Welcome to our Journey through Wonderland series. To recap, Once Upon a Holiday premiered in 2007 at a small venue in Atlanta. The show was 40 minutes long with minimal sets and to be honest, not a lot of magic. But . . . I saw its potential so I moved forward with it.
We needed a bigger venue with a better stage. Since that is more expensive to rent, I knew we needed a full show - one we could charge more than $5 for. It needed to have a stronger story with have 2 acts.
I started with the characters and added a family for Alice - parents and 2 siblings who were always teasing her. Then I expanded the opening of the show - creating more dances for the party scene. Wonderland evolved too and included more characters, more dances, and even a solo for Alice. I added a Grinch dance challenge with Alice and the chase scene. The ending of the show expanded too with everyone coming together again for a grand finale.
I remember clearly sitting on my bed in my apartment and listening to holiday music for hours to find the “right” fit for the show. There are plenty of songs that I LOVE that I couldn’t include. They just didn’t match with the emotion or character and couldn’t propel the story.
We expanded the sets tremendously that year with a real wooden box that opened for Alice to travel to wonderland. (That box was extremely heavy and took three men to lift). My favorite addition was the Jack-in-the-Box boxes. These were wood framed with linoleum on the sides. We wrapped them leaving a space on each side about 1 foot wide and used fabric to cover the space. Dancers got inside the box and moved the closed boxes around the stage since they could see (barely) through the fabric. It looked like ACTUAL magic.
Over time, I’ve used this same process to finesse the story to what has become the current show. The past 5 years have been smaller tweaks as we have defined the arch of the story pretty well. This year, we have revisualized the characters in the party to all have direct ties to their Wonderland counterparts. This allows the audience to really see the show through Alice’s eyes and to go on the emotional journey with her. In the next edition, I’ll be sharing more about those characters and what to look for on the stage.