The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center today announces several additions to the creative team for Wonderland: Alice's New Musical Adventure. According to producer Judith Lisi, president and CEO of TBPAC, Marguerite Derricks will choreograph the production and Ron Melrose will serve as music supervisor and provide vocal and dance arrangements as well as incidental music. Susan Hilferty, Neil Patel and Paul Gallo will design the costumes, sets and lights respectively, while Jon Weston will design the sound and Sven Ortel will design video and projections.
Slated to have its world premiere in Tampa on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009 in TBPAC's Ferguson Hall, the music for Wonderland is by Frank Wildhorn, the composer of The Civil War and Jekyll & Hyde, with book and lyrics by Jack Murphy. Gregory Boyd, artistic director of Houston's Alley Theatre, will direct.
Marguerite Derricks' (Choreographer) remarkable choreography has enhanced hundreds of films, television programs, commercials, music videos, and stage productions. She has choreographed the new feature film, Fame - set for a Sept. 25 opening. Derricks received the prestigious Emmy® Award for three consecutive years. Her first was for the long running television series, 3rd Rock From the Sun. She won her second Emmy Award for Fame LA and a third for The 1998 Goodwill Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Her films include Little Miss Sunshine, Spiderman 3, Donnie Darko, Charlie's Angels, the Austin Powers trilogy and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, earning her MTV Movie Awards and American Choreography Awards nominations. Her television credits include the 58th Emmy Awards, numerous MTV Awards and Fashion Rocks telecasts, That 70's Show (American Choreography Award nominee) and CSI Miami. Also in demand for commercials, Derricks has created memorable ad campaigns include Old Navy, GAP, Pepsi and Jack in the Box. Derricks' choreography can be seen in Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity, now in its 8th sold-out year at the New York, New York Hotel in Las Vegas.
Ron Melrose (Music Direction, Vocal/Dance Arrangements and Incidental Music). Music direction: Jersey Boys (Broadway and six additional companies), Imaginary Friends, Scarlet Pimpernel (Broadway), Radio City Sinatra, First Wives Club, The Wiz, Caraboo and Zelda (Broadway-bound). Broadway dance/vocal arranging: Sweet Smell of Success, Jekyll & Hyde, Perfectly Frank, The Act, Marilyn: An American Fable, Woman of the Year and Cabaret. Associate producer, Jersey Boys original cast album (certified gold). Composing: Superdimensional Microbabes (upcoming anime-based musical); Fourtune (Off-Broadway); The Silver Swan (National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship); theatrical CDs (The Missing Peace, Early One Morning, Songs I Won't Be Singing); Harvard Hasty Pudding shows (Tots in Tinseltown, Bewitched Bayou); a gospel-based Requiem; songs for church, choir, cabaret and Saturday Night Live. Degrees from Harvard (philosophy) and Westminster (choral conducting). After thirty-two happy years as a New Yorker, he is now a resident of California.
Susan Hilferty (Costume Designer) has designed over 300 productions from Broadway to across America and internationally including Japan, London, Australia, Germany and South Africa. Recent designs include Wicked (2004 Tony®, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk awards and Olivier nomination), Spring Awakening (Tony nomination) August Wilson's Radio Golf and Jitney, Lestat (Tony nomination) Assassins, Into the Woods (Tony and Drama Desk nominations; Hewes Award), Manon at LA opera and Berlin Staatsoper, Richard Nelson's Conversations in Tusculum, Caryl Churchill's Drunk Enough to Say I Love You and Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette and Boo. She works with such well-known directors as Joe Mantello, James Lapine, Michael Mayer, Walter Bobbie, Robert Falls, Tony Kushner, RoBert Woodruff, JoAnne Akalaitis, the late Garland Wright, James Macdonald, Bart Sher, Mark Lamos, Frank Galati, Des McAnuff, Christopher Ashley, Emily Mann, David Jones, Marion McClinton, Rebecca Taichman, Laurie Anderson, Carole Rothman, Garry Hynes, Richard Nelson and Athol Fugard (the South African writer with whom she works as set and costume designer and often as co-director since 1980). Hilferty also designs for opera, film and dance, and chairs the Department of Design for Stage and Film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. She was awarded a 2000 OBIE for Sustained Excellence in Design.
