UMaine Musical Comedy ‘Bat Boy’ to Transfix Hauck Audiences
Contact: Marcia Douglas, 581- 1846; George Manlove, 581-3756
High resolution photos are available upon request.
ORONO — The director of the next student production opening Feb. 16 at UMaine, “Bat Boy: The Musical,” expects audiences in Hauck Auditorium to be transfixed by a suspenseful comedic horror story emboldened by creative costuming, staging and live musical accompaniment.
“Bat Boy,” running Feb. 16-18 and Feb. 22-25, also delivers a serious message about snap judgments, says director Marcia Douglas, theater professor in the UMaine School of Performing Arts.
Douglas expects “Bat Boy” to captivate audiences from the outset, beginning with dramatic set designs, music and its opening scene, in which three spelunkers rappel from the rafters onto the stage — the dark West Virginia cave and home of a boy who is half human and half bat.
A contemporary musical based on a story in The Weekly World News tabloid, “Bat Boy” is the story about what happens when a family tries to integrate the boy-bat creature into a judgmental rural community. A work that perhaps falls visually and conceptually between “The Rocky Horror Show” and “My Fair Lady,” “Bat Boy” is about the consequences when good intentions tangle with deceit and misplaced aggression.
“It’s very comic book-like,” says Douglas, who also chairs the theater program. “It’s very bold and very dramatic, and poignant. It has a really good message and the songs are funny and entertaining.”
The main characters in the production include: Jacob Cayouette, a first-year theater major from Rockport, who recently returned to college after two tours with the U.S. Army in Iraq, as the bat boy; Hans Stefan Ducharme of Kennebunk as Dr. Parker; Rebecca Bailey of Orono as Parker’s wife Meredith; Whitney Blethen of Appleton as Parker’s daughter Shelley; and Tom Sagona of Camden as the sheriff.
Adding vibrancy to the production are several guest designers, including: Lex Liang, costumes; Matt Guminski, lights; Art Rotch, scenic; and Meridith Perry, props. Josh Schmersal, a Bangor native, is music director and Brianne Beck of Hampden is the choreographer.
Douglas says the production includes a cast of 21 students and a talented stage crew. As the production is set in a family home, a slaughterhouse, a town hall, a revival tent, a hospital room, a forest and the bat cave, it demands complex costumes, props and lighting.
“The prop design is interesting,” she says, “since we have prop birds filled with ‘blood’ and a realistic-looking cow’s head filled with ‘blood.’ There is a lot of blood.”
“Bat Boy: The Musical” performances are Feb. 16-17 and Feb. 22-24 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 18 and Feb. 25 at 2 p.m. General admission is $12; students with a MaineCard are admitted free. The show is intended for mature audiences.
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