by Bob Carlton

Performed
August 14-17, 20-24, 2002
at
The Boal Barn Playhouse

Production Staff

Director	Robert Campbell
Music Director	Howard Meltzer
Scenic Designer	Adriana Pevec Brown
Costume Designer	Edna M. Immel
Stage Manager	Samantha E. Huckabee
Choreographer	Bradley Dean Whyte
Lighting Designer	Chuck Otto
Technical Director	Bill Mulberger
Apprentice Coordinator	Elizabeth A. Mugridge

About the Show

Recipe for a musical: First, take one large helping of the 1954 sci-fi flick, Forbidden Planet, starring Leslie Nielson back when he was playing the type of hero he now mocks for a living. A spaceship crashes-or is it lured?-to the planet home of a mad scientist plagued by a mysterious beast.

Next, distill from that the basics of the plot of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest: A mysteriously powerful father, Prospero; a sheltered but oh-so-eager-to-learn beauty of a daughter, Miranda; handsome shipwrecked sailors oh-so-eager-to-teach; a good monster, Ariel; and a bad one, Caliban; jealousy, betrayal, romance.

Season lightly with Freudian theory-the Id, which are the untamed impulses that our Super Ego controls.

Throw in a healthy mix of rock and roll classics, the ones that are fun and easy to sing, particularly, Gloria (which is why in this show Prospero has a wife) . . .

Stir, mix well, lace with iambic pentameter and lots of jokes about being on a ship (thrown in for the original audience of this show–citizens of the UK, who know about boats) and there you have it: Return to the Forbidden Planet, sometimes known as Shakespeare’s Forgotten Rock and Roll Musical.

Sit back, fasten your seatbelt, and enjoy Interplanetary Scientific Survey Nine. And don’t forget the drill-You never know when you may have to reverse polarity.

Pamela Monk

The Cast

Bosun	William Daniel Daup
Captain Tempest	Kael Janson Weis
Science Officer	Martha Traverse
Alien Queen	Jocelyn Hepp
Navigation Officer	Nicole Schmidt
Cookie	Justin Pifer
Prospero	Michael Martin
Ariel	James C. Hall
Miranda	Alexa Krepps
Ships Crew	Abigail Beddall Nora DeGeorge Matthew Evans Dennis M. Kalup Katie Murray
Aliens from the Id	Jillian Merriwether-deVries Ashlyn Sakona