This Friday, I’ll be holding Listening Party #4, which will focus on the musical Bat Boy The Musical by Laurence O’Keefe. You may know Laurence O’Keefe from Legally Blonde The Musical and Heathers The Musical. The latter two of which are based on movies of the same name, and, consequently, are pretty commercial.
(What is up with shows post-1995 having “The Musical” after them? Would we not know they’re musicals as soon as people start singing? And yes, I’m watching the Jerry Seinfeld special on Netflix while I write this.)
Bat Boy, on the other hand, is a 2001 off-Broadway rock musical based on the now-defunct tabloid Weekly World News 1992 cover story about a fictional creature found in a cave who is half-bat, half-boy.
Yep. It’s a musical about a mutant. I don’t know Heathers (yet). From what I’ve heard of it, I think Bat Boy is more like it than Legally Blonde.
I’ve only seen one production of Bat Boy, as part of the 2005 summer theater program at Divine Savior Holy Angels HS in Milwaukee.
DSHA was a curious choice for a show like this. It’s an all-girls, relatively-conservative Catholic school. But they did a pretty good job with it. I enjoyed it immensely (in part because I had two students in the leads). And I love the cast recording
What does it say about me that I like musicals like this? Let’s look at our listening parties so far.
- Sweeney – barber kills people, landlady makes them into pies
- Ragtime – well, that’s relatively traditional, but still pretty intense
- Assassins – presidential assassins
- Bat Boy – see above.
This will be at 5pm instead of 3pm. I’m using the same PMI as for my lessons. If you don’t know what that is, message me.
As always, admission is free but donations will be accepted for the American Visionary Arts Museum (my favorite place in Baltimore).
I’m excited to introduce this show to people. It’s really weird. The music and lyrics are just terrific. But you might feel the need to take a shower afterwards.