Clara's Dream

An all original mini-musical based on the
​timeless Christmas classic: The Nutcracker.
  • Clara’s Dream was written, composed and directed by John Rowe, and produced by Millennium Entertainment International. The 30-minute mini-musical premiered under the atrium of Singapore’s Raffles City shopping mall in 2002. The Australian cast consisted of 6 lead characters, an ensemble of 8 dancers and 2 suit operators. The show featured feel good and up-beat original musical numbers, inspired contemporary choreography, hilarious comedy characters, and a magical and adventurous storyline, all wrapped up in a Disney-style stage production.

  • Singapore has always had a rich tradition of providing large scale free entertainment inside their shopping malls in the all-important lead up to Christmas. Disney was very active in this market at the time, offering big budget feel good entertainment with a strong merchandising element. So MEI wanted to create a non-licensed show to compete with their offerings. The result was Clara’s Dream, for which Raffles City developed their own merchandise based on the show characters.

  • The story of the Nutcracker & The Mouse King was originally written by E.T.A. Hoffmann in 1816, in which a young girl’s favourite Christmas toy, a Nutracker doll, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom. The more famous adaptation of the story by Alexandre Dumas, with Clara as the main character, was turned into a ballet with music by Tchaikovsky.

  • Although set in the original time of the traditional Nutcracker story, John’s version featured contemporary pop musical styles and colourful humorous versions of the characters. Uncle Dross is a likeable and playful character whose toys were made with a special kind of magic. When the Nutcracker doll he has given to his niece Clara for Christmas turns into a real-life handsome Prince, he takes her on magical journey where she meets the mad-cap Snow King and Snow Queen (who welcome her with their traditional Jamaican inspired musical greeting), and the sassy Sugar Plum Fairy (who belts out an Aretha style soul number, complete with dancing liquorice allsorts as backing singers).

  • The original Australian cast featured many big-name and up and coming musical theatre stars, and top commercial dancers. The show was re-mounted several times in the proceeding years with several new cast members from the Aussie music and theatre scene.

  • “After years admiring the Disney animated hits like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, and the wonderful music of Alan Menken, it was such a pleasure to create something in a similar language and style,” said creator John Rowe. “I have nothing but fond memories of the whole process from researching, writing, recording, casting and rehearsing. There was such a magical energy around the show from everyone involved, and the result still stands as one of my proudest achievements.”

Behind the Scenes

Some of Nigel Shaw's beautiful costume designs.
Set design by David Wardfear.
Bits & pieces.

The Big Ballad

In the tradition of the big animated movie classics, the show featured a pop-style inspirational love ballad which was released as promotion prior to the show opening. In the stage production this was sung by Clara & The Prince. Written and arranged by John Rowe, the recorded version features vocals by John Rowe & Vanessa Kelly.

Credits

Show creator & director - John Rowe
Music & Lyrics - John Rowe
Music production - Stefan Nowak & John Rowe
Choreography - William A. Forsythe
Costume Design - Nigel Shaw
Set Design - David Wardfear
Producer - Nicholas Larkin / MEI
"Put the pieces together... and make a dream!"
​Uncle Dross