Broadway Across Canada presents Flashdance - the Musical until Nov. 16 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 650 Hamilton St., Vancouver. Tickets start at $35, available at ticketmaster.ca or by calling 1-855-985-5000.
Anyone who's ever tried to make it in the performing arts world can probably sympathize with Alex Owens. The protagonist of the '80s blockbuster Flashdance is a steel welder by day and a bar dancer by night who dreams of getting accepted into a prestigious dance school.
While Karli Dinardo has never worked in a steel mill, she has taken on plenty of odd jobs while pursuing a career as a performer. But, for the next few months at least, she's gainfully employed in her field having landed the lead role in the North American touring production of Flashdance - the Musical.
"It hits close to home for a lot of people that are involved in the production," says the 20-year-old Melbourne, Australia native. "Everybody has that dream. We're all in this industry trying to pursue this as a career and we all fight for what we want."
Dinardo would not be born for another decade when Flashdance hit theatres in 1983 and made off-theshoulder sweatshirts the fashion craze du jour, but she remembers watching the film for the first time when she was seven. As someone who started her dance training at age three, it made a big impression.
"I loved it. I was obsessed with it completely growing up," she says.
The stage musical adaptation premiered in the U.K. in 2008 and this current tour is scheduled to run until spring 2015. Dinardo says the show follows the movie very closely.
"The storyline is exactly the same. It's just in the musical the writer, Tom Hedley, has been able to go back and flesh out some of the other characters more in depth to give the show more heart, so I think that would be the biggest difference," she says.
In addition to the five familiar hits from the movie soundtrack - including "What a Feeling" and "Maniac" - the musical also includes 16 new songs.
Many of the iconic scenes from the movie have also been left intact. Like when Alex effortlessly takes off her bra without removing her trend-setting sweatshirt (a manoeuvre that took some practice to master, Dinardo says), or the chair dance solo that sees Alex showered with gallons of water.
"That's definitely one of my favourite moments, and the most fun as well," Dinardo says. "They try to keep (the water) a good temperature for me, which is really lovely."
The musical features a book by Robert Cary and Tom Hedley (who co-wrote the original screenplay with Joe Eszterhas). During rehearsals, Dinardo says Hedley worked with the cast and revealed that Flashdance was actually written with the intention that it be a stage production.
"When we found that out, that made a lot of sense. I think that's what makes it so easily adaptable to the stage."
The show is a challenging one "emotionally, physically, vocally," Dinardo says, but she hopes the nightly demands of her role translate into an exciting theatre experience.
"The audiences will come and they will see a show full of dancing, full of movement, full of energy," she says. "It does the movie so much justice and more."
