Wonderland’s Janet Dacal on Making the Leap Through the Looking Glass to Leading Lady

With her wide smile and fiery red curls, Janet Dacal is becoming a recognizable Broadway figure. She made her debut in the short-lived Good Vibrations, but she is best known to Rialto regulars for playing ditzy "Chilidominicarican" hair salon employee Carla in In the Heights, a role she helped create from the ground up with the show’s creator and original star, Lin-Manuel Miranda. In the new Frank Wildhorn tuner Wonderland, Dacal is tackling a new challenge: creating a leading role. She leads the cast of this reimagined Alice in Wonderland tale as Alice, a modern-day woman who goes on an adventure below the streets of New York City. As Wonderland readies to open at the Marquis Theatre, Dacal chatted with Broadway.com about her not-so-secret showmance and how her In the Heights co-stars showed her how to be a leading lady.

How does it feel to be creating another original role on Broadway?
Every actor’s dream is to be part of an original cast, and I’ve had the good fortune to be in three: Good Vibrations, In the Heights and now Wonderland. I’m so grateful for the opportunities; I’m grateful for climbing the ladder and learning along the way. It’s been a slow but steady process and I’ve learned through every step of it.

How did you get involved with the show?
Frank Wildhorn needed Latin singers who could sing in Spanish, so he called me in to record some background vocals on a different project called Havana and soon he started having me sing from Wonderland, too. He’s a fantastic contemporary composer, and we share a real pop music sensibility. He lets me have a ball. It’s a great collaborative effort that we have going.

What do you love about playing Alice?
I love that this Alice is totally revamped; she’s not just the ordinary Alice in Wonderland. She’s a modern American woman with dreams and hopes and struggles, and I love that she gets to learn something while she's juggling life. I connect with her on a lot of levels!

How is this experience different from your last original show, In the Heights?
In the Heights was actually my first audition in New York. I would sit with Lin at the piano and he would plunk out notes; at the time it was only five songs. We would work on the show a week at a time. Every time we had to leave each other it was heartbreaking because we never knew when we would get to do it again. Off-Broadway that was the most romantic time, because we’d been working so long and were so excited to share the show with the world. Comparing that to Wonderland and Alice is hard. This show is just such a different animal; I’m creating the leading role, which is a crazy experience, but I’ve had incredible examples to follow.

Who have you learned the most from?
To have women like [In the Heights co-stars] Andrea Burns and Priscilla Lopez mentor me and show me the ropes has been the biggest blessing. They are beautiful artists and love what they do, but more importantly they’re beautiful human beings. They’re genuine and loving, and their integrity and their morale are just unbelievable. Basically, it’s about how you treat the people around you and the good energy you put into the world. So I feel like it’s my responsibility as a leading lady to bring all the things that I learned from them and share them with my cast. I hope to one day be as graceful and as beautiful as they are.

Are you still close with all of your In the Heights co-stars?
Of course! They’re my family here in New York. I’ve got my three girls—Karen Olivo, Mandy Gonzalez and Andrea Burns—we call each other the Core Four. Well it’s really the Core Four plus one: Eliseo Roman, our “piragua guy.” We were the four ladies in the Heights salon and we fell in love with each other, and Mandy came up with this name and then eventually Eliseo got a little bit jealous! He was part of the group but he wasn’t part of the official title, so we added him on as the plus one.

Speaking of leading ladies, you recently did a Vanity Fair photo shoot with Patina Miller, Jennifer Damiano and Rose Hemingway.
Isn’t it hot!? I swear, that shoot was like every woman’s dream come true. Wearing Dolce and Gabbana and having all these beautiful gay men do your hair and makeup—fans were blowing, there was delicious food all over the place. Everybody looked so beautiful, the girls were so sweet and we were so thrilled to be there. We had a ball. We were all shot individually and they composited the picture. I was the last one to go, which worked out great because I got to know everybody and the photographer was from Colombia, so when it was my turn he put on these beautiful Latin ballads, so I had this hot sultry music and these beautiful clothes on and my hair looked amazing. It was a dream. I have like 10 of copies of the issue.

Have your parents seen you in this show?
Yes, Wonderland played two runs in Florida, and both times it was during the holidays so my mom cooked a big Cuban meal for everybody. Every time she would see the show she would bring more people! I asked her how she got a busload of 20 Cubans to come see the show and she’s like, “It’s so easy honey, any excuse to come and have a good time!”

Will she be coming to see you on Broadway?
Oh my God, are you kidding me? I have this fantastic dressing room—which used to be Julie Andrews’, by the way, and it totally freaks me out that it was hers—and my mom said, “If we can’t find a cheap enough apartment, we can just stay there!” My whole family is coming, there’s like a group of 10 or 20 people. They’re thrilled.

You and Darren Ritchie, who plays Wonderland's White Knight, are making no secret of your real-life romance. Was the chemistry immediate when you met recording the demo for this show?
Absolutely. Darren is a wonderful human being; he’s just so genuine and honest. He’s a fantastic actor and he makes me better on stage. He really is my Prince Charming. I know, I know, “Awwwww!”