By Chad Feehan / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A murder mystery and a high school outsider, but also zombies and anthropomorphic horses.
This wild assortment of themes is just a portion of what you’ll find in Husky Follies, the latest theatrical revue from students at Mount Pearl Senior High and the creative minds at Best Kind Productions.
The double-feature will feature two brand new, short format musicals.
Giddy Up, Jingle Horse takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth where humans have been replaced by highly evolved horses as the dominant species. In it, an ad agency – ran by horses – wants to hire artificial intelligence to create ads for them. Also, there’s a murder.
Theatre arts teacher Timothy Matheson left much to the imagination when describing the zany sounding musical, but he assures it is a comedy despite the murder and high-concept questions surrounding the implementation of artificial intelligence.
“Do we know how to control AI? What can AI do for us? Do robots take over even after horses have taken over the world?” muses Matheson.
Zombie Shed Party tells the story of a high school girl who doesn’t get invited to the Halloween shed party that seemingly everyone else has been invited to. She creates a concoction to make her more popular, but that’s where the real trouble starts.
“It’s also just a fun little high school moment with up tempo songs and all the tropes we love from high school movies and musicals,” said Matheson.
In addition to the play, there will be a student-created short film and potentially some other performances to round out the night.
For those familiar with the work of Best Kind Productions, Matheson likens Zombie Shed Party to Be More Chill, a Broadway musical the group put off in 2019. Giddy Up, Jingle Horse has a similar feel to Urinetown another play the group performed about 10 years ago.
“Certainly all that influence is there when we’re creating new work, even if we don’t do it consciously,” Matheson said.
Before the writing process was even looked at, Matheson and his crew met with the kids at Mount Pearl Senior High for a series of brainstorming sessions. AI, shed parties, and murder mysteries were among the most popular themes.
“Getting inspiration from the kids was a lot of fun because we really went in with a completely clean slate… These are certainly not pieces we would have written without the inspiration from the students,” he said. “We tried to use as many of their ideas as we could.”
Musically, the two shows are very different. Zombie Shed Party has dominant pop sensibilities, while Giddy Up, Jingle Horse is inspired by the golden age of traditional musical theatre.
Composer Kiersten Noel wrote all of the music exclusively for piano, which will highlight the vocal talents of the students in its simplicity.
“The whole inspiration behind this was to showcase the kids as much as possible and I think that will hopefully let us do that even more,” he said.
Like any artistic endeavor, the pandemic was a difficult time for Mount Pearl Senior High’s theatre arts program, and Matheson is overjoyed to get back in the swing of showcasing students as performers, writers, and filmmakers.
“This is all a part of a contingent to build and expand the fine arts program and MPSH… It’s been a long journey back to this,” he said. “We see an incredible and unending value in these projects and this kind of work.”
Husky Follies runs from February 8th to the 9th at the LPSU Hall.
