The off-Broadway critics got it right when they called Alice By Heart’s book muddled, but that didn’t bother me a bit last night, so captivated was I by the impressive production it has been given by MouthBone Theater Company.

 It helps enormously that this musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland features songs by Duncan Sheik, and if that name sounds familiar to fans of the Broadway hit Spring Awakening, so will Sheik’s signature melodies the moment the cast launches into the Spring Awakening-esque “West Of Words” and pretty much every other song featured during Alice By Heart’s ninety-minute running time.

Steven Sater and Jessie Nelson’s book takes us back in time to 1940’s London Blitz, and in place to the underground tube station where teenage Alice Spencer (Arlette Carranza) and her critically ill best friend Alfred (Timothy Schneider) have sought refuge from the bombs being dropped overhead.

 And if that weren’t already enough to trouble two teenagers already almost in love, there’s also the fact that Alfred is about as close to death’s door as a tubercular teen can get, which is why, to keep her bff alive even an hour or two longer, Alice begins to tell him the tale of her namesake in Wonderland, a story she has read so many time that she knows it by heart.

One fantasy sequence after another ensues, Alice and Alfred’s fellow tube refugees transforming themselves into the characters Lewis Carroll first created back in 1865 and were later immortalized on screen by Walt Disney, Irwin Allen, and Tim Burton among others.

 The fact that most if not all in the Eastwood Performing Arts Center audience are likely familiar with either Carroll’s novel or one of these adaptation means that despite Sater and Nelson’s book being not particularly easy to follow, you’re likely at the very least to recognize the characters being brought to life by MouthBone’s very young, extremely talented cast.

There’s White Rabbit (a role Schneider’s Alfred steps into); Caterpillar (a fabulous Emmon Amid), who’s “Chillin’ the Regrets”; a sextet of birds (Magpie, Eaglet, Duck, Canary, Dodo, and Pigeon) who launch into “So”; Cheshire Cat (Jenna Luck) of mischievous grin fame; Duchess (a wild, bewigged Gil Dolet), who instructs Alice to “Manage Your Flamingo” (whatever that’s supposed to mean); Mad Hatter (a madcap Shantilly Tuazon), March Hare (Schneider again), and Dormouse (Jude Rossotto), who are “Sick to Death of Alice-ness”; a decidedly creepy Jabberwock (Jordi Kligman), Mock Turtle (adorable Hannah Lorrayne Manuit); King of Hearts/Red Cross Nurse (Carlos Cameron doing dynamic double duty at the performance reviewed), and the imperious Queen Of Hearts (Arianna Ford, stepping into the role on a moment’s notice).

And if all these characters weren’t already a lot to keep track of as we return from time to time to the reality of a bombarded London and a terminally ill Alfred, to be honest I didn’t even try to keep a scoreboard, not when I was being so thoroughly entertained by one vivid performance after another directed with oodles of imagination and flair by Stella Mulroney and Rossotto, and by one spellbinding production number after another choreographed by Eva Schroeder, who doubles as Caterpillar 2.

 No one writes more haunting melodies than Duncan Sheik, and if pretty much all of them sound like something you’ve heard in Spring Awakening, that’s probably a major reason you may find them swimming around in your head. (It helps too that the entire cast has pipes to make them soar.)

It’s hard to single out any one performance in such an all-around terrific young cast, but leading ladies don’t get any more enchanting than Carranza, Schneider’s White Rabbit is as appealing as a long-eared, man-bunned bunny can be, and rising star Luck is a sly delight as Cheshire Cat.

Kligman makes for a scare-rific Jaberwock, and you’d never guess that the power-piped Ford found out she was going on as Queen Of Hearts only hours before curtain, though honestly speaking there’s not a weak link among MouthBone’s dozen multitalented players.

 Luckily for a young company on a budget, Alice By Heart’s scenic design requirements are minimal, and designer Rossotto needs only a rear-projected tube station, a half-dozen or so cots, and a couple of platforms for their set to work, leaving the heavy lifting to the show’s costume designers (Rossotto and Toni Guzzo) to come up with one fabulously fanciful outfit after another, Mercedes Stafford to do the same where hair and makeup are concerned, and above all to Landon Popadic to dazzle us with the most dramatic of lighting designs.

 Alyssa Weir earns major snaps for her expert music direction, the cast performing to prerecorded tracks that sound almost live thanks to sound designer Kensington Watts.

 Alice By Heart is produced by Mulroney. Donnie Riddle is assistant director and assistant music director. Kylie Buckles-Hall is assistant choreographer. Celina Surniak is stunt and lift coordinator. Stafford is stage manager.

This past August’s Glory Days proved what MouthBone Theater Company is capable of delivering on an uber-intimate scale, and the far more ambitious Alice By Heart impresses equally.

 That MouthBone gives Los Angeles audiences their first glimpse of a show that may not reach the heights of Spring Awakening but delivers multiple rewards of its own gives the company’s latest bona fide event status.

MouthBone Theatre, Eastwood Performing Arts Center, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., Hollywood.
www.mouthbone.com

–Steven Stanley
November 8, 2025
Photos: Iah Bearden-Vrai

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Duncan ShEIk, Jessie Nelson, Los Angeles Theater Review, Steven Sater