A trip to Wonderland is not a frivolous fancy - it's a means of survival. Sater - who in his early 20s spent months in a hospital recovering from a severe spinal injury with nothing but books to occupy his mind, body, and soul - intimately understands Alice and Alfred's urgent need for wonder and escape. That is certainly what the show's lyricist Steven Sater and his fellow authors ( Waitress librettist Jessie Nelson and Sater's Spring Awakening collaborator Duncan Sheik) intended for the production, and what Sater is now strengthening in the novel he has spun from that original yarn. Though inspired by the dynamic imagination of Lewis Carroll, the musical - which had its world premiere off-Broadway at MCC just one year ago - is more a celebration of the gift a trip down the rabbit hole can give a reader than an adaptation of Carroll's fantastical stories. If the two of them can dive into their favorite childhood story just once more, perhaps time can be stopped, fates can be changed, and the world can look a little more beautiful. The young Alice Spencer tries to sneak past the resident nurse - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in hand - to get to her friend Alfred, who is quarantined with tuberculosis. The story begins in a London Tube station where a group of children have taken shelter following the Blitz of World War II. Alice by Heart opens in the antithesis of Wonderland.
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