New Nerdy Musical BOOM, HEADSHOT! A GREEK TRAGEDY is Coming to Hollywood Fringe in June
This musical is tragic and bonkers-uniting everyone through heart-breaking and flesh-eating obstacles as the rules of the game slowly erode.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz May. 08, 2023
Boom, Headshot! A Geek Tragedy will have its world premiere on June 10th at Hollywood Fringe 2023, with book and lyrics by Scout Storey and original music by Nick Morgan. Direction by Jared Pixler and Music Direction by Dan Scoville. Running for five performances only through June 24th. Tickets go on sale May 1st!
In MB Stage Productions' most recent musical, a guild of close-knit, basement-dwelling MMORPG players takes on the apocalypse from the ephemeral safety of their avatars in Boom, Headshot! A Geek Tragedy-a rockin' ode to gaming, online friendships, and acceptance told through song and 8-bit Nintendo-rock ... all with a side of pizza puffs.
"The Elphinstones" are about to embark on the most severe challenge of their gaming careers and personal lives in a 72-hour gaming competition that will test their Compatibility, Power, and Courage: Mark, the team's Headshooter and a recently transitioned young man, is beset with a quest for acceptance; Stan, GuildMaster, proves his might while wishing his life looked more like a video game; Clarisse, the Fighter, is finding her true self while kicking some serious a**; and Gladys, the Healer, is just trying to make everyone happy. Enter Henry, Mark's Marine big brother whose very presence throws Mark and Stan into a heteronormative spiral, despite Henry's best efforts to connect with his younger brother.
This gaming-meets-musical theater extravaganza is tragic and bonkers-uniting everyone through heart-breaking and flesh-eating obstacles as the rules of the game slowly erode.
Performance Details:
Boom, Headshot! A Geek Tragedy
Book and lyrics by Scout Storey
Music by Nick Morgan
Directed by Jared Tyrel Pixler
LOCATION:
The Actors Company: Let Live Theater
916 N Formosa Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90046
DATES:
Preview: Sunday, June 4 2023, 12:30 PM
Saturday, June 10 2023, 8:30 PM
Saturday, June 17 2023, 1:30 PM
Thursday, June 22 2023, 7:30 PM
Saturday, June 24 2023, 10:30 PM
TICKETS:
Tickets for all shows go on sale May 1, 2023, @ 12:01 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
$15 - $35
Tickets available at https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/9721?tab=tickets
CAST:
Leilu P Wasielewski as Mark
Jonah Robinson as Henry (June 4, 17 & 24)
Jalen Moody as Henry (June 10 & 22)
Drew Timberlake Hill a Stan
Ana Luiza Bourroul as Gladys
Ari Kraiman as Clarisse (June 4 & 17)
Trinity Alyse Curtis as Clarisse (June 10, 22 & 24)
Leah Jarvik as Barbara (June 4, 10, 22 & 24)
Abigail Torrence as Swing / Barbara (June 17th)
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Director: Jared Tyrel Pixler
Creative Producer: Jared Tyrel Pixler
Co-Producer: Brooke Harbaugh
Stage Manager: Gina DeLuca
Assistant Director: Jesse Fiene
Musical Director: Dan Scoville
Costume Designer/Hair and Makeup: Katie Lynn Mapel and Makenna Rae Tynan
Lighting Designer: Lacey Shaw
Propmaster: Mel Glickman
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION:
This world premiere has been a long time coming, having started as Scout and Nick's thesis musical at NYU's Graduate Musical Theater Program back in 2011. They had a fairly complete first draft of the script by January 2012 and did a second reading in late-2013. The show has been on the back burner since then, so they're very excited to see it brought to life now!
The nascent idea was to adapt "War Of The Worlds" - not the H.G. Wells novel exactly but more the event of the Orson Welles radio drama where some people listening to it thought aliens were actually invading. Scout and Nick wanted to take that concept and inverse it, so instead of people listening to a fake disaster and thinking it's real, people would hear snippets of a real terror slowly encroaching on them but they'd be too caught up in their own drama to fully comprehend it until it came crashing through their door.
From there, they started thinking about the characters and relationships that they'd be interested in seeing tested by this kind of circumstance and came up with this World of Warcraft-esque guild (kinda playing with the idea of how do people with hero fantasies cope with real danger?). They imposed some artificial limitations, like keeping the cast size small and sticking to one location. This helped keep the show focused and has made it easier to produce.
A NOTE FROM WRITER SCOUT STOREY:
While the plot and characters codified quickly in my head, it was not until Nick shared music by Anamanaguchi, using 8-bit video game sounds to compose music, that I understood the sound he was going for... and truly heard this story as a musical. For this specific reason, the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program allowed a sound designer to be brought in for a thesis presentation for the first time in the program's history, agreeing that this show could not be truly heard with only a piano accompaniment. I wanted to represent the experiences of a tightly knit friend group of geeks, both the joys and the negatives. The entire script came together almost too easily, as if already formed.
At the time, I was not yet out as trans, so the rewriting of the lead character Mark to represent a transmasculine experience happened years later. Again, like the original draft, this rewrite practically wrote itself, falling into place as if always meant to be. A script I already considered exemplary of the kind of writing I wanted to produce took further steps toward this aspiration, integrating my growing understanding of what I want to see happening in theatre. While no work of media can ever be perfect in its representation, this musical continues to be a work that reaches for the spark I felt sitting in a small theatre, seeing a queer geek play for the first time, and knowing that-whatever monsters may lurk-I was not alone.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Scout Storey (Book/Lyrics; he/him) is a lifelong nerd and playwright with an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in Theatre and Performance Studies with a specialization in Geek Theatre (genre plays and fandom performance). In New York, he discovered his greatest theatrical passion through Qui Nguyen's queer play She Kills Monsters. Geek Theatre would inform his MFA thesis musical Headshot! A Geek Tragedy later became his area of specialization during his doctoral research. Interests include books, theatre, travel, science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, pirates, dogs, math, and correcting people's commas.
Nick Morgan (Composer; he/him) is a native New Yorker who got his start writing and performing music by playing in a slew of punk, ska, hardcore, and emo bands. He formalized his music knowledge with a B.A. in music composition from Haverford College and an M.F.A. in musical theater writing from New York University. It was at NYU that Nick met his collaborator, Scout Storey, and they put their quirky sensibilities together to write "Headshot: A Geek Tragedy". Most recently, Nick relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and 3 (soon-to-be 4) children. Previous composer credits include "The Surrender Tree" at the Yale Cabaret, "The Drunken Boat" at The Duplex in NYC, and "Strange Love In Outer Space" at the New York International Fringe Festival. Nick is thrilled to be working with MB Stage Productions to bring "Headshot" to life!
Jared Tyrel Pixler (Director, Creative Producer; he/him) has directed and produced several award-winning productions across Southern California and in New York, Off-Broadway. Jared is a graduate of The California Institute for the Arts (CalArts), earning an MFA in Theater/Creative Producing, and holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from AMDA.
He is a passionate theater arts educator and has spent the last seven years working with the Torrance YMCA to build an arts-centric summer camp program. His graduate thesis Finding Value in the Arts guides him to focus on arts education, outreach, and accessibility. His chief interest is and will always be Nerdy Theatre and choice-driven narrative storytelling. In his spare time, he plays video games, enjoys frequent trips to Disneyland, travels, and visits his family.
Producing credits: Nightwalk at the Chinese Garden (CalArts, CNP), The George Project (CalArts, CNP), To Remember a Friend (Video Game, CalArts), THE VIDEO GAMES, Winter is Coming: A Musical Parody, THE STUDY, Tabletop: The Musical, etc.
Directing credits: Tabletop: The Musical, THE VIDEO GAMES, THE STUDY, Winter is Coming: A Musical Parody, Just One Moment, Revenge Song (Geffen Theatre, Assistant Director), Boom, Headshot! A Geek Tragedy, etc.
Brooke Harbaugh (Co-Producer; she/her) is a creative producer, project manager, and writer based in Los Angeles. Her original work has been presented at Automata in Los Angeles, San Diego Underground Film Festival, and the California Institute of the Arts. Theater-producing credits include How Light Enters My Home, Two Trains Running, and The Mountaintop. Film-producing credits include One Beer (release date TBD), Pareidolia in B Minor (in pre-production), and Indah (in pre-production). Brooke has an MFA in Creative Producing from the California Institute of the Arts and a B.A. in English from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. She is an alumna of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program. Learn more at www.brookeharbaugh.com.
ABOUT MB STAGE PRODUCTIONS:
MB Stage Productions, LLC specializes in nerdy, experimental theatre. With a foundation in interactivity and nerd aesthetics, MB Stage Productions strives to be on the leading edge of theatre. MB Stage achieved success with their 2015 Hollywood Fringe production of THE VIDEO GAMES, an audience-interactive parody of the Hunger Games book series and the Super Smash Bros game franchise. The production company has participated in the Hollywood Fringe Festival every year since 2014 with a focus on workshopping nerdy and queer productions ranging from TTRPG musicals to coming-of-age autofictions. This year, MB Stage will be workshopping two productions with trans-centric stories and a sapphic supernatural one-act. In addition, MB Stage Productions will enter its eighth year of running a performing arts and youth summer camp in conjunction with Edutainment Arts and the Torrance YMCA. MB Stage has two theatre divisions: Nerdy Theatre, a division for all things interactive, immersive, and experimental, and Nerds Gone Deep Theatre, a nerdy take on serious, hard-hitting issues and themes.
CONNECT WITH MB STAGE PRODUCTIONS:
MB Stage Productions (@MBStage) / Twitter
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MB Stage Productions, LLC | LinkedIn
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