fails to save the Mad Hatter from the tragedies in her life and has to watch The White Knight sacrifice himself to save the real Alice, the product of her own invention. Alice leaves Wonderland, wakes up on the bed, and is surprised by Jack. Rewrite the dialog to be less of a rip off of Wizard of Oz, cut to a reprise of Home, and go to curtain call.

It seems like a lot to merge together, but this gets rid of all the nonsense with the war room (as awesome as Kate is on that song, it has no impact on Alice's journey), the prison sequence (which again has no impact on Alice's journey), the second boy band number, more of El Gato failing to be invisible, and has the added bonus of making The Victorian Gentleman's role crystal clear to the audience. It'd probably clock in around 95-100 minutes, which isn't unreasonable. Trim all the introductory songs to Wonderland characters and pick up the pace on Worst Day of My Life a bit when Alice joins in and it could run 90 minutes no problem. Now that would be a fine show.

[philly03]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 12:52am

Your version of the show sounds just as long as the current version, minus a song and the intermission....

I agree with some of them - I don't get why the Hatter doesn't have her old verse in "Through the Looking Glass." It would tie the two together!

And I will say that I am surprised that the lazy plot device of having Lewis Carroll pop up is still in the script! Wow!

On a good note - "Together" finally makes sense now and actually made me happy, not say "wait what is going on here!"


The show is a pale imitation of what it could have been unfortunately, but they made some nice changes during the course of previews to make this the best of the version they decided to go on. I don't agree with a lot of the decisions, but the score is what's most important and it's still wonderful.

Audience reaction was mixed to negative tonight - no standing ovation. Shindle got biggest applause at curtain call, and Karen Mason got a ginourmous applause at the end of "Off With Their Heads," bigger than "One Knight."

[Anakela]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 1:18am

New lyrics for Finding Wonderland as duet between Alice/The Mad Hatter...

Huh, I kinda like that. Maybe not Finding Wonderland specifically, but an Alice/Hatter duet.

Ok, and so speaking of the new Together, with the boy band rescue/reprise: does the White Knight still have that dialogue before Through the Looking Glass where he explains about the Hatter capturing his boy band? ("My four fellow knights were lured to the border...") Because, when did the Hatter have time to do this? The boy band is still there during Hail the Queen, during which Hatter leaves with the March Hare for Chloe/A Nice Little Walk, and then right after that is the dialogue leading to Through the Looking Glass. So where in all of that did the Hatter have time to get the knights too? (Yes these are actually the kinds of things I think about.)

...and Karen Mason got a ginourmous applause at the end of "Off With Their Heads," bigger than "One Knight."

Ha- there's an interview with Mason (which I of course can't find right now) where she talks about how she and Darren Ritchie would have competitions like this, where they could tell the makeup of the audience by which of these numbers got the bigger applause.

eta: found it!
"Darren and I used to have a little competition about that," Mason told me in early December during rehearsals in New York. "We could judge the age of the audience by who got the bigger hand. The young girls and medium-aged women love the boy band, and then I have my older people."
'Wonderland' diary: Showstoppers prevail Updated On: 4/15/11 at 01:18 AM

[philly03]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 1:29am

Yes I remember the article you're referring to!

No there was no explanation, but it's something I didn't really think of - she could've done it while Alice was in the Grotto/etc. Actually I'm not even sure if they rewinded the time on the boys, perhaps they were just supposed to be in disguise.

I could see a duet for Alice/Hatter - something like "I'm Mrs. de Winter" (Mrs. de Winter bin Ich) from Rebecca .. a fuming song where Alice would finally win and then she could take Jack as her "consolation prize" (that's something I liked about how Murphy & Boyd wrote the first production - things that someone would say came back to haunt other people!).

I highly doubt that "Finding Wonderland," perhaps Frank Wildhorn's greatest ballad of the last 5 years, would be turned into a duet... no way!

[philly03]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 1:34am

Also naturally awkward - Kate Shindle got a bit of an applauded entrance today. Very bizarre for the musical's villian to get entrance applause.

Occasionally it seems Carly will get entrance applause, as I'm sure people think she is Alice.

[[e-mail]]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 1:35am

Saw the show again tonight. Wow, things have changed since the first preview! Everything is looking a lot better. I thought all the actors had all really found their characters and really sold it. Some of the changes to the songs were really beautiful. I love that Chloe and Alice sing "Home" together!!!

Most of the changes I noticed were actually things that were suggested on the board. There were a lot less soup and head bumping references, a lot less silly jokes, and the ending is a lot less rushed. Although I wish they would take the suggestion of taking the Lewis Caroll scene out. It's just so slow. There was also one change I wasn't thrilled about. The thing about morse code...it was weird.

Vocally everyone sounded just astounding tonight! They really do have a top notch set of singers in this show. I especially loved E. Clayton Cornelious and Janet's voice tonight!

There really are so many components of this show that are awesome. I absolutely adore the the scene where Alice dances with El Gato. That is just plain adorable!!! Darren Ritchie's first scene and song is adorable and hilarious! And Kate Shindle belting "I Will Prevail" is just perfection. And I love any scene with Chloe in it. That kid is one hell of an actor and singer. But unfortunately there are also still a few scenes that make you cringe and are beyond cheesy.

But overall I really like this show and I'm sure I'll be seeing at least one more time.

OMG I almost forgot to add...yes Allstate is still there!!! ;P

[groucho797]

Posted: 4/15/11 at 2:31am

Sorry to say, I saw the show tonight (4/14) and thought it had the depth of a cereal commercial. It was horribly cliche'd, with pop culture references dating back to 20 years ago. About the only enjoyable song was the Caterpillar's number early in act I; El Gato was nothing more than a buffoony stereotype. Just about every cliche you could imagine was thrown in - including the second act's announcement that "this was inside you all along" - the uncreative's way out of a plot dilemma. I pretty much hated the show and wished I would have had the two hours back. Easily the most unoriginal show to play in years.