The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals

Book by Nick and Matt Lang; Music and Lyrics by Jeff Blim

Cast

Paul: August Garrett

Emma: Brooke Cousins

Bill: Kyle Jedrusik

Ted: Evan Niemiec

Charlotte/General MacNamara: Olivia Welch

Mr. Davidson/Sam: Logan Verlinde

Professor Hidgens: Nathaniel Myers

Alice: Quinn Tucker

Greenpeace Canvasser: Sophia Catella

Zoey/Ensemble: Saylor Amos

Nora/Enemble: Casey Fosbenner

Ensemble: Alec Tran

Vision

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals influenced my teenage years greatly though its incredible blend of parody and genuine horror. In moments, Emma and Paul find their surroundings transformed from a peaceful statis quo to the ultimate threat, only for it to happen again, and again, and again. In this show, there is no catharsis nor respite, not for its character, and certainly not for its audience.

The major directorial challenge productions of The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals comes from its availability; the original production is completely free on Youtube, which creates an environment in which any other production must bring something radically new to the show in order to convince people to attend it live, rather than watching it online.

We solved this problem through setting the show in an arena style, forcing every single moment to be constructed completely differently from the original. This allowed for greater dynamism in composition and effect of major group scenes and songs, such as in “Join Us and Die,” where actors were allowed natural movement as they chased/were chased across the stage, and during the final number, “Inevitable,” in conjunction with bows, in which Emma, played by Brooke Cousins, had four exits and four sides of the audience to play to at any given time, as well as giving the rest of the company more opportunities to swoop in and block her exit.

This production also focused heavily on tonal differences between acts one and two, in which lighting, special effects makeup, choreography, and prop construction were each used to transform the lighthearted experience of act one into that of life-and-death horror. For example, prop weapons in act one were played for laughs, namely a small, pink water pistol for Sam the cop, while Hidgens’s gun played the opposite end of the spectrum, rivaling Hidgens himself, played by Nathaniel Myers, in size. Act two instead used a true prop firearm and prop rifles.