If you ask Gabriel Barre, director and co-author of Wonderland, the key to amazing musical theater can be summed up in a single word: Imagination.
Fortunately, it’s something Tuacahn’s Broadway season this year has going for it in spades.
Whether it is the imagination employed by the creative team during the design process, or the imagination required of the audience to become ensconced in the story as it unfolds, imagination is what allows people to jump in and out of chalk pictures and attend over-the-top tea parties.
And it’s just one of the elements that makes this summer’s combination of Wonderland and Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s Mary Poppins, opening May 26 and 20 respectively, so appealing.
“We can easily lose that inner child in this day and age,” Barre said. “I hope (these shows) remind us how much we have within ourselves and what we may have forgotten.”
Based on the writings of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass,” Wonderland is a modern twist on this familiar tale. Set in present-day New York City, against a backdrop of music by Frank Wildhorn (Scarlet Pimpernel, Jekyll and Hyde), Alice is a woman battling the demands of motherhood, a struggling marriage and a stressful career. After aligning herself in a dream with Alice of Alice in Wonderland, her reality is skewed, and the space between the two worlds diminishes as she encounters a myriad of unexpected characters including the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter.
“It’s been so fun for Frank (Wildhorn) to create this eclectic score,” Barre said. “Each number brings a new surprise for the audience.”
Scott Anderson, artistic director for Tuacahn, agreed.
“It might be one of his best scores, if not his best,” Anderson said. “The music alone is worth the ticket.”
That, along with the creatures the cast and costume designers are creating, Barre said, “It’ll be unlike any show they’ve seen.”
At its heart, Wonderland is a story about family, and finding your inner child, a thread it shares with its season counterpart, Mary Poppins.
“Families struggling and reconciling is a timeless tale,” said Gail Bennett, who played the title role in the Mary Poppins national Broadway tour. “We have to keep telling ourselves the story because it’s what the human experience is all about.”
Despite the familiarity some may have with this popular production — and even those who may remember Tuacahn’s 2013 version — Bennett said it is a completely different experience this time around. And she would know, since she’s back reprising the role she filled at Tuacahn nearly a decade ago.
“There is new technology that no one has seen before that is really going to blow people’s minds,” she said.
Plus, Bennett said she is loving the chance to work with Neil Starkenberg as Bert, who she describes as “a combination of Dick Van Dyke and Jim Carrey, but a better dancer.”
Tuacahn’s Broadway season opens May 20 and continues through Oct. 22, with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat joining the lineup July 16 and Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story in the Hafen Theatre June 24 to Aug. 13. Tickets are on sale at www.tuacahn.org or by calling the box office at 435-652-3300.
– Tuacahn
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