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| Wednesday, July 15, 2009 'Wonderland' diary: Janet Dacal will play leading role of Alice in new Wildhorn musical Janet Dacal (left) will play the leading role of Alice in Wonderland, the Frank Wildhorn musical inspired by Alice in Wonderland that is slated to premiere at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in December. I learned this today from composer Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel), who was in Tampa to teach at the Broadway Theatre Project, held every summer at the University of South Florida. Dacal is now playing Carla, the ditsy redheaded beauty salon assistant in In the Heights, the Tony Award-winning musical set in the Manhattan barrio. She has been in the show since it opened on Broadway in March 2008. Dacal, whose parents were born in Cuba, is from Los Angeles, "but I really consider Miami my home. I moved there when I was 17, and it's where I got in touch with my Cuban background," she said in an interview with broadway.com. In Miami, she sang backup for Latin pop stars such as Gloria Estefan, Jon Secada and Luis Enrique. She made her Broadway debut in 2005 in the Beach Boys musical Good Vibrations, which flopped. "We're going a little different route with Alice,'' Wildhorn said, seeming to suggest that having a Latina in the role could call for a rewrite of the character. In the first Equity reading of the show in March, Alice was a British expatriate in New York played by Lauren Kennedy. |
| QUOTE (libradude @ 28 Jul 2009, 2:24 PM) |
| I wasn't aware that Frank and Brandi had seperated (via wikipedia) or that she had a ten year old son. |
