The Evil Queen Dana

Dana International as Cruella de Vil (Photo: PR)

The Israeli children’s musical for Hanukkah, based on the famous Disney movie “101 Dalmatians” has in a flash of genius cast Dana International for the lead role of Cruella de Vil.

Entering the shoes of the iconic villainess (played in the movie by Glenn Close), this will be Dana’s first ever role in a children’s play. “Cruella de Vil is not 100% villain,” Dana told Israeli news site “Walla!” this week. “She’s funny, she’s a fashionista, and she just has a crazy obsession about wearing clothes made out of a real fur. If she was just another “bad guy” character, I wouldn’t have played her.”

“I wouldn’t play Hitler, not even the transgender version of him,” she said.

As opposed to Cruella, who wants to kidnap dogs in order to kill them and turn them into a coat, Dana is known as a great dog lover. Gossip columns in Israel say that when her doggy sitter was sick earlier this week, Dana couldn’t leave her two dogs Tony and Goggle (yes!) at home, and brought them with her to the rehearsals.

Hanukka has been known for years in Israel as the “Holiday of Children’s Musicals”, and each year the Hanukka productions are becoming bigger, more spectacular and more interesting, so that rehearsals have to start even before Rosh Hashana.