Everything You Need to Know About Alice by Heart: Cast, Songs, and Legacy
By Maya Lin-Takahashi
Alice by Heart began long before its New York staging. The project originated as a commissioned piece for London's National Theatre Connections program in 2012 under the title Alice Alternative. The creative foundation brought together book writer and director Jessie Nelson (Waitress, I Am Sam) with composer Duncan Sheik and lyricist-librettist Steven Sater. Sater and Sheik had already altered the soundscape of American musical theater with 2006's Spring Awakening. They brought that same folk-rock melancholy and visceral teenage angst to Carroll’s children's tale.
The structural hook is stark. The story unfolds during the 1941 Blitz. Sirens wail above London. Civilians shelter dozens of feet below street level inside an abandoned subway station. Among them is Alice Spencer, an adolescent girl whose childhood companion, Alfred Hall, is dying from tuberculosis.
Faced with doctors counting down Alfred’s remaining hours, Alice retreats into the tattered pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She demands that Alfred play along. Reality and fantasy bleed together across the concrete platforms. The shelter’s stern Red Cross nurse transforms into the merciless Queen of Hearts. Nervous evacuees mutate into the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse. The show turns escapism into an act of psychological resistance. Alice does not read the book to leave the tube station; she uses Carroll’s nonsense to negotiate the incomprehensibility of death.
Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.
