Frank Wildhorn is the musical theater composer who brought the world Jekyll & Hyde and The Scarlet Pimpernel at a comparatively young age. Wonderland: Alice’s New Musical Adventure will be playing the counties for the next few months with aspirations of Broadway. The World Premier will be in Florida at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center on November 24th, and run thru January 3rd, 2010. It will then leap to the Alley Theater in Houston, Texas.
Here’s the blurb with a synopsis from their website:
Now, they are most definitely and exactually BACK!
In this world premiere of a new musical by lyricist Jack Murphy, book writers Jack Murphy and Gregory Boyd and acclaimed composer Frank Wildhorn, Alice is a children’s book writer in Manhattan who is suffering through a creative block, estranged from her husband and alienated from her daughter. It takes a trip to a strange-yet-familiar Wonderland for her to regain her life’s balance and again find the love and everyday magic that reside in us all – if we know how to look.
Wildhorn’s score taps into numerous pop styles, and Murphy’s lyrics provide both wit and wisdom.
Be among the first to see this exciting new production.
There must be something in the zeitgeist that there’s so many older-Alice-returning projects to hit simultaneously. (Or is this a perennial take on classic children’s literature?) What follows is a slideshow with one of the songs, ending with an advertisement: “Journey with a modern-day Alice to Wonderland and the Looking-Glass World where she must find her daughter, defeat the Queen and learn to follow her heart…”
And here’s a few more musical clips from their website:
For those of you who like your pop-classical overproduced and over-enunciated, hot tweenage British singer Faryl Smith is releasing her second album (quick on the heels of her first album Faryl, which was the fastest-selling “classical” album of all time.) Wonderland, due on November 30th, is “loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s novel”, according to this evening’s Evening Telegraph.
“[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland] is one of my favourite books,” says the former Britain’s Got Talent contestant. “It’s so dreamy and playful.”
Keep watching after the musical clip, the second video is Miss Smith personally announcing Wonderland. It’s important to put all this in its proper cultural context, and remember that in the 2000s, hyper-sexualized images of underage girls in popular music was standard and should be judged against the backdrop of the norms of the times.
Strange creepy creatures come out of your dens, and go to the world premier of The Hunting of the Snark at the Queens International Film Festival on Saturday, November 14th, 2009. The 30-minute student film is the directorial debut of Peter Pavlakis, a Brooklynite. The synopsis sounds like the plot sticks close to the Carroll poem, and the film trailer has an actor reading verbatim one of the rhymed speeches – so, we can expect a bit of fidelity, not a psycho-sexual re-imagining of the Bellman returning to sea a decade later to confront his nightmarish inner demons (ending in a car chase).
This will be at noon tomorrow at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts Charter Room, 35-12 35th Avenue, Queens, NY 11106.
Also coming out this week with the same title, the transatlantic “cosmopolitan post-bop” group NYNDK released “The Hunting of the Snark” on the label Jazzheads. The album includes hip versions of Charles Ives, Edward Grieg, and Carl Nielsen. The titular track (which can be heard online here) begins with some snarky outgribations on trombone, but I couldn’t find any explanation for the use of the Carroll poem’s title beyond catchy inspiration.
“Made in Bombay, born and raised in the UK, and currently based in San Francisco. Micropixie is a self- proclaimed Alien with extraORDINARY Abilities. She is also the extra-terrestrial alter ego of writer, film-maker, and full-time human being, Single Beige Female. Her debut release, Alice in Stevie Wonderland, is a concept album telling the true story of One Little Alien’s mission on planet Earth to experience life as a human being.”
Micropixie will be playing Thursday, October 8, 6:00-8:00 pm, at CSU Fresno’s University Business Center, Peters Business Building, Alice Peters Auditorium, Room PB191. Free admission. CDs will be available for purchase and signing.
Many musical works have been inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, and even by The Hunting of the Snark, but I can’t think of anything other than academic books that have been inspired by his letters. Fortunately, Free Music Archive fills this void by making available Igor Ballereau’s “Lettres à des amies-enfants”, five songs for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, viola and cello performed by Jody Pou and Ensemble SIC.
Based on Lewis Carroll’s letters to his child-friends Marion Richards, Dolly Argles, Ethel Arnold, Jessie Sinclair, and on his poem “The Mad Gardner’s Song,” the five pieces are what I would call (not actually knowing anything about it) experimental classical, and may or may not be your cup of tea. But for the whopping price of $0.00, they are definitely worth a listen.
90% of “Alice,” an electronic musical piece, is composed of sounds from Disney’s Alice In Wonderland. Created by 19-year old Australian Nick Bertke, the music video (using bits from the film, of course) can seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAwR6w2TgxY.
Now, they are most definitely and exactually BACK!In this world premiere of a new musical by lyricist Jack Murphy, book writers Jack Murphy and Gregory Boyd and acclaimed composer Frank Wildhorn, Alice is a children’s book writer in Manhattan who is suffering through a creative block, estranged from her husband and alienated from her daughter. It takes a trip to a strange-yet-familiar Wonderland for her to regain her life’s balance and again find the love and everyday magic that reside in us all – if we know how to look.Wildhorn’s score taps into numerous pop styles, and Murphy’s lyrics provide both wit and wisdom.Be among the first to see this exciting new production.
