Frank's Place: Alice!

Ad from the Plain Dealer, October 6, 1974.

The latter part of the summer of 1974 was occupied with preparations for Alice! This show was a rather splendid musical based on Alice in Wonderland written by Joe Garry and David Gooding, with additional lyrics by Sy Johnson. Part of the set from the Cole Porter show was used, along with some rather stunning stained glass like acrylic panels designed by Tim Zupancic. I seem to recall a woman named Carrie actually pouring the acrylic for the panels in the weeks leading up to the show. The show itself was clever and kind of zany, with some really great tunes and previewed on October 3, with an opening on Friday, October 4, 1974. The show ran Wednesdays through Saturday evenings with a Saturday matinee. The cast consisted of Yolande Bavan as Alice, Ron Newell as the White Rabbit, and Rick Salome, Tim Tavcar, John Stang, and Richard Worswick. I played dinner music through the sound system I had hooked up earlier in the year which ran through the old surround speakers in the Palace balcony. It was a record of Strauss waltzes, and I was able to wrangle a new turntable out of the deal. I can still remember getting it at Radio Shack with David Frazier a week or so before the opening. I can remember running back and fourth between the State and the Palace to flip the record every 20 minutes. Unfortunately Alice! didn't do much better then Porter and closed on December 31, which was quite a disappointment, for it deserved a much better fate.