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Students of alienology know that hostile extraterrestrials who arrive to conquer us puny humans typically deploy one of two modus operandi: Death rays (see the classic H.G. Wells tale “The War of the Worlds”), or some form of body snatching (see, of course, the 1978 sci-fi/horror flick “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” starring the late, great Donald Sutherland).
“The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals,” which runs Thursday July 18 through Monday July 22 at City Repertory Theatre in Palm Coast, takes its cue from the body snatching school. The 2018 play, with music and lyrics by Jeff Blim and a book by Matt and Nick Lang, bills itself as “a horror comedy musical.” The play amps up the aliens’ cosmic fuckery considerably by having the fiends use – yikes! – musical theater as the means to conquer Earth.
After the extraterrestrial presence stealthily arrives via a meteor that crashes into a small-town theater and proceeds to uncork “some kind of blue shit” (in the parlance of the lead female character Emma, played by Christi Arnold), the townsfolk begin to notice something odd, and frightening: One by one, the people are suddenly and inexplicably breaking into song and dance routines in everyday life situations (yep, kinda like those 1960s Elvis movies). Soon the infected townsfolk begin acting more and more like zombies.
(BTW, if F-bombs and S-bombs seem out of place in a story about a quirky musical, be advised that the play, according to cast and crew, unleashes a number of them. “It’s at least PG-13,” says director Beau Wade. “I don’t really want to see a 10-year-old come to this.”)
So, is “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” the perfect musical for . . . well, people who don’t like musicals?
“It’s not like a typical musical where they burst into a song just for the sake of it being a musical,” says Arnold, a Palatka resident whose day job (night job?) is leading ghost tours around St. Augustine. “All the songs are contained within the context of the show – it’s like a play with music. The story itself is enough to keep someone’s attention even if they’re not really into the traditional type of musical.”
Ricky Rodriguez-Rios, a Kissimmee resident who performs with the Murder Mystery Co., an Orlando troupe that presents murder mystery dinner parties, is making the two-hour (one-way) commute to play Paul, the male lead and title character.
“I’m willing to bet that people who don’t like musicals are going to enjoy it, and maybe a little bit more than normal musical theater fans, particularly because this show almost justifies their reasoning for not liking musicals in the first place,” Rodriguez-Rios says. “It’s not believable. Why are these people who are sitting in a small room talking to each other bursting into song and dance? That doesn’t make sense. I think that little justification will bring joy to those people, and the implication leads to the horror of the show.”
A personal irony is at play for Rodriguez-Rios, he notes: “It’s funny because if the normal real-life Ricky would see people dancing in a coffee shop, I would think ‘I want to join in! I want to be part of this!’ And now for my character it’s terrifying.”
Dominick Barbee, a Palm Coast resident who plays Bill, knows firsthand the ire that musicals can stir in people.
“My family doesn’t like musicals,” Barbee says cheerfully. “I was the kid that loved ‘Mamma Mia’ (the 2008 film based on the music of Abba). I would watch it on repeat and my dad and brother hated the fact that I watched it. They don’t like Disney films because they don’t like the singing in them.”
Barbee, who works at a pet resort and is studying to be a psychotherapist at Daytona State College, notes one familial exception: “My Oma (grandmother) is the only person who likes musicals really. She’s like ‘I’m going to all your musicals because I think they’re so fun.’ She went to see me in ‘Rent,’ which Beau directed.”
Ethan Fink, a Palm Coast resident who is studying musical theater at Southeast Missouri State University, portrays an anomaly in “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals”: His character, the gun-toting Professor Hidgens, “is actually one of the few people in the show who does like musicals,” Fink says. “He’s a kooky old biology professor and he’s a doomsday survivalist. He’s been preparing for this exact apocalypse for 30 years.
“Biology is his current passion, but his first passion was musical theater. Slight spoiler alert: He’s the only human in the show to actually sing while not being a zombie.”
The play is not a gore fest – there are almost no bloody special effects.
“There’s a little bit of red, but it’s mostly a lot of blue shit,” Rodriguez-Rios says, deploying the preferred nomenclature of the play’s characters. “And we don’t know what that blue shit is.”
While the blue shit that crowns the head of Seth Kirk’s Sam character is suitably creepy and blatantly in-your-face, the zombie-ness is mostly portrayed “by certain mannerisms,” Rodriguez-Rios says. “So it’s ‘Oh, this person’s alive, this person’s alive – but I don’t know about that person.’ It’s fun throughout the show as the main characters are realizing who’s who and trying to weed everyone out. It’s almost a fun game to try to figure out who’s next (to get infected).”
While the mature language may be somewhat plentiful, it’s not gratuitous, says City Rep veteran Trey King, who describes his Ted character as “kind of vulgar himself, a bit of an ass, self-centered, egotistical.”
“The amount of language I think is extremely comical,” King says. “I think everyone who’s older will definitely get a kick out of it.”
“The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” is a creation of StarKid Productions, a theatrical company whose roots can be traced to “A Very Potter Musical,” a Harry Potter parody made on a shoestring budget and staged for one weekend in 2009, in a black box theater at the University of Michigan.
The show found a following when a full performance was uploaded to YouTube, and the video channel became the prime vehicle for future StarKid shows. To date the troupe has created 13 full-length musicals including parodies of Disney, Star Wars, Batman and teen slasher flicks. While StarKid has gone on national concert tours, performed sketch shows at The Second City comedy club in Chicago, and appeared at conventions, its shows are also performed by theaters across the country and internationally.
“This is the most outlandish thing I’ve ever done,” Arnold says. “It has that horror aspect and you don’t expect that because the comedy just comes on so strong. It’s funny but then you get deeper and deeper into it and the stakes become apparent – it’s genius because it’s hidden through this veil of comedy and then as things start to intensify it’s like ‘Oh, there’s some real shit going on here.’
“The script is really well written. Horror and comedy would normally be very difficult to meld together, but this show does a really good job of it in a really unique way.”
–Rick de Yampert for FlaglerLive
City Repertory Theatre will stage “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday July 18, Friday July 19, Saturday July 20 and Monday July 22. A matinee performance will be at 3 p.m. Sunday July 21. (Note: The play’s performance schedule was altered and shortened due to an illness among the cast. As of press time, CRT’s website had not been updated to reflect the change.) Performances will be in CRT’s black box theater at City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite B207, Palm Coast. Tickets are $30 adults and $15 students, available online at crtpalmcoast.com or by calling 386-585-9415. Tickets also will be available at the venue just before curtain time.
The cast also includes:
Charlotte – Jen Chidekel
Alice – Andrea Oliveras
Mr. Davidson/General MacNamara – Danno Waddell
Harmony – Charlotte Fletcher
Nora – Lorelai Kissling
Zoey – Anniesa Andrews
Deb/Melissa – Lisa Kealhofer
Hot Chocolate Boy/Homeless Man – Zytavius McLeod
Along with director Beau Wade, the crew also includes:
Music director – Laniece Fagundes
Assistant director/stage manager – Phillipa Rose
Assistant director/stage manager – Audrey Molina
Props – Frank Anello
Makeup – Tyler Pate
