THE GEEK Shall Inherit KAT: I wrote the score For this video game. It’s a game that hurtles geeky boys through space, Pasty and pimply and hunched-over teenagers Paying my rent and my huge student loans ‘Cause that’s what a Master’s in music will get you A backbreaking bloodsucking black hole of debt And you try and you try not to be just a sellout You try and you try to be true to your art And instead I accompany blow-ups and bleeps And the blast of an alien jet Reality sucks. It sucks. SO LAMENTS COMPOSER KAT, THE PROTAGONIST OF THE NEW MUSICAL Ernest Shackleton Loves Me by Joe DiPietro, Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda, premiering in April under the auspices of Seattle’s Balagan Theatre. This lyric, from the show’s opening number, evinces a familiar cultural stereotype of the geeky teenage gamer—someone who is divorced from the real world and submerged in the virtual cyberscape of high- tech media. Kat eventually learns to embrace the “300 beta-test boys” who vote her music their favorite component of the game “Star Blazers,” ironically unaware that in her current state of existence—vlogging from her freezing apartment that “reality sucks” while hunched over a Frankenstein-like makeshift music studio cobbled together from the corpses of keyboards, reel-to-reel players and electronic samplers—she is just as isolated as her nerdy fans. Ernest Shackleton’s theatrical connection with geek culture does not end there. A trans-dimensional cyber-romance between Kat and the legendary Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton forms the foundation of the plot’s action and emotional journey, in a mix of science fiction and fantasy. But deep at the show’s heart are Kat’s desperate cries for a community that accepts her for who she is and celebrates her quirks and individuality. To fill this inner need, she even creates a virtual choir by infinitely sampling her voice on top of itself. Multiple layers of singing Kats reverberate through her apartment and the interstellar techno-void of “Star Blazers,” a metaphor of self-imposed emotional independence that’s been felt by many a lonely fanboy/girl or gamer over the years. Kat might be surprised to find that her beta-test boys are filling the stages and audiences of theatres across America, in a new trend casually called “geek theatre.” And in doing so, they are transforming popular opinion of what the geek label signifies. In 2013, a year of entertainment culture that has witnessed the 50th anniversary of “Doctor Who”; the release, and subsequent box-office domination, of the newest big-screen entries in theStar Trek, The Hobbit and various Marvel franchises; and the unavoidable draw of the television adaptations of fantasy novels (“Game of Thrones”) and comic books (“The Walking Dead,” “Arrow”), it is only fitting that American theatre is experiencing its own “Revenge of the Nerds.” the Stage By mining science fiction, superheroes and RPG fandoms, geek theatre puts the outsider front and center BY ROBERT L. NEBLETT Satomi Blair and the cast of She Kills Monsters, which premiered at the Flea Theater in New York City in 2011. JOAN MARCUS “ I’m seeing are theatre people exploding with joy when two of their beloved subcultures come together in a delicious mash- up.” —Melissa Hillman COURTESY OF MAGIC SMOKING MONKEY THEATRE ADAM WOLF Clockwise from top right: The One-Hour Star Wars Trilogy at Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre. Valerie Vigoda and Will Swenson in a 2013 workshop of Ernest Shackleton Loves Me in New York City. Jason Sharp, left, and Jayson Potter, get married with the Right Honorable Ruth Monster Ginsburg (operated by Rachel Jackson) officiating. IAN JOHNSTON Astro Boy and the God of Comics. Of Dice and Men. She Kills Monsters. Company March 6–30. Australian playwright Keith Gow, whose Two Point Oh! A Klingon Christmas Carol. MacHomer. A Very Potter “Doctor Who”–themed play Who Are You Supposed to Be? was a hit at Musical. Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play. The Intergalactic Nemesis. the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, states, “The nerds of ’80s films This is just a small sampling of the plays dotting the marquees of have disappeared because those nerds turned into Bill Gates and Steve stages throughout the nation, each one representing a different aspect Jobs—and Joss Whedon.” of geek culture, from RPGs (role-playing games), to science fiction, What were once terms of contempt or ridicule have been to Japanese manga/anime, to comic book superheroes—a selection reclaimed as self-referential monikers of empowerment, although of categories that barely scratches the surface of the wide diversity of heated debates do continually rage about the vital distinctions between the geek community. the terms “geek” and “nerd.” Playwright Lloyd Suh agrees with Gow. Even the recently shuttered Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on “So many people who identified themselves using those markers are Broadway (soon to reappear in Las Vegas) denotes the power of this now running the cultural conversation, or at least have become major niche market to attract a young demographic to the performing arts contributors to it,” explains Suh. scene. No longer do the 1980s stereotypes of Steve Urkel or Anthony THIS ROUTINE MAINSTREAMING OF GEEK CULTURE Michael Hall’s character from Sixteen Candles (credited by John can be fraught with pitfalls for the unwise theatre producer who Hughes only as “The Geek”) dominate the cultural consciousness as attempts to manipulate its audience base for the sake of pursuing a the sole representatives of what playwright Cameron McNary terms profit or an untapped demographic. Qui Nguyen, co-artistic director “geek minstrelsy.” McNary’s Dungeons & Dragons–themed play of New York City’s Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company, arguably Of Dice and Men will be playing at Chicago’s Otherworld Theatre the best-known geek theatre company in America, contends, “Geeks 28 AMERICANTHEATRE FEBRUARY14 Alton Alburo and Sasha Diamond in The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go! at Children’s Theatre Company, in a co-production with Ma-Yi Theatre Company, playing this month. DAN NORMAN are savvy, smart and very selective when it comes to where they spend together in a delicious mash-up.” She then clarifies. “But, yes, we do their dime. Just because there’s a cape onstage doesn’t mean it will see some gamers. When we did Of Dice and Men, the staff of a local suddenly unleash the geeksters upon your theatre.” game store came en masse one night because we did a flyer drop there.” Nguyen’s plays, such as She Kills Monsters and Alice in Slasherland, The joy she references is often regarded as a defining element routinely sell out to a young, hip crowd that eludes the marketing of geekdom, as attested by Simon Pegg, British actor and nerd icon, departments of most traditional performing arts organizations. She Kills in an interview on BBC Radio’s “Front Row”: “It means you’re into Monsters, which has been produced across the country, is a touching your stuff. You’re proud of what you love…. Wear a cape in the street drama in which a woman enters the unfamiliar realm of the online and not be worried what people say. It’s just about being enthusiastic RPG Dungeons & Dragons after her younger sister’s untimely death. and out about it…. It’s a liberation.” She takes up the dead girl’s unfinished quest as a last-ditch effort to achieve some kind of posthumous family connection. IN 2011, WHEN JULIE TAYMOR INFAMOUSLY LEFT THE “Our mission wasn’t just making geek theatre, it was about mak- creative team of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, her exit became the ing quality theatrical shows that created superheroes for people who subject of rampant speculation about the production’s weaknesses and don’t often get to see themselves drawn that way,” Nguyen says. “We potential future. Tellingly, the first dramaturgical excision to accom- also became the first, and currently only, theatre organization that’s pany Taymor’s departure was the critically derided “Geek Chorus” of ever been sponsored by New York Comic Con—or any con for that comic-book aficionados. Their function was to alter Spidey’s classic matter—because we took our theatre craft as seriously as we took comic book origin story to include elements of Greek mythology. our geekdom.” Scotto Moore, a playwright whose alien-infected works are Melissa Hillman, artistic director of the Bay Area’s Impact Theatre, regularly produced at Seattle’s Annex Theatre, says that Taymor’s also wears her geekiness like a badge of honor. On any given day, one flaw was she saw the story from an outsider’s perspective. “Look at the may find Hillman blogging about colorblind casting and then “squee- difference between Peter Jackson’s absolute love and respect for J.R.R. ing” excitedly on Facebook about a Chewbacca hoodie. She and her Tolkien, which led to these magnificent movies about Middle-earth, husband are proud members of the 501st Legion, a worldwide Star versus the arrogance of Julie Taymor trying to tackle a portrayal of Wars–themed cosplay (meaning: dressing up, and sometimes acting Spider-Man with zero understanding of the character’s impact on pop like, fictional characters) and charity organization. culture—and zero interest in finding out.” Impact’s programming has welcomed a geek aesthetic for years, Taymor’s exit from Spider-Man made room for the entrance of proudly producing works by McNary and Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, and playwright Aguirre-Sacasa to restructure the musical’s book (along with Hillman shares Nguyen’s perspective.